Ingredients:
3-4 pounds boneless pork country style ribs
4-6 cloves garlic
4-8 bay leaves
1-2 tablespoon patis (fish sauce to taste)
1 tablespoon freshly cracked or coarsely ground pepper to taste
2 large yellow onions, sliced
1/2 cup water as needed
1 cup tomato paste or 4 cans unsalted tomato sauce
2 teaspoons chopped or sliced pimentos (sweet bell pepper) or 1 jar fancy chopped or sliced sweet pimentos with the juice
2-4 cups frozen peas
2 sticks of cinnamon
Instructions:
Separate the fat from the lean in the pork and slice the pork into stir-fry-size pieces. In a large saute pan, dutch oven or wok over high heat, saute pork fat until melted and drain off excess. (You don't need much more than a couple of teaspoons.) Reduce heat to medium-high and add garlic, bay leaves, black pepper, onion and lean pork. Stir-fry for 15-30 minutes or so until pork is cooked and browned well. Add water and simmer until it is evaporated. Add tomato paste/sauce and pimento and cinnamon sticks and simmer for a 30 minutes or so. Finally, add peas, stirring carefully to break up frozen clumps. Simmer more if meat is not yet tender; Add more patis to taste. Add sugar for sweetness Serve hot with rice.
Makes 6-10 servings.
"Kaukau" is a pidgin slang word meaning "food" or "to eat." The Hawaiian term for food is `ai. The two theories on the origin of the word "kaukau" are the Hawaiian word for table, pâkaukau, and the Chinese word for food, chow chow. In Hawaii we say "We go kaukau!", I would say, "I hungry I like kaukau!" or "Let's kaukau!" The Cuisine of Hawaii is a fusion of foods brought by immigrants to the Hawaiian Islands, particularly of Portuguese, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Polynesian etc.