Giniling

Today, I cooked giniling. My dilemma today is whether to cook it in the Tagalog style with atsuete, but I changed my mind and chose to cook it the way I like it with just soy sauce since I'll be the one eating it.

There was a can of gisantes (green peas) and a bag of raisins (I believe this is my niece's) so I could use those to make the Tagalog version.  But since I'm doing it with just soy sauce, I thought of going fancy and add sauteed Baguio beans "on the side" since there are some in the ref, but I decided against all these since I have to cook what I want to eat and doing it fancy will just add extra work.

So giniling to the non-informed is Filipino for ground meat, in this case pork.

My ingredients are: ground pork (I believe there was a quarter of a kilo in the freezer, I used it all).  There were two mildly medium-sized potatoes, used them both.  There were two carrots in the ref, I just used one.  I plan to use the other carrot in some other recipe in the future.

I placed the semi-thawed ground pork in the pan, using the oil I used to fry eggs for breakfast.  Waste not, I say. He he.  And oh yeah, there was already a few cloves of garlic dancing about in the frying pan before I placed the meat.  I added ground pepper and dried bay laurel leaves and chopped medium-sized shallot (there are bushels at home, since after all we are Ilocanos).  I keep on saying shallot.  It's the red small onion (pulang sibuyas), and according to Google, I'm not wrong in calling them that.  I like calling them shallots.  Shallots.  Shallots.  I recently learned this word, thanks to watching Junior Master Chef Australia.  I love having cooking reality shows on the TV while multitasking.  I don't know why.

So where were we?  So I cooked the meat and seasonings with soy sauce and added some more cooking oil, stirring now and then.  The smell of laurel leaves filled the kitchen.  I was told that great chefs don't taste what they prepare but instead get their clues if what they've done is good from the smell and color.  I then added the carrots and potatoes cut in small cubes, and stirred some more.  At this point, it smelled like it needed some salt.  I added a pinch.  Added more soy sauce to color. After a while, I added some garlic powder thinking it needed it... and here I believe I made a mistake.  I couldn't smell the laurel leaves anymore.  Uh-oh.

I just kept on stirring until the carrots and potatoes are about 70% done.  Since my sister comes home usually two hours after I'm done cooking, I've come to not cook vegetables all the way and let the residual heat cook them until she gets home.  So when I sat down to dinner, the vegetables were still crunchy but cooked.

Giniling.  Picture taken using iPod touch.

All in all, my verdict is that it is edible but I think I put too much oil.  I had to take lemon candy to remove the oily taste afterwards.

To think of it, this version of giniling is pretty much like an adobo.  The only difference is that the pork is ground and I've added diced carrots and potatoes.