Ginataan na Hipon
Creamy Prawns Cooked in Coconut Milk with Pumpkin and Green beans.
Ginataan is a cooking method in the Philippines, it refers to cooking or braising with coconut milk or ‘Gata’. This cooking method has many varieties, from savoury dishes to sweet dishes. Each region will have their own variation as well as each household. Because the Philippines is an archipelago, each island will have different ingredients available to them but one thing they all have in common and is abundant in the Philippines is Coconut trees.
Ginataan is a dish that everyone can enjoy, I remember as a child (and as an adult), I used to squash the pumpkin using my fork and mix it with the rice and sauce which made it creamier! My husband Adrian did it too and now my children do it too. Haha!
Swap it!
Prawns – this is my choice of protein with this Ginataan but you can opt out of this if you want it to be a vegetarian dish. You can also use chicken or pork if you want it to be more meaty. Cooking time will increase if you use meat as you need to make sure the meat is cooked through.
Fish Sauce – if you want to make this more a vegan dish or you are not a fan of fish sauce. You can take this off and use a vegan all purpose seasoning instead or you can increase salt to your taste. The fish sauce, gives this dish more depth of flavours.
Pumpkin – this vegetable is not always available in local supermarkets in London but you can use butternut squash instead. It’s in the same family but butternut squash is not as flavourful (to me) as pumpkin.
Green Beans – you can add any beans you like!
Ingredients
Garnish (optional)
Instructions
In a medium size pot, heat some oil and cook onions for 1 minute until it turns translucent with brown sides. Next, add butternut squash (or pumpkin), garlic and coconut milk. Season with salt, fish sauce and black pepper. You can add chili on stage if you want your ginataan to add a little heat or you can add it as a garnish at the end if some of your family members or friends don’t like chillies.
Place the lid, bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes (stirring the pot in between). Then, add green beans and continue to simmer for t10 minutes or until the green beans are cooked and the pumpkin or squash are soft.
Once the prawns and vegetables are cooked, take off the heat and serve with some jasmine rice. You can garnish your ginataan with chillies and or crispy shallot or garlic.
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