Humba Recipe (Braised Pork Belly with Sugar)
Humba Recipe (Braised Pork Belly) is one of the comfort foods of every Filipino household. It’s a popular filipino food dish somewhere in the Visayas and Mindanao regions (I knew it because I used to lived from this two areas). I don’t know how they called it in the Luzon region, but I knew they have a version of humba too.
Filipino recipes is really my favorite. Humba is one of the dishes I prepared during our recentsalo-salo (get together) with friends. Everyone loved it. I even heard one of them that he missed it a lot. They were quite surprised upon seeing potatoes and hard-boiled eggs sitting on the dish. I’ve got this idea by my mom’s friend, a kusinera (a househelp main job is like a chef who cooks for the entire family household). Her Chinese style humba has a distinctive flavor that I can’t remember exactly how she made it. Maybe soon, I’ll post my Chinese style version. So, watch out for it!
Ingredients :
- 1 lb. pork (i usually used pork belly or pork hocks), cut into serving pieces
- 1 cup water
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1/3 cup vinegar
- 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1 bay leaf
- 1/4 tsp. pepper or 1 tsp. peppercorns
- 1 tsp. oil
- salt to taste
- 3 potatoes, peeled and quartered (optional)
- hard-boiled eggs (optional)
Cooking Procedures :
- Combine all ingredients in a big pot and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for about an hour or until pork belly or hocks is tender. You may wish to adjust the taste according to your style and liking.
- If you want to add some potatoes and hard-boiled eggs in this dish, potatoes usually cook about 15 minutes. It’s up to you whether you like it very soft or just tender to bite. You may add it halfway of the cooking time or later. As for the eggs let it sits for a few minutes before its done to let the sauces covered into it.
- Remove bay leaf and peppercorns (if used) just before serving. Serve hot.
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Tagged with: eggs • filipino • pinoy • Pork
Filed under: Pork
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I remember my dad using dried lily flowers and salted black beans in his humba. Is this Cebuano style?
Yep, I this is a Cebuano Style.
Hope you like it! Thanks for visiting.
in addition to CEBUANO style of cooking HUMBA, my grandfather will also add a fried banana (sab-a cooking banana) which he will add to the last minute of the cooking time.
dear Rachel,
thats sound good to me, I love humba Even though I’m here at the state theres no filipino knows how to cook our food seldome. as what I remembered theres no potatoes or eggs always salted black beans. but im glad and I search. I love to cook and I love to learn if you have any Idea and i really appreciated. May GOD BLESS YOU!
carroline
I always wanted to have a copy of the recipe humba.I often wonder how it taste,know i know and many thanks to you.
HMMMMMMMMMMM PARANG MASARAP
says: i’ll try this one..looks delicious.. hope i cud cook it correctly..thanks for posting this recipe..
im from Tanjay, Negros Oriental (midst of Dumaguete City and Bais City)…and my ex mom in law has a native restaurant and when cooking humba she always instruct the kusinera (eatery cook) to use Coke (soda) instead of water…and use Molasses instead of brown sugar and to add 5 tablespoon of ketchup in it and cook it in a low fire. I love the taste. Im living in the states now (Charlotte) and i crave humba the way my mom in law cooked it especially during Fiesta Celebration.
In pampanga we call it estopadong pata, but no hard boiled eggs and potatoes. Just a sweet version of sweeten adobo.