Kainan With Kinan: I Don’t Know What It’s Called, But I Know How To Cook It.

I’m not sure if this happens to others, but I’ve eaten lots of Filipino food with names that are… unknown to me. One of them is this ground beef soup thing with squash and string beans (seen in the photo above). This dish has been served in my family for as long as I can remember, but I still don’t know what it’s called. I, however, recently learned how to make it, which is much more important than knowing what it’s called. So screw names. Let’s talk about how to cook this dish.

Full disclosure, this “recipe” was just orally passed on to me, without clear measurements on the ingredients. I simply estimated and Kennan-ized when I put what I learned into practice.

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Ingredients:

1/2-kilo ground beef

3-cloves garlic, crushed

1-large onion, chopped

3-tablespoons soy sauce*

3-tablesoons sugar*

a pinch of salt*

a dash of black and white pepper**

1-tablespoon butter

1-liter water***

1-pack Maggi Magic Sarap

1/2-piece squash, cubed

5-10 pieces string beans, cut into short strings

Process:

1. In a cooking pot, melt butter. Sauté garlic and onion until garlic becomes light brown.
2. Add ground beef on to the pot, constantly stirring until the oil from the beef starts seeping out.
3. Once the pot is satisfactorily filled with oil from pork, add the sugar and soy sauce. Cover the pot and let simmer for a couple of minutes.
4. Add water and stir from time to time.
5. Sprinkle the Maggi Magic Sarap.
6. Cover and allow to boil for 20-30 minutes.
7. Add the squash and allow to boil for 10-15 more minutes.
8. Lastly, add the string beans and let the concoction boil for 5 more minutes, partially covered.
9. Serve hot.

*flexible estimate, taste test from time to time to get desired taste

**originally, this recipe does not have pepper. I, on the other hand, love black pepper

***keep a thermos full of hot water near as this recipe will most likely need a lot of “mixing and matching” to get the desired taste

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The steps above are the basic framework of the dish. Please feel free, however, to modify the amount of each ingredients when cooking to achieve your desired, personalized taste. Again, mix and match.

As mentioned in previous Kainan With Kinan posts, I am not an expert at this and cooking is merely a hobby I am interested in. If you manage to come up with a better version of this, PLEASE, keep it to yourself and start a freaking business and get rich. Loljk. But seriously, if you do that, I expect some sort of instructional tax from you.