How to Cook Afritada

Whats the difference between Afritada, Mechado, and Caldereta?

When I was younger, I used to ask what’s the difference between menudo, caldereta, mechado, and afritada. It’s a bit confusing even to Filipinos.

One of the difference seems to be how to cook afritada. While the others is simmered for a long time, you can quickly cook afritada in under 30 minutes. This is the best bet when you’re wanting a tomato dish but needs to have it cooked quickly.

The ingredients are also different. Out of all the tomato dishes we have inherited from the Spanish, Afritada may be the simplest one. It’s just stewed pork. It also has less ingredients and more budget friendly. The basic for this pork dish is only tomato sauce, meat (pork or chicken), potato, carrots, and bell pepper. Other have a lot more like menudo has liver and raisins. Of all the dishes, afritada is closest to mechado in terms of ingredients and the difference is that mechado has soy sauce.

Another key difference might be the cut and type of meat. Menudo has very small cut of pork. from the from the Spanish small cut. Caldereta is beef or goat meat big and is usually with the bones, and the classic Filipino Mechado (also beef) is shaped like a log.

Ingredients:

oil for sauteing
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 big white onion, chopped
pork 1 kl , chopped (Adobo cut in Monterey Meat Shop or pork shoulder)
big potato, 1 whole, cut into wedges (or 5 small potatoes)
carrot (1) big, cut into wedges
2 sachet Tomato Sauce of your preference (or about 500 ml)
1 tbsp Tomato paste
pork cube (1) in 2 cups water
1 tbsp patis or fish sauce
small red bell pepper, sliced
small green bell pepper, sliced
Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Heat the cooking oil in a pan and fry potatoes and carrots. Set aside.
Saute the garlic and onions in the same pan.
Add the pork and patis and cook until rendering a bit of fat.
Add pork broth, water, and tomato sauce. Cook in medium fire until pork is soft.
Put-in the potato and carrots and continue cooking for 3 minutes.
Add the bell pepper and cook more until bell pepper is soft and flavors have melded.
Add pepper to taste. Check if it requires salt.
Serve with rice. Enjoy!

Do you have anything to add or to share? I would love to hear your thoughts!

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