The Happy Home Cook: Thai-style Basil Pork with Chinese Pearl Barley
/The Happy Home Cook features cherished recipes of Filipino dishes from well-known foodies and contributors. If you have a recipe that you are proud of and would like to share, please send it along with a photo of the dish, your two-sentence bio and your picture to submissions@positivelyfilipino.com.
Thai-style Basil Pork with Chinese Pearl Barley (Photo by Rene Astudillo)
Having gained some pounds due to the seemingly unending Covid-19 community quarantines and spending double the time in my kitchen, I decided to go into yet another rice-less diet. So I had to look into all possible healthier, non-glycemic rice substitutes — from cauliflower to broccoli, from quinoa to couscous. Then I found this new item in the local supermarket, produced and packaged in the Philippines. It’s called Adlai. It is the local version of what is more popularly known as Job’s tears or Chinese pearl barley.
In my quest to create a one-pot meal, I decided to combine my favorite Thai-style basil pork with Adlai and I couldn’t be happier with the result.
Ingredients
1 cup, Chinese pearl barley
2 ½ cups water
¼ lb. ground lean pork
3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1 small white (or red) onions, peeled and thinly sliced
1 small tomato, chopped
4 tablespoons, oyster sauce
1 cup fresh basil leaves
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon Olive oil
1 small red bell pepper, thinly sliced, for garnish
Adlai (Photo by Rene Astudillo)
Procedure
Combine 1 cup Chinese pearly with 2 ½ cups water to cook in a rice cooker. When cooked, set aside to cool, before fluffing.
Heat Olive oil in a pan and add garlic, onions and tomato until fragrant. Add ground pork to brown. Add salt and pepper to taste, and oyster sauce. Continue to cook for 3-5 minutes before adding the basil leaves. Continue to cook until the leaves are wilted. Add cooked Chinese pearl barley and mix well. Add a little water to prevent the mixture from drying out. Continue to cook in low heat for a few minutes then turn heat off.
Serve warm with sliced red bell pepper as garnish.
Rene Astudillo is a writer, book author and blogger and has recently retired from more than two decades of nonprofit community work in the Bay Area. He spends his time between California and the Philippines.
More articles from Rene Astudillo
