Special Pork Stew with Banana and Taro: A Hearty Dish for Lunch!

Good food can give anyone great satisfaction that might push someone to, you know, work diligently. It's like fuel too, it can light up the huge desire in you to do great things today. Haiyahhhh ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ. It's also a great way to start the day by satiating our cravings and spoiling our tummy and mouth like crazy ⟵(๑¯◡¯๑).

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Now, watch as I unleashed my cooking power while opening the book of recipes that my mommy D handed to me, it was recorded thoroughly and carefully using my eyes, and now I am also using it for my own benefit!

I'm really not sure if there's a dish like this on the other part of the word, because seriously, this dish exists when Mommy D has to prepare lunch and we have pork in the fridge. Then we also have some taro left, which was bought as a snack. As for the banana plantain, Mommy D's sister often brought a banana into our home, especially during their harvesting time.

And she always brings a lot when it happens, and because of that, if mommy D can't think of anything to mix in one of her dishes, then she will just use this banana, and I thought it was really weird because, duh, a banana is a fruit, right? How will it taste if you put it in a dish? But then it's possible, and I really love it. Since then, when there's a chance, we use bananas from time to time to mix in with one of the dishes, same with Taro.

It tastes so good that I will never get tired of it. And, having a banana or taro on a dish, we can just eat that and avoid rice in the process because, just with those things, it can already be fulfilling. It's a good replacement for rice, and it is also much healthier. I am really thankful that Mommy D is always experimenting when it comes to food. Luckily, the result was always so good.

Now let's start cooking !

So here are our main ingredients for today's recipe. I bought the pork and banana in the market, and those taro were just leftovers from last week, that is also the reason why they look so old now, lol. All of them are fresh except for that one, lol. But even if it's like that, we still get good flesh out of it. I'll show it to you later.

I just cut the pork to this size and whatever shape I want. You can cut yours into cubes, stars, circles, or whatever you desire. I didn't cut it smaller, though, because once it was cooked, this would sink in size too, so I cut it a little bigger, just like that size on my palm. And I also cut the onion and garlic like this, just the normal size.

Before I start, I put the salt and pepper first on the meat and massage it using my hand for it to be evenly coated with salt and pepper. I also want to put the banana ketchup in, but then I thought, I'll just mix it after sautéing it a little. I just learned about this from Mommy D, so I just copied it. Whatever I'm doing right now is what I have witnessed her cooking before, hehe.

We will now start cooking it. Heat the pan, add one tablespoon of oil, and sauté your onion and garlic. Stir it for it to cook beautifully. And once the color turns golden brown, get the meat we marinated for 5 minutes and mix it. Stir it continuously with medium heat.

I just continuously stirred it until the onion and garlic were well coated with the meat. After one minute, I put the banana ketchup in and mixed it well, just until the whole meat was coated in red. At this moment, the smell is really spreading in our house, and Mom even said how good it smells. Off course it will smell good, and that is also thanks to onion and garlic, those aromatic ingredients are really awesome!

After a few seconds, I finally put some water on it, just a cup. We'll just add more later. I planned to boil this meat for 30 minutes, but it took 40 minutes before the meat became tender. Anyway, I just let it boil for a few more minutes, and then I added this hard part of our pechay. I have to put it in if I want it to be soft like tofu, lol. Well, that's actually what Mommy D wants. So I just follow it.

While waiting for the meat to get tender, I started peeling the banana and the taro. I also cut them into this size, just a little bigger than the meat. I like this size, so I go with it. And by the way, as you can see in the image above, the banana here is still green. That's what we really like to mix in this dish, just a little ripe, not overripe to the point that it will taste sour. We are really not fans of overripe bananas, uwu. As for the pechay, the only green veggie I plan to mix here, just like usual, I soak it in water with a pinch of salt to remove whatever creature is living in there. After soaking it for 5 minutes, that's when I started cleaning it thoroughly, just to make sure that it was clean to the core.

Forty minutes later, the meat started to become tender, and because cooking taro and banana will also take time, I added them now. But before that, I added more water to it. I also changed the cooking pan that I am using here from a wok pan to a big casserole. We have so many ingredients that it won't fit into the wok pan, lol.

Ten minutes later, I finally added the pechay, which is the last to be put on this dish. Mommy D wants them thoroughly cooked because she's having a hard time chewing them if they are just half cooked. So I waited another minute before I turned off the gas.

And tadaaaaaan! Here's our special pork stew mix with lots of banana and taro and a little bit of pechay. It is special because it was cooked with love and care. I was thinking that my oldies would enjoy it while cooking it, so I really made it extra special.

It's ready to be served! And my oldies didn't let me down because they truly enjoyed it, and Mommy D even acknowledged that I'm getting better at my cooking. And when I heard that, my ears clap clap in happiness, lol. At least that's what she said, not the all-time favorite line of others: "Yum! You can now get married!" It's just another word for "it's yummy." Lol.