Perfectly Blended

Archive for May, 2009

A “Hamonada” is a Filipino dish that is usually served in Fiestas and other special occasions. You can commonly find this in small barrios as their main course during Fiestas because this dish doesn’t spoil fast. They can store this even without the refrigerator. A hamonada is sweet and tasty and you will surely love it. Below is the recipe.

Ingredients:

2 Kilos Upper Ham

4 cups pineapple juice

4 cups water

½ bottle beer

1 tbsp. pepper corns

1 cup brown sugar

2 pcs. Onion (cut into quarter)

2 tbsp.salt or 5 tbsp. soy sauce

 Procedure:

1. Wash pork and make small slits using pointed knife, or ice pick. Be careful so that the knife will not reach the skin of the ham.
2. Put Ham in a bowl and add all the ingredients. Rub for a few minutes.
3. Put Ham in a kettle and pour the contents of a bowl into the kettle.
4. Simmer until become tender. Usually this will take for about 2- 3 hours, if you will use pressure cooker you can cook it for 1 hour.
5. When done, put in a platter and garnish with sliced pineapple, onion rings, and onion leaves.

I was so excited to try cooking Pork Hamonada. I have read the recipe over and over again and planned on the things that I needed to do. I followed every instruction on the recipe to make sure that I did the right thing. I cooked the Hamonada for almost 3 hours, because I don’t know how to use the pressure cooker.  After it was done, I was so happy to see the finish product of my cooking. It looks so yummy! I I tasted it and it was so yummy, but there’s a problem… It was SPICY!!! Oh no! What have I done? I tried to check on the recipe again to see where I went wrong. Oh my! I did a mistake on the pepper. Instead of Black Pepper corns, I used ground black pepper. Despite the mistake, it’s still taste good and my family loved it. Just that, you can never expect a Hamonada to be spicy. Anyway, it was my first time to cook that kind of dish and I guess I will have to be extra careful next time.

P.S. I will share the recipe on my next post.

When I started to enroll in a culinary arts class, I then make a notebook of recipes of all the food we have learned to cook in our class. I don’t miss every recipe and I make sure that I have copied it on my notebook. My friends and relatives borrow it sometimes because they also want to learn what I’ve learned in my class.

Last Friday, I planned to cook “Pork Hamonada” at home. I wanted to try what I’ve learned in class and thought it would be nice to let my family try some of my cooking. So, I went to the mall to buy the ingredients and I took along my recipe notebook. I bought every ingredient that is needed and I make sure that nothing is missed. After my purchase, I excitedly went home so that I can start to cook. When I open my bag, I noticed that my recipe notebook wasn’t there. Oh no! I think I lost it at the mall. The sad thing was I don’t know where to start because I don’t have a guide anymore. I tried to search for a recipe on the internet but it was different. I texted my classmate to send me the recipe and she was kind enough to give me that big favor.

I’m now planning to have a new recipe notebook and hope I will not lost it again.