Cook’s notes
Wake up! Wake up! is what gising-gising translates to. With the addition of chilies in this variant of guinataan (the catch-all term for Filipino dishes cooked with coconut milk or cream), gising-gising has enough heat to really wake you up.
I searched the web for a more definitive version of gising-gising and found none. The main vegetable ingredient may be sigarilyas (winged beans), yard-long beans or just green beans. What other vegetables you may add to the beans is up to you.
In this updated gising-gising recipe, we used winged beans, okra and squash. And, instead of the usual bird’s eye chilies, we used finger chilies. The okra and chilies we harvested from our garden, so I figured it was a good time to post a better gising-gising recipe.
Because there are multiple vegetables in the dish, and each requires a different cooking time, it is not wise to dump all the vegetables into the pan at the same time. If one (or more) of the vegetables you’re using is more mature than the others and requires a longer cooking time, you’ll have to throw that one into the pan first.
Note that in the ingredients list, you will find coconut milk AND coconut cream. We use both to cook gising-gising. The solid ingredients cook in the coconut milk until most of the liquid has been absorbed. This ensures that the vegetables soak up the creaminess and acquire the flavor of the coconut milk. Coconut cream is added toward the end of cooking to give the dish a lovely creamy sauce.
In this updated gising-gising recipe, we used winged beans, okra and squash. And, instead of the usual bird’s eye chilies, we used finger chilies. The okra and chilies we harvested from our garden, so I figured it was a good time to post a better gising-gising recipe.
Because there are multiple vegetables in the dish, and each requires a different cooking time, it is not wise to dump all the vegetables into the pan at the same time. If one (or more) of the vegetables you’re using is more mature than the others and requires a longer cooking time, you’ll have to throw that one into the pan first.
Note that in the ingredients list, you will find coconut milk AND coconut cream. We use both to cook gising-gising. The solid ingredients cook in the coconut milk until most of the liquid has been absorbed. This ensures that the vegetables soak up the creaminess and acquire the flavor of the coconut milk. Coconut cream is added toward the end of cooking to give the dish a lovely creamy sauce.
Gising-gising with crispy pork belly
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons cooking oil
- 1 red onion peeled and diced
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- 1 tablespoon minced ginger
- ½ cup diced tomatoes
- 2 finger chilies thinly sliced
- fish sauce
- 1 teaspoon shrimp paste
- 2 cups thinly sliced winged beans
- 1 cup sliced okra
- 2 cups cubed squash
- 1 ½ cups coconut milk
- ¼ cup coconut cream
- crispy pork belly (as much or as little as you like) cut into bite-sized pieces
Instructions
- Set the stove to medium and heat the cooking oil in a pan.
- Saute the onion, garlic, ginger, tomato and chilies for a minute.
- Pour in about a tablespoon of fish sauce, stir in the shrimp paste, cover and cook until softened, about three minutes.
- Add the winged beans, okra and squash.
- Pour in the coconut milk.
- Cover the pan and simmer until all the vegetables are done.
- Pour in the thick coconut milk, stir and bring to a simmer.
- Taste and add more fish sauce, if needed.
- Toss in the crispy pork belly.
- Serve your gising-gising with crispy pork belly with newly-cooked rice.
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