Stir-Fry Vegetable
A simple stir-fry vegetable recipe is an excellent way to add color and texture to your meals. Here are some tips and tricks to make the best stir-fry vegetable recipe. If you have never cooked vegetables before, this is the perfect time to start! Here are some tips and tricks to cook vegetables in a stir-fry: Keep your ingredients simple. Cut your vegetables into small pieces and avoid overcooking them.
Ingredients
- Garlic crushed and chopped
- Onions cut
- Tomatoes cut
- Okra ladyfingers, cut in 2
- Eggplant cut and soaked in water
- Bitter gourd or bitter melon ampalaya, cut
If you're not such a fan of the bitter gourd's bitterness, just use a little; or you can skip it altogether. Yardlong beans would make a good alternative to this vegetable.
- Fish paste
- Fish sauce
- Ground pepper
- Water
- Cooking oil
- Sugar
Instructions
- Heat the oil in the pan.
- Saute' the garlic when the oil is ready.
- Add the tomatoes. Stir well.
- Season the dish with fish sauce.
- Cover the pan to soften the tomatoes.
- Crush the tomatoes so that it releases more juice.
- Add the bitter gourd. Stir well.
- Add the remaining vegetables - eggplants, okra; as well as the onions.
- Add water to cook the vegetables entirely.
- Season the dish with fish paste, fish sauce and pepper.
- Allow the dish to simmer under low to medium heat.
- Taste the sauce of the dish. Add sugar to counter the taste of the bitter gourd.
- Let it simmer for at least 5 minutes more.
- Adjust the taste with fish sauce and pepper for the last time.
- Turn the heat off.
- Let it cool without cover until it's serving time.
Video
Notes
The secret (well, not anymore!) in making pinakbet a bit saucy and tasty is by juicing up the tomatoes while they cook. Also, seasoning the dish with fish sauce early on accentuates their flavors. Don't put too much water as it may dissolve your flavors. Just put enough to have a slightly gooey consistency (gooey-ness courtesy of the ladyfingers, of course). Hmm, lastly... if you want to retain some of the crunchiness of the onions, add them in the later phase of your cooking. I promise you, it tastes so much better!