Pork and mung bean stew with coconut cream
Dried mung beans are inexpensive but highly nutritious. Parboil and puree to create a creamy base for the stew. Drizzle in coconut cream before serving to add a delighful sweetness to the dish.
Servings 6 people
Ingredients
- 150 grams dried mung beans (about 5 oz) green or yellow, your choice
- 3 tablespoons cooking oil
- 6 cloves garlic chopped
- 1 onion sliced
- 2 tomatoes diced
- 500 grams fatty pork (1.1 pounds) I recommend belly or shoulder, cut into small pieces
- 2 to 3 finger chilies
- fish sauce to taste
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 bunch green leafy vegetables spinach, kangkong (water / swamp spinach) or talbos ng kamote (sweet potato leaves)
- ¾ cup coconut cream
- cilantro to serve
- purple basil leaves to serve
Instructions
- Boil the mung beans in about two cups of water for 10 minutes. Pour the mung beans and water into a blender and process as finely or as coarsely as you like.
- Heat about three tablespoonfuls of cooking oil in a pan and sauté the garlic, onion and tomato, stirring often, until the vegetables start to soften.
- Add the pork to the pan and cook until no longer pink.
- Scrape the pureed mung beans off the blender and add to the pan. Pour in about six cups of water. Stir well.
- Add the chilies.
- Season with fish sauce and with freshly ground black pepper.
- Bring to the boil and simmer, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan every ten to 15 minutes, for about an hour or until the pork is tender.
- When the pork is done, add the leafy vegetables. Simmer for another five minutes.
- Ladle the stew into bowls. Drizzle with coconut cream. Top with snipped purple basil and cilantro. Serve hot.