🇵🇭 How to Make Bicol Express

Craving Bicol Express? On FoodNeverComes the food never actually comes — so here's how to make real Bicol Express at home, in about 35 min, with stuff you probably already have.

🛒 Ingredients

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• 600g pork belly, sliced thin
• 400ml coconut milk
• 3 tbsp bagoong (shrimp paste)
• 6–10 long green chillies, sliced
• 1 onion, 4 cloves garlic
• 1 thumb ginger
• 1 tbsp oil

👩‍🍳 Method

1. Render the pork belly in a dry pan until the fat runs and the edges brown.
2. Add the onion, garlic and ginger and fry until fragrant.
3. Stir in the bagoong and cook it out for 2 min — this takes away the raw funk and leaves the savoury depth.
4. Pour in the coconut milk and simmer 15 min until it reduces and the oil starts to separate out. That separation is a good sign, not a split.
5. Add the chillies for the last 5 min. Bicol Express is meant to be genuinely hot, so do not deseed them all.
6. Serve with a great deal of plain rice.