Pork Afritada

This dish is a staple dish during birthday and Christmas celebrations here in the Philippines. For my son, you could not go wrong with this placed on top of plain rice. Although this dish have somewhat similarities with mechado, caldereta or menudo. But if you are a Filipino, you could practical state the difference of the four.


Ingredients:

• 1 kilo pork, cut into cubes
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3-4 gloves garlic, minced
• 2 medium size potato, cubed
• 1 big carrot, cubed
• 4-6 pieces regular hotdog, sliced slant
• 1 pack tomato sauce (200 g)
• 1 medium sized red bell pepper, cubed
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 1 tsp fish sauce
• 2 cups water
• salt and pepper

Cooking Procedure:

1. Heat oil in a cooking pot over medium heat. Saute onion and garlic until translucent and aromatic.
2. Add pork and saute until pork is browned. Add fish sauce. Stir and cover for 5 minutes.
3. Add water and tomato sauce, stir well to combine. Simmer until tender. 
4. Add potato, carrots and hotdog. Stir to mix well.
5. Add bell pepper. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Tips:

• You may use chicken meat or goat meat as an alternative to pork for this dish.

Watch video here:

Just so you know:

Generally, Afritada is a chicken stew in tomato sauce with potatoes, carrots and bell pepper. This is the basic of all the Filipino tomato-based stews. It is the gateway to learning. Once you learn how to cook Afritada, you are in for Mechado, Menudo and Kaldereta. What makes this recipe so good is that it is so easy to make and the more you let that chicken simmer in your stew base, the more flavors it will give you back.