Chicken Menudo

Hi everyone!  I am going to show you how to make "chicken menudo". This is a request from a good friend of mine who is always following my blog. Thank you Te Weng,this is for you :)

Menudo is a traditional Filipino stew. We can use any kind of meat like pork,chicken, and beef to make this dish." Menudo" is a Spanish word which means " often"  It seems like this dish was oftenly cooked by the Spaniards or the Filipino during the time they were colonized by the Spaniards.

One of the important  ingredients in this dish is  pork or beef liver. My family don't like liver so I omitted it . And there is also one thing that they dont like and it is "tomato sauce"  because of it's sour taste. When I am cooking a food with tomato sauce on it, I only add a little amount of tomato sauce or sometimes  I used catsup and fresh tomatoes instead.

We can personalize our own cooking, we can add, ommit ,substitute and adjust. 
Add the ingredients that we like, we can ommit the ingredients that we don't like .Substitute something to the ingredients that we don't have. And lastly, adjust to the taste that we like. If we can do this, then we can improvize and personize our own way of cooking:)


 Ingredients:

2 tsp of oil
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
Half onion, diced

300-500g chicken breast,cut into cubes or diced (I used 2 chicken breast without skin)
Marinate the chicken meat with 1 tbsp of soy sauce and 1 tbsp of oyster sauce for best result/taste.

200-300g or pork/beef liver, diced (optional)

1 and a half tomato+ 1tsp tomato catsup ( 1/2 cup of tomato sauce if u like)
1 1/2 cup of water with 1 chicken cube ( you can use chicken stock if u have)
2 big potatoes, diced
2  big carrots, diced
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp oyster sauce
4-5 hotdog sauges, sliced
1 Bell pepper ,diced ( half green and half red for a colorful menudo)
scallion or onion leaves, sliced
raisins (optional)
green peas (optional)
1 bay leaf (laurel) (optional)
1 tbsp of cornstarch ,diluted in water ( if you like to thicken the sauce of menudo)
1 tsp of sugar,optional (Filipinos love a little sweet taste on their dish)
salt and pepper to taste


Procedure:

Heat the oil in a pan and saute garlic and onion.
Add the marinated chicken (and the liver if you like). Stir and cover the pan. Let it cook for 5 mins.

Add tomatoes and catsup (or tomato sauce). Stir. Add the water with chicken cubes (or the chicken stock).

Add potatoes,carrots, oyster sauce and soya sauce. Cover and cook for 7 minutes.

Add bell pepper, sausages, scallions and raisins (or the other optional ingredients like sugar,green peas and bay leaf). Stir and add the diluted cornstarch to thicken the sauce. Cover and let it cook for 2-3 minutes or until the sauce is thicken.
Adjust the taste by adding salt and pepper.

Done!! Serve with rice or bread.

"Making good food requires time,effort and lots of LOVE"