I wasn’t a vegetarian yet during my elementary school days. In fact, I have not heard of plant-based diets until after I graduated from high school. During those early years of my youth, I often bought food from the canteen like everyone else. It consisted of junk food and / or traditional Filipino snacks, during break time, and home-cooked food for lunch; usually rice and viand.
In the morning and afternoon breaks, one of my favorite things to snack on was a ”flying saucer” sandwich, which was just a sandwich bun with mayo, egg and cheese that had been cooked in a sandwich maker press. It turns into a flying saucer when it’s done because of its shape.
Flying saucer sandwich fillings can be substituted with almost anything; children especially like the giniling or sautéed ground pork with diced potatoes and carrots, which is best eaten hot and fresh off the sandwich maker press.
Giniling stew is also a popular dish served with rice and one of my favorites growing up. It’s really good served with steamed rice and is the dish we tried to recreate on this post.
I found this canned vegetarian minced meat while searching for stuff online, ordered a few cans, and left it in the pantry area. Surprisingly, my wife said she will cook vegetarian giniling for today so I grabbed my phone and shot a few photos to share here on HIVE.
INGREDIENTS
PROCEDURE
| Steps | Image |
|---|---|
| 1. Clean and chop ingredients to size. Soak the meat magic in water for 30 minutes then rinse a few times OR boil it for 5 to 10 minutes, then rinse a few times. |  |
| 2. Cut the meat magic into small pieces and stir-fry in 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil. |  |
| 3. Add in diced tomatoes, a dash of salt and pepper and Spanish paprika. |  |
| 4. When the meat magic starts to brown, add in the diced carrots and potatoes. Continue to stir fry. Set aside half of the meat magic. |  |
| 5. Add in the green peas and vegetarian minced meat when the potatoes and carrots are half-cooked, softer than the fresh ones |  |
| 6. Dilute tomato paste in water and pour in. |  |
| 7. After five minutes, put in the remaining meat magic and cover. Add some more water if the soup dries up. |  |
| 8. Add in a dash of salt and pepper, a teaspoon of mushroom powder, ½ teaspoon of curry powder and ½ teaspoon of turmeric powder. We added a ½ teaspoon of cayenne powder for a little kick. |  |
| 9. Stir and cover for five more minutes. Adjust for taste. We added a little sugar to balance the spiciness and added a little more mushroom powder. |  |
| 10. Serve hot on top of freshly cooked steamed rice or filling in a Flying Saucer Sandwich. |  |
CONCLUSION
We didn’t have the round sandwich maker press so I wasn’t able to re-create my childhood favorite but all is well as it was just as good with rice as it would have been on a sandwich. Maybe I will be able to show you the alien sandwich next time, since I still have two cans of minced #vegetarian meat. I'm adding the flying saucer #sandwich image as inspiration for my next food post. :)
That’s it for now. Have a wonderful day and mabuhay to everyone!
*Image by Anna Prosekova from Pixabay. #hiveph badge from
. Other photos used are mine.