Over on the wine side, Noel Ermitano and I were discussing a dish he showed in one of his lavish wine/food pictorials in which banana blossom is used. An avid shopper in Oriental markets, banana blossom is something I see from time to time but have never understood how it is used. I even brought one home once determined to figure it out once I got it here, but alas it decomposed in my veggie drawer before I got around to it.
Well, thanks to Noel I now have a recipe: it's called Humba, and it involves pork, fermented black beans, star anise and banana blossom. What's not to love?
This came from a website/blog called Market Manila. The recipe is actually a long, rambling description. I'll turn that into a list and more explicit instructions. But first, the background on the dish from Market Manila:
Humba or Umba is the Visayan answer to adobo from the North…or is it? Although I was born in Cebu and lived there until the ripe old age of 2, I don’t really recall eating too much humba in my childhood years or even as an adult. Humba recipes vary from household to household but it does seem to be incredibly close to some Chinese treatment for pork, as in pata tim, or slow braised pork with soy and star anise. I have never made humba before, though our cook makes it occasionally for the crew and it rarely makes it to the dining table… we tend to get adobo instead. I set out to find a nice recipe and ended up using ingredients and methods from several different sources. I was initially perturbed by the amount of sugar in this preparation, but the results were delicious. There are two rough versions of this…one that is more strongly influenced by Chinese cookery and one that has evolved into a more “common” way of preparing it. Here is the recipe I made, and I would definitely make it again…
Stage 1 ingredients:
2 lbs pork shoulder
8 cloves garlic, smashed
2-3 tblsp fermented black beans, rinsed
1/4 c Shaoxing rice wine (optional, and note that a decent cheap scotch is a good substitute)
1/4 c cane or white wine vinegar
1/2 to 3/4 block of palm sugar (or 2-3 tblspoons of brown sugar)
2 star anise
1/4 c soy sauce
Cut pork in cubes. In a Dutch oven, lightly brown the meat and then add the garlic. Sweat the garlic for a minute and then add the remaining ingredients. Simmer gently until pork is tender, about 90 minutes. Monitor liquid levels and add water if neccessary.
Stage 2 ingredients:
8 dried Chinese (shitake) mushrooms
1 c sliced banana blossoms
1 tsp ground black pepper
Rehydrate the mushrooms in warm water, trim and slice. When the pork is tender, add these three final ingredients and cook about five minutes more. Serve with hot steamed rice.
Thanks, Noel!