Elena continues to surprise us with her excellent Filipino cooking. I was having friends over for Sunday lunch but nursing a stuffy head cold and and coping with all sorts of little crisis at work had left me too tired to bother about cooking, so I asked her for help.
She wrote up a shopping list of ingredients- one of the items was liver paste, the other was hot dogs. I am not a big fan of those bottled liver paste spreads that she wanted, but fresh liver would make a good substitute she said. Hmm, was bursting with curiosity to see what she would make that includes hot dogs and liver....
The dish is called Pork Menudo. A hefty chunk of pork shoulder was cut up into fat thumb size pieces. Ten minutes before cooking Elena squeezed fresh lime juice all over the meat and massaged the whole thing well. After adding a few drops of fish sauce to the meat, she then told me to "look away now". Because she was going to check the seasoning with her fingers and knew I was going to be disgusted. Hmm, she was right, though of course she has been doing it like this all her life.....
Into the wok went some chopped garlic and shallots. Then the pork gets stirred about. Halfway through she made space for carrots, then potatoes. When the potatoes are tender, green peas went in. I was put to work squeezing ketchup from a bottle. Curiouser and curiouser. The ketchup turned the pork pink.
Then the liver went in. Half was cut into bite sized chunks, the other half I had whizzed in the blender to simulate the liver paste she wanted. The hot dogs were added in last and the heat turned off so the liver would not overcook.
Everyone liked this Pork Menudo, and I quite forgot to take a picture until we had finished most of it. The flavours were multi-layered and robust with plenty of textural contrasts in the pork slices, hot dog, liver and vegetables. The pork was not sour as I expected; the lime might have been used to counteract any possible 'porkiness' but it also brought out the natural sweetness of the meat. The minced liver added characteristic depth and earthiness, this is a rich celebratory dish best enjoyed with friends and a few glasses of red wine.
