One of my favorite Filipino dishes is Pinkabet which is basically 4-5 types of vegetables combined with small pieces of pork loin.
If you'd like to add some world cuisine to your gluten-free or Paleo menus, Pinkabet is a great add as this dish is easy to make and you can vary the vegetables depending on what's in season, or what you feel like eating.
Pinkabet is traditionally made with green beans, but to make the dish Paleo-friendly, you can easily swap out the green beans with zuchini, cabbage, caulifower, chard, okra or Kohlrabi.
In the version above, the vegetables we used included:
- Eggplant
- Kabocha squash
- Bittermelon aka Ampalaya
- Long beans
Here's another version of Pinakbet where we used:
- Eggplant
- Okra
- Lima beans
- Bittermelon aka Ampalaya
As you can see, you can have lots of fun coming up with different vegetable combinations.
Here is a Pinakbet recipe for a version that has shrimp along with pork and is Westernized meaning there is no bagoong (shrimp paste) used. To make this recipe Paleo-friendly, just swap out the green beans with one of the suggestions I listed above.
Here is another Pinakbet recipe made with bagoong and just pork if you want to make your Pinakbet like how it's traditionally done in the Philippines. Double check the ingredients of the bagoong you use because some brands will use wheat flour. Shrimp paste is very salty so if you're also being conscious of sodium intake, cut down the amount of bagoong.
If you are new to Filipino food and try either one of these recipes, do let me know what you thought!
