Your First Time

Pork Steak or Pinoy Bistek is a family favorite.  It has a blend of salty and tangy and has nothing at all to do with your normal barbecue steak, but is a very at home kind of course in the Pinoy Home.

And the challenge? It's the second dish I will be attempting in all 32 years of my life.

Now, by dish, I mean, cooking dish. Like, cooking in the kitchen.  The first dish I attempted was Adobo. It's the easiest dish, they said.  All you have to do is throw everything in and let it cook, they said. Well, it was not easy, and when I threw everything in, my adobo sauce became soup.  I never attempted to cook the damn thing again.

Here I am, faced with the task of cooking for lunch, and I have found pork chop in the fridge. God forbid I fuck this up.

Credits for my first time cooking goes to Cookpad.com

Alright. I'm about to begin.

INGREDIENTS:

1. 4 slicepork chops
2. 5 tbspsoy sauce
3. 2 eachlime or lemon
4. 1/2 cupcooking oil
5. 2 mediumonions, sliced
6. 1 1/2 cupwater
7. 1 tbspgranulated white sugar
8. 1 dashsalt
9. 1 dashpepper

METHOD

1. Combine pork chops, soy sauce, and lime/lemon juice in a large bowl or container. Marinade for at least an hour.
2. Heat a pan then pour in cooking oil.
3. Pan fry the marinated pork chops in medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes per side.
4. Remove excess oil. Pour in the remaining marinade and water then let it boil. Simmer for 45 minutes or until pork is tender. Note: Add water as needed.
5. Add in the sugar, salt, and pepper then stir.
6. Put in the onions land cook for 3 minutes more.
7. Turn off heat and transfer to a serving plate.
8. Serve and enjoy!

2. So this is what I'm going for, this is actually the end product up there.  I have to say, I thought the flavor was really strong in that it was really sour from the kalamansi that I used.  So I added some more sugar and water. I almost forgot the pepper so I had to throw that in afterwards.  

   
   

   When I asked my kids, they said it tasted like another dish, Adobo. LOL.  Well, I know that the strong flavor is actually good because there's going to be the rice that counters the strong kalamansi tasted.  

   
   

   For a newbie cook, this recipe works for me, and I just need to adjust it. I wasn't really following the recipe to a T.  I put more than 5 tablespoons of soy sauce; actually after 5 tablespoons, I started to pour the soy sauce until it looked enough for the pork slices to be marinated in, and squeezed kalamansi until I thought I achieved my desired taste for pork steak. I only really put less than 1 1/2  cup of water, and only one cup when the recipe called for 1 1/2. Then I added water as I went along. I totally skipped the salt, after pouring water when the recipe mentioned to add salt along with the sugar and pepper.  Although I did add salt later when I thought the sauce was beginning to taste bland. 

   
   

   I wasn't confident the pork slices would be tender.  But as I let the pot boil, I realized I wasn't really keeping track of time, and at one point while I was frying the pork chops, I was busy chatting with friends that I overcooked one side of the pork chops! And later on, after trying to adjust the taste, I began to worry if I was going to overcook the pork chops. 

   
   

   What I learned about porkchops in this experience?

   
   

   1. It's okay if it's sour; it will even out when you serve it with rice. 

   2. Everything else I did seemed to be okay. Maybe I can consider marinating the pork meat a little longer. 

   
   

   Well, that's it. For the first time cook, stay tuned for many more cooking mishaps!