Monggo (Filipino mung bean stew)

Name: Monggo (Filipino mung bean stew)
Total time: 6000 s
Yield: 4 to 6 servings
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 1 cup mung beans; 250 boneless pork sirloin chop; 1 onion, thinly sliced; 5 cloves garlic, finely chopped; 5 cups stock (ideally pork, but chicken will do); 1/4 cup fish sauce; 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved; 1/4 cup coconut cream; 200 g baby spinach

Robert Gonzal @robert

Vancouver BC

Monggo was not one of my favourite dishes growing up. I didn't like the way it tasted, and I didn't like the mushy, gritty texture it left in my mouth. To be fair, I hated all legumes back then, so my dislike for monggo made perfect sense. Anyway, this bias lingered for years, and it wasn't until well into my adulthood that things started to change. Slowly, surely, beans made their way back into my diet. I even accepted them in my chili (but will leave them out if given a choice 😉). And so nowadays, my mom's monggo is one of the home-cooked meals I look forward to most. This is my take on that dish. Unlike my mom's, I used cherry tomatoes and added them closer to the end of cooking, because I like seeing them in there. I also added coconut cream, to give the final stew a little extra richness. And, because I shared this dish with my cousin who has a shellfish allergy, I left out the shrimp that would otherwise go in. Feel free to add them. Whichever you choose, it'll be delicious.

Robert Gonzal @robert

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Ingredients

1 hr 40 minutes

4 to 6 servings

1 cupmung beans
250boneless pork sirloin chop
1onion, thinly sliced
5 clovesgarlic, finely chopped
5 cupsstock (ideally pork, but chicken will do)
1/4 cupfish sauce
1 cupcherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 cupcoconut cream
200 gbaby spinach

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Steps

1 hr 40 minutes

1

Soak the bean in a bowl of cold water for 3 hours before cooking. Drain them well.
2

Chop the pork into 1 cm cubes and toss it in a bowl with a few tbsp veg oil, salt, and freshly ground black pepper. Put a medium pot on medium-high heat and fry the pork until browned on all sides and fully cooked, about 5 or 6 minutes. Remove the pork and set it aside.
3

If necessary, add a little more veg oil to the pot and throw in the onions. Fry them for about 5 minutes until they're cooked down and lightly browned. Add the garlic and fry another minute until fragrant, then add the beans. Pour in 4 cups of the stock, reserving the rest. Add the fish sauce and several grinds of black pepper. Bring to a simmer, then turn the heat down to medium and cook for about 1 hour. If the stew appears to dry out before the beans are done, add the remaining stock.
4

When the beans are soft enough that it takes almost no effort to crush them between your thumb and forefinger, add the tomatoes. Simmer 15 minutes, then stir in the coconut cream. Simmer another 5 minutes, then return the pork to the pot and add the spinach. Give it a minute or so for the spinach to wilt down into the stew, then check and adjust the seasoning. Serve atop freshly steamed rice.