Okoy (vegetable patties)

I bought some mung bean sprouts the other day coz I wanted to cook some vegetable lumpia. But when I had a look at the freezer, no lumpia wrapper. So I did the next best thing, Okoy.

Lucky, I also have some pumpkin, so I combined the two together and made a good okoy. I have done this recipe before with all different kinds of vegetables. I used, zucchini, corn, carrots and with great success too. I think, it all comes down with the vinegar dipping sauce. But then again, my hubby does not eat them with vinegar so they must be good by themselves ;p (lucky I was able to enticed my boys to try vinegar dipping sauce, now they love it)

I had some left over roast pork from last night, the okoy below have pork. I must admit, I like the one without pork better. It's a good thing, Kim liked the one with pork.





Ingredients:

100 grams of mung bean sprouts, cleaned thoroughly
100 grams of pumpkin, grated
1 large onion, chopped finely
salt and pepper
1 cup of self raising flour
1 cup of cornflour
2 eggs
3/4 - 1 cup of water
oil for frying.


Directions:

Combined the flours in a mixing bowl.
Add enough water to make a good consistency.
Add the eggs and seasonings.
Put the mung bean sprouts, pumpkin and onions.
Mix thoroughly.

1. Heat oil in a frying pan.
2. Spoon the mixture onto the hot oil and flatten the mixture a bit.
3. Do not clutter the pan, so that the okoy won't be ruined.
4. Watch them so that they won't burn. Turn them over when they turn brown but not burnt
   
5. Repeat until all the mixture is cooked.

For the sauce:

Combine
vinegar
salt
pepper
freshly crushed garlic
chili (as many as you can take)

Ginisang Munggo

Everybody has their own way of cooking ginisang munggo. I've always thought that in Pampanga, our town in the Philippines, they always processed their munggo so that it's very smooth. And since we didn't have food processor or blender, we used to press the cooked munggo in a slotted bilao we called bitse. Excuse the words, I don't know what they're called in English. lol

Well, apparently, not everyone in Pampanga processed their munggo. I guess, it's only us .. lol

I have always processed my munggo, and that's the only way my husband and children know how to eat it. If they see munggo and it's not processed, they won't eat it. I must admit, I am not used in eating it that way too, so I usually stay away from it when it's not processed. I have served this munggo with fried Ling. In the tagalog region, they usually serve it with paksiw na isda , but if we have to serve something with munggo it's always fried fish, preferably galunggong.




Ingredients:

1 cup of munggo beans

2 tbsp oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium onion, chopped finely
1 tomato, chopped finely (optional)
1 - 2 tbsp of fish sauce
2 sticks of celery, chopped thinly and diagonally. Add the celery leaves if they're there.
bunch of spinach leaves (in my case, i put silver beet from the garden), washed thoroughly

Directions:

Boil 3 cups of water. When the water is boiling, add the dried munggo beans. Cook until it's very soft. About half an hour to 45 minutes. Keep stirring it, while cooking otherwise it might burn. When the munggo is soft, put it in a blender. I use a hand-held blender and blend it directly in the pot.

1. Saute garlic in the oil until slightly brown.
2. Add the onions, cook until translucent.
3. Add the tomatoes, and cook for another minute.
4. Season with fish sauce.
5. Add the celery pieces and cook further until the celery is slightly soft.
6. Add the processed munggo. Let it boil.
7. Add the spinach or silverbeet. Cook until the leaves are soft.
8. Serve with rice and your preferred fried fish. Or you can also serve pork chops if you're feeling generous.

When I was still in the Philippines, we used to put pumpkin flowers and the young leaves of the pumpkin. When I have zucchini flowers, I put them too. Other people, they use bagoong to season the munggo, but since my family do not eat bagoong, I use fish sauce. And others they put pork with it too. If you want to incorporate pork, saute the thinly sliced pork after putting the tomatoes. Cook the pork until it's tender, then proceed as above.