I had my childhood in Batangas. One thing I missed about our province is our Batangas menudo. Batangas menudo is a special dish in our town. We usually served it during birthdays, town fiesta or very special occasions. What set Batangas menudo apart from the regular menudo is its dry texture and very flavorful taste. Yes! You read it right.
So What is Batangas Menudo?
Batangas Menudo does not have that soupy tomato sauce you usually find in Manila’s version of menudo, which I really don’t like. I don’t like the tomato sauce mingling with my rice. Seems like, this version of menudo is prominent in the southern part of Luzon as my officemate cooked similar version of menudo, and she is from Cavite.
Batangas menudo is usually made of pork meat and fat, carrots, potatoes, bell peppers, hotdogs or canned sausage, raisins and canned green peas. From what I observed, we seldom use fresh green peas as canned green peas is much easier to find. You can use lean meat and that is good for your health but adding some pork fat will make this dish more flavorful. Pork fat means flavor, right?
The best person who make Batangas menudo in our family is my cousin. If he’s the one who cooked it, I’m sure my palate is in good hands. My cousin simply put everything in a big wok. Bring it to a boil and simmer for several hours and simmer until fork tender.
He puts lots of soy sauce and oyster sauce, and a little bit of tomato sauce. Also, he does not add water into the dish. He lets the water content of the pork meat to juiced out and this will be enough to make the pork meat tender.When everything is done, the menudo is dry with some oil oozed out from the pork fat.
In my version, I intentionally omitted some of the ingredients. As an example, I find the hotdogs or canned sausages interfering with the whole flavor of this dish. Also, I did not add raisins because I really don’t like raisins in a savory dish. I don’t know why most of the people love adding raisins in their savory dish. Yeah, embutido, I’m talking about you!
Ingredients
| 1kg | Pork Kasim, diced |
| 250 grams | Pork Liver, sliced |
| 8 cloves | Garlic, chopped |
| 1 bulb | Onion, chopped |
| 6 Tablespoons | Soy Sauce |
| 4 Tablespoons | Oyster Sauce |
| 4 Tablespoons | Tomato Sauce |
| 150 grams | Cheese, grated |
| 1 teaspoon | Maggi Magic Sarap |
| 1 piece | Bell Pepper, sliced |
| Salt | |
| Pepper | |
| 1 piece | Carrots, diced |
| 1 piece | Potato, diced |
| 1 cup | Canned Green Peas |
Procedure
Thoroughly clean the pork meat and liver. Separate the pork meat from the pork liver.
In a separate bowl, combine garlic, onion, soy sauce, oyster sauce, tomato sauce, grated cheese, Maggi Magic Sarap, bell pepper and season with salt and pepper. Next, add 1 tablespoon of the sauce into the liver and let it marinate until ready. Pour the remaining sauce into the pork meat and let it marinate for an hour.
Boil the pork meat and simmer until tender. Add diced carrot and potato and let it simmer to reduce the sauce. When the sauce is almost dried out, add the pork liver and simmer to further reduce the sauce.
Add canned green peas and simmer for another 3 minutes.
Season with salt and pepper if needed.
