pork pata nilaga

i've been craving for pork pata during this times. i even asked kim to buy pata because i wanted to try making pata tim but he said the pata available in the store was all skin and bones and less meat. so, we waited for a few weeks but i still crave for it. during this time, even with less meat, i bought pata. i decided not to do the pata tim though because there's less meat in the pata; instead i prepared pork pata stew or shall we call it nilagang pork pata. i asked kim to buy corn for a sweet and tastier soup.

i even put a lot of vegetables like potato, baguio beans and cabbage. you can even add gabi instead of the potato; string beans instead of baguio beans; and you can add siling haba for a kick. slow-cooked the pata for almost 2 hours... so it's falling from the bones and soft already with soup that's msg free and even tastier.

ingredients:
1/2 kl. pork pata
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 thumb-size ginger, sliced
1 medium onion, sliced
1 tomato, seeded and sliced
water
2 sweet corn, cut in half
2 potato, peeled and divided into 4
1 cup baguio beans, sliced into 1" long
4 cabbage leaves, cut into 4
1 spring onion, separate white from green
salt
pepper
1 tbsp. cooking oil

procedure:
over high heat, put oil in a casserole and saute onion, white part of the spring onion, garlic and ginger until fragrant. add tomato and saute for another minute.

add the pork pata and saute/fry until it renders its own oil. then add water enough to cover the pork pata. cover, let boil and then lower heat and allow to simmer. slow-cook for 1-2 hours or until pork pata are cooked and very tender. check every now and then and you can add water if necessary.

when the pork pata are cooked and very tender, add the corn and potato and continue simmering until the corn and potato are cooked. season with salt and pepper.

when the corn and potato are cooked, add the baguio beans and simmer for another minute.

turn off the heat and add the cabbage and the green part of the spring onion. cover the casserole. this will make the cabbage still crispy to the bite.

serve hot.