Batwan

Batwan, pronounced BAT-WAN in the Hiligaynon language, is a common souring agent for soups in the specific ethno-linguistic area of Iloilo and the northern parts of Negros Occidental. It is also exclusively used in Ilonggo cooking in the Western Visayas, the fruit not available anywhere else.

I have heard that the tree has a high degree of difficulty taking root outside of the islands of Panay and Negros. Elsewhere in the country, transplanted Ilonggos (natives of Iloilo) and Negrenses (natives of Negros) use bottled batwan preserved in salt when cooking dishes native to their culture.

Batwan is alien to me, being a Pangasinense (a native of the province of Pangasinan, in the northwestern part of the island of Luzon). But I have seen the batwan fruit hanging from a tree growing by the roadside, as pointed out to me by friends and fellow travelers, during a trip traversing the mountains that separated the Occidental and Oriental portions of Negros. That had been my first trip to the island, in the summer of my college freshman year.

I encountered batwan only for the second time recently. But this time, I had the tremendous fortune of being gifted several pieces of the fruit for cooking, from a dear friend who shared from her fresh stash straight from the markets of Iloilo City.


These were given to me smooth green without any blemishes, but I kept them in the ref until I found the time to cook them. A Bacolodnon friend advised that batwan had to be used fresh - while still green and firm - within three days after purchase from the market.

After about five days in the ref the batwan had brown spots, but still firm. I used them quartered in a sinigang (soured broth) with bangus (milkfish), tomatoes, ginger root and kamote tops, as instructed both by my benefactor and the Bacolodnon friend.

The soup was reminiscent of sinigang sa bayabas (guava soup), the batwan flesh starchy like gabi (taro), the seeds looking and tasting like mangosteen (to which it is related).

Batwan actually intrigued me, because it looked like a smaller, flattened siniguelas, with smoother, green skin and firm flesh. But what I found interesting was its mute smell - it didn't give off any scent - that belied its innate sourness, capable of bringing on puckered mouths and crinkled eyes from its tingling tartness.

Then I watched Namets, an entry to the 2008 Cinemalaya film festival at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and a film celebrating food in Negros. There was a scene discussing batwan as a main ingredient in kansi, a Negrense dish made of tuhod ng baka (beef knees) and langka (green jackfruit).

My curiosity was perked, as I haven't come across this kansi. I told my benefactor to set some batwan aside for me when she gets another shipment. And wonderfully, right then and there I was given a small bagfull, in several sizes, and colors as well (first photo above).

I felt doubtful about the small brown pieces, which looked like flat chicos with shiny smooth skin. But friends from Bacolod to whom I sent photos of the batwan said they were okay to use, as long as they were still firm. And they added that batwan is also used for souring the Ilonggo specialty KBL, or kadios-baboy-langka, a dish of beans, pork and green jackfruit in soured broth.

But kadios is as hard to find in Metro Manila as the batwan. So I made kansi, with half a kilo beef shank bone-in, half a kilo green langka, a few slices of ginger root and some sliced bell peppers. I put the ginger and batwan with the beef in a pressure cooker half-filled with water, allowed it to cook for about an hour, then put in the langka and cooked for about 20 minutes more.


I made a mistake in not parboiling the langka before adding it to the kansi, which resulted in the vegetable being a bit chewier than expected, and it tasted slightly bitter. Green langka is not cooked as a vegetable in Pangasinan cuisine.

Nevertheless, the dish was stupendously, marvelously, delicious, a properly mouth-puckering beef sinigang to the nth degree, due to the long cooking that resulted in the soup fully infused with the flavors of the batwan.

Kansi is said to be a cross between a bulalo (beef shank in clear broth) - because of the use of marrowed beef bone - and sinigang (soured broth) - because of the sourness factor. For me it defines a new level of beef sinigang - the sourness not as acidulously pungent as the tamarind fruit (the common souring agent for meat soups) can make it, but with a certain sweet edge that's not so tangible, rather like an aftertaste. And not as teeth-numbing, too.

The batwan disintegrated from the long cooking, and it imparted the full extent of its sourness - no more guava hints this time. It is now my favorite souring agent for sinigang using meats.

I have to confess, though, that I have no way of knowing if my kansi is true to the original kansi of Bacolod. Wyatt, a Bacolod native, posted a recipe for kansi in his blog, which is a bit different from how I did mine. But I have a standing invitation from a friend in Bacolod to eat kansi cooked by his uncle, who reputedly makes a great one. I hope I can oblige soon.

Related Post
Batwan Jam

More Ilonggo Food
Manokan Country
The Baye-Baye of Bacolod
Batchoy at 21
Cansi at Shopping
Napoleones
Reconnecting with Bacolod Sweets
Lamud
Bacolod Products, Old & New
More Bacolod Products, Old & New

White Chocolate Mousse

Cake of the Month
As the family marks my third child’s progress onto her first year, I will be celebrating her monthly birth day in this blog by featuring a cake. Lined up for the next twelve months, and hopefully on afterwards, are old-time favorites, reliable standards, as well as new discoveries, as I go on a quest for the best cakes around the country.

I first tasted Gateau de Manille's White Chocolate Mousse while I was in college, courtesy of my then boyfriend (my first, and also my last, "official" one, before the husband), who brought a slice to the university campus. I never forgot its creamy sweetness, a melt-in-your-mouth, snow-white mousse that was like vanilla ice cream but silkier, and with a denser body.

I never had it again, nor ventured to the bakeshop-restaurant for a repeat slice, for various reasons, though it was always at the back of my mind. Various issues occupied me during college, and the boyfriend and I parted ways. There were also a lot of hurdles - it was too far from the university campus where I lived out my four-year tenure, especially for a promdi who had no car (no public utility vehicles ply the area). And, as was true with most of us students back then, I didn't have the budget for it.

My mom taught me never to scrimp on food. But a cake was an indulgence. I lived in a ladies dormitory that provided full board weekdays, and during weekends my meals were mostly provided for during activities of my university organization. Needless to say, I learned, and practiced, thriftiness during my college life.

But a baby is a blessing, and every day she brings joy to the family, so that every month added to her still young life is a blessing worthy of a celebration. So while doing the list for this cake of the month series, that white chocolate mousse was a definite shoo-in.

And I made the trip to White Plains, reliving college life thru the restaurant's food that was the fad in my teens - waldorf salad, roast beef sandwich, teriyaki, chicken galantina.

And the white chocolate mousse was how I remembered it, although it seemed to have impressed upon myself that it was pure white, so I was a bit surprised to find chocolate (the real brown chocolate) shavings and brown cookie crumbles on top of the mousse.

But the lady at the counter said it is still made in the original recipe from when the bakeshop-restaurant opened in 1990, and it still is their bestseller.


Gateau de Manille's White Chocolate Mousse is a thick, 9" frozen pure white mousse with a thin crumbly chocolate brownie as base and top holding up the mousse, covered with a thin white chocolate shell, decorated with whipped cream rosettes, then finished off with grated chocolate (Php515). It also comes in mini size, 7" at Php415, and single serve in a plastic cup for take-out or served on a plate at Php80.

This mousse is unlike typical mousses with a chiffon or cookie base and a whipped cream topping. It is pure white chocolate mousse, through and through, from top to bottom. Every mouthful is creamy, velvety vanilla ice cream bliss. It has to be refrigerated, but it survived travel from Quezon City to Cavite without any damage to its form.

The bakeshop's cakes are mostly mousses or variants of their kind. The double chocolate mousse is white chocolate mousse with the bottom half in chocolate, while the trio has strawberry mousse packed between the white and the brown chocolate. Both are also great, in a play of flavors dual and triple.

The mousse also comes in cappuccino and mango flavors (Php495 each, mini Php415, single serve Php75). There is also sansrival and tiramisu. The only baked cakes are moist chocolate cake, sansrival, apple pie and cheesecakes with blueberry and dulce de leche toppings. Also pastries, like ensaymada (underbaked) and chicken pies.

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Gateau de Manille
117 Katipunan Road, St. Ignatius Village
Quezon City, Metro Manila
Tel. No. (632) 911-6547
Open daily 9AM-9PM
Also does catering services

From EDSA north-bound lane, turn right onto Santolan Road, driving across the entire length of the side of Camp Aguinaldo. Turn right at Katipunan Road, and it is on the right side just several houses away from the intersection, just about across the gate to St. Ignatius Village.

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Cakes of the Month
Divine Chocolate Cake, by Divine Sweets (Puerto Princesa, Palawan)
Cakelines, by Jon-Rhiz (Cavite City)
Dayap Chiffon Cake, by Kiss Cafe (UP Diliman, Quezon City)
Belgian Chocolate Cake, by a La Creme (City of San Fernando, Pampanga)
Mango Cake, by Red Ribbon (with various locations across the country)
Ube Cake, by Goodies N' Sweets (several locations across Metro Manila)
Mango Charlotte, by Sweet Bella (Dasmarinas Village, Makati City)
Strawberry Shortcake by Vizco's (Baguio City)
Almond Chocolate Fudge Cake by Malen's (Noveleta, Cavite)
Caramel Cake by Estrel's (Quezon City)
Marshmallow Birthday Cake by Estrel's (Quezon City)

Flapjacks at Greenbelt 2

One of my dining groups had to meet somebody at the Greenbelt neighborhood one lunchtime on a weekday. It was unplanned, and as it was well within office hours the time was constrained. We weren't feeling inspired as to our restaurant choices, having heard nothing new that attracted our noses.

So we decided to just proceed to Cyma Estiatorio at Greenbelt 2, where we were sure to have a reliably satisfying meal based on previous visits, but found it closed for renovation. The lunch hour was fast ending by then, and we had work to go back to, so we chose the nearest restaurant we laid eyes on. It so happened that Flapjacks, then newly-opened, was beside Cyma, so it was the natural choice.

But I must say Flapjacks' existence at Greenbelt 2 is unnatural, to say the least. It is nothing more than a flimsy diner, with nothing spectacular to offer. I thought it could be an alternative to the venerable Pancake House, but our lunch there was such a disappointment that I am never going back.

First off, almost all of the dishes we ordered seemed to have come from a can, which were just plated, heated in a microwave oven and served. We had a three-piece stack of flapjacks in double blueberry (Php245), a grilled chicken fajita omelette (Php275), tuna casserole (Php295), and chicken noodle soup (Php155), beef stew (Php295), and a house salad (Php245).

Looking back now it galls me to think we paid about Php1,700, inclusive of service charge, or roughly Php425 per person, for canned goods. That tuna casserole, particularly, was unbelievable - it was just a can of tuna chunks topped with cream and a slice of Monterey Jack. For its price I could have bought two loaves of good bread, a bottle of dressing, a bunch of basil leaves and some chopped pickles, and four cans of solid tuna, not just chunks, and I could have fed eight people great, filling sandwiches.

The omelette was shabby, the beef stew so-so, and the house salad stingy. Looked and tasted like only the flapjacks were made from scratch and cooked in the premises. But that does not in any way justify eating at Flapjacks, because the pancakes were tasteless I could swear they were made of just flour and water. We ordered the double blueberry, which should have been blueberries folded in the pancakes and blueberry topping. We were served plain pancakes with only bueberry topping.

And that blueberry topping was another matter. It was bland, too. It tasted neither of blueberry nor of syrup. It tasted...nothing. I'd prefer my own pancakes at home, made from a mix in a packet. Anytime.


This is half of the chicken noodle soup, and it looked like it came from a can in a brand I would not come near to. My children's nanny can make a better chicken soup, eyes closed.

And it did not help that our server insisted that we were served two orders of soup, after we got our bill and complained that we were overbilled, for two orders of soup. We had asked for two orders of soup, both orders split as there were four of us. A bowl of soup arrived, and we courteously reminded the server that we asked for it split. It was taken back to the kitchen, then came back after thirty minutes to our table in two smaller bowls.

The other two bowls never came, and we were not inclined to remind the server because after we've tasted the soup we felt we couldn't even finish the one order we had because it was so bland. But the server insisted we were served two orders, pointing out that there were two soup bowls on our table.

She was young, and I couldn't believe she was suffering from memory gap. The least she could have done was to check with the kitchen. Which she did when we were beginning to raise our voices. She came back to our table with the corrected bill, but not a single word of apology.

That's the kind of service offered at Flapjacks. What's more, the servers, all of them, were always hovering near our table, waiting to snatch a plate as soon as it was half-empty (which is still half-full to me), that I had concluded they must have very few plates to serve customers that they should be washed as soon as possible.

I can't recall how many times I had to wrestle a half-full plate from the grip of a server, or hold on to a plate of food to keep it on the table, or even to stuff myself hurriedly with its contents so that it would be empty when the server brandished it away. The restaurant wasn't even half-filled during our meal there. I dread to think how many plates it had.

The owners should have invested on plates when they decided to open a restaurant. Or maybe the servers had broken all but a few of them so this was their modus operandi.

Patang ed Bulong na Palya

[Sauteed frogs with ampalaya leaves]

We're officially now in the peak of the rainy season, and I'm imagining the ricefields in my province lush with thick, green rice stalks waving in the wind. The waterways are overflowing and pregnant with life. And the air smells of moist earth and young growth.

I delight in thinking that boys of all ages will be standing by the roadside or along the banks of creeks and ponds, sacks at their feet and poles on their hands, waiting for a tug at the worms attached to the end of the thin, plastic cords hanging half-submerged in muddy water.

Just half a day would yield a sackful of, not fish, but live, slimy frogs, eyes bulging and ready to jump away. These boys would also take care of the skinning and dressing, and probably down to the cooking for dinner of these creatures of the earth that wake when the soil is logged enough with rain.

If there is more than enough, the skinned frogs would be skewered on thin bamboo sticks and brought to the public market to be sold to those who do not have the skills for catching frogs.

My father once taught me that to look for frogs you have to turn over stones and logs and big rocks and tempt them with baited worms. We did not have ponds and creeks and ricefields where my paternal grandparents' house was located, and we usually sourced our frogs from the market. The scene of boys along the roads catching frogs is only a recent memory from trips to my husband's family home.

Which goes to say we still have frogs, but not as many as during the previous generation's time, when pesticides were not sprayed on the fields and so allowed the continuous existence of the creatures of the soil. And they are now expensive when bought, the price more than, say, bangus (milkfish), or galunggong (round scad).

I heard that in the past, plenty of frogs could be caught in the fields when the rice has been planted, when the water was knee-deep. Dakomo (mud crabs), too, and bisukol (snails), and dalag (mud fish), gourami, and even the native tilapia and pantat (catfish).


I saw these dressed frogs, heaped with cracked ice, at the seafood market and palutuan by the Boardwalk at the back of Mall of Asia, and bought half a kilo (Php150, US$3), with the thought of being one with those in Pangasinan, offering a toast with a bowl of sauteed frogs in ampalaya leaves.

When I was a child, frogs were cooked in our house adobo style (stewed with soy sauce, vinegar, garlic and peppercorns), fried, or sauteed with tomatoes. Then my children's nannies told me the most common way of cooking frogs in the barrios is sauteed with ampalaya leaves, and I wanted to try it.

I thought the frogs will just be sauteed, and the resulting dish is dry. It turns out the dish is in soup form. The frogs were sauteed with ginger, garlic and onions, and the young leaves of ampalaya and sili haba (mild jalapeno peppers). Water is added and allowed to boil until the frog meat was tender.

I was a bit taken aback. Frogs are exotic enough, even if they belonged to my childhood foodscape. Eating them in broth was a bit too much. But I couldn't back out, and the last time I had eaten frogs was three years ago.

The soup had bitter notes from the ampalaya leaves and a bit of heat from the peppers, but otherwise tasteless. I could understand the use of these ingredients - to cut the lansa (fishy taste) of the frogs. The frog meat was hearty enough for me, but the nannies are frog connoisseurs, and they found them bland. I said it was probably due to the fact that we put the frogs in the freezer for a few days before cooking them.

I know for a fact that anything native loses flavor from freezing. That's why native chicken is cooked right after slaughtering it. And why the frogs were sold cooled with ice, not frozen.

But the nannies said the frogs were bigger than what they usually had from the fields and canals in Pangasinan, so maybe they were of the cultured kind, or were of another variety. So we concluded this kind would be more suited to the dry adobo kind, or to frying. I have to buy again. But I hope we get to go home soon.

Related Post
Curried Frogs

Other Rainy Season Exotica
Crabs
Snails

Wild Ginger

[Pad Thai, Php185]

Ever since I transfered residence to Cavite I haven't had the opportunity to re-visit my old haunts near where I used to live. So when one of my several eating groups feels like eating out, I don't hesitate to suggest the Power Plant at Rockwell, for sentimental reasons as well as curiosity as to how the area has changed since I've gone.

We entertained friends from Cebu a few weeks ago, and it was to my advantage that the visitors requested to meet at Rockwell. But there was nothing new. The restaurant level at the basement actually looks like any other eating sites in any mall now, with restaurants that can be found in any other mall, except for just a couple, maybe.

One of the new and an unfamiliar one is Wild Ginger, which, I was sad to note, had replaced a favorite comfort food source, Long Grain. Long Grain had specialized in Asian familiar dishes, including Filipino, and offered several kinds of rice varieties. It was one of just a few restaurant chains in Power Plant that didn't already have an outlet in Cebu, so we tried it.

When we sat down and were handed the menu, I was surprised to be perusing Long Grain's menu. It turns out, it is Long Grain, refurbished and remodeled to sport a new look.


The interiors and furniture are all in teak, with matching ceiling fan, to recreate an era when the Europeans were searching the world for spices. The valuable wild ginger was found to be abundant and in much use in the cuisines of Southeast Asia, and that's where the menu focuses on.

I have personal favorites from Long Grain's menu, which thankfully were retained by Wild Ginger (much of it were). Like the adobo with a bowl of munggo and malunggay (chicken stewed in vinegar and soy sauce, and mung beans stew with moringa olefeira leaves). And the roti with curry dip, accompanied by tofu salad.

But this is what we ordered during my recent lunch there. First, a plate of the best Pad Thai I have ever tasted outside of Thailand. It closely approximates that Pad Thai I had with my friends in the streets of Bangkok close to a decade ago, cooked to order and eaten steaming hot.

Wild Ginger's Pad Thai is generous with chicken and seafood, nutty and rich with ground peanuts and scrambled eggs, and full of contrasting flavors provided by bits of lemongrass, cilantro, bean sprouts and a dash of dayap juice. I am never going to order any other pad thai anywhere else in the country again.

[Vegetable Samosas, Php40 each]

Very, very hot samosas, though the tamarind chutney cuts through the heat and grease. I've had better, but these are cheaper, and satisfy.

[Vietnamese Seafood Salad, Php180]

Limp salad greens, slices of red bell pepper, a few strands of vermicelli, and some seared seafood, with a kalamansi-based dressing. It was too tart, though it sort of acted as palate cleanser in between the rich and hot dishes.

[Thai Green Chicken Curry, Php225]

This curry was too watery - the sauce wasn't sufficiently thick and creamy, though it was flavorful enough with the mild green curry and sweet basil, and had lots of chicken slices.

[Beef Rendang, Php245]

This is a saucy rendang, very hot with several chopped siling labuyo (finger chilis). The sauce was "rough" with the blended spices. It is a "rice intensive" (you eat tons of rice with it) dish.

[Gula Melaka, Php65]

Gula melaka means palm sugar, but also refers to a popular Asian dessert (not in the Philippines) of sago (palm pith pearls) with gata (coconut cream) sweetened by palm sugar, served cold. I don't get excited by it, because we Filipinos have several desserts using sago and gata, but with many other things besides, so are multi-textural and provides a variety of flavors.

[Stikky Toffee Pudding, Php115]

The menu states that this is a popular British dessert as yet undiscovered in Asia - pudding in caramel sauce and whipped cream. It was pretty - the bread pudding was sweetened with molasses, or maybe muscovado, served warm. It was a bit dry to be a real pudding, but the sauce and cream provided all the moistness it needed. It was delicious, and a great way to end an Asian meal.

Other desserts with sago
Kiniler
Halo-Halo

Ginataang Mais

[Corn and Glutinous Rice in Coconut Cream]

The World Breastfeeding Week 2008 is observed this year on the first week of August, and I could not let it slip by without a post about it.

I breastfed my first two kids, and I am currently breastfeeding my third. It had been, and is, my wish to breastfeed my children for as long as they wanted, which has led me to research on how to continue breastfeeding when our prescribed two-month maternity leave from work has lapsed, and I had to go back to the office.

I never had any problem with the volume of milk I produced during my leave, but apparently it is a different thing when the baby is not with the mother 24 hours a day. I wanted to provide 100% of my infant daughter's daily milk intake even when I am at the office, so I went on a quest to make myself keep up with her growing needs.

There are traditional foods in the Philippines that have been proven to help increase breastmilk production, as there are elsewhere. And I just recently discovered that there is a specific term for this type of food - galactagogues.

I found that in other countries, fenugreek, fennel, alfalfa, nettle, marshmallow (!), raw dill seed and blessed thistle are traditional galactagogues. I found a tea, Traditional Medicinals' Organic Mother's Milk Tea at the Healthy Options outlet at the Mall of Asia, that contains a combination of some of these, but generally speaking, most of these galactagogues are not available in the Philippines (except for the marshmallow, if it is the for-kids marshmallow that I know).

There is a warning, though, that these galactagogues are herbs and may induce unwanted side effects. I found that drinking the tea was not effective in my case, anyway. So I turned back to the Philippine traditional galactagogues, which are common food items incorporated in a lot of dishes eaten by all Filipinos, breastfeeding or not.

The most common is malunggay, the leaves of the moringa oleifera tree, which are added to soups and bean stews. Malunggay has been proven to be a very nutritious vegetable, aside from its benefits as a galactagogue, that it is also sold in capsule form. Shells cooked in gingered broth are also good for breastfeeding mothers, as well as any other soup.

My discovery, though, is gata (coconut cream). Nobody ever told me that gata greatly increases production volume, but I noticed that every time I ate anything cooked with coconut cream, the increase is significant, even when the dish is not "soupy," like latik.

So gata features a lot in my diet lately. And so the featured dish for today uses gata. Ginataang mais is a comfort food so perfect for the rainy season - it is a creamy porridge interspersed with the sweet crunch of corn kernels and made aromatic by the addition of pandan leaves.

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Ginataang Mais

coconut milk from one large mature coconut (1st and 2nd squeezing, separated)
1 cup glutinous rice, washed
kernels from 2 yellow corn cobs
sugar, to taste
a bunch of pandan leaves, washed and knotted

Put in a pan the gata (2nd squeeze, about 4 cups), glutinous rice, pandan leaves and about half a cup of sugar. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Keep aside boiling water to add to the porridge when it gets too dry. When the rice and corn have cooked (about 15-20 minutes, depending on the kind of glutinous rice used), pour in the kakang-gata (1st squeezed coconut milk, about 2 cups), lowering the heat and again stirring constantly, cooking for about five minutes more. Taste and adjust sweetness by adding more sugar or water, as needed. Can be served hot or cold.

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I find it so ironic that there is such a movement encouraging breastfeeding infants, because for me it is a natural course, and should be observed without any thought as to alternatives.

The presence of such alternatives, which in the Philipphines is touted to increase infant brain development, does a lot in making mothers - especially the uneducated - think that alternatives are better.

I just love this television ad currently playing in local channels, which shows a picture of a sow with half a dozen or so piglets at its teats, and a female voice-over states "Ang gatas ng baboy ay para sa mga biik" (a sow's milk is for piglets).

Then a picture of a goat with a kid nuzzling its teat is flashed, and the voice-over says "Ang gatas ng kambing ay para sa batang kambing" or something to that effect (a goat's milk is for its kid).

Then a cow, all by its lonesome, stares at the camera straight to the viewer, and the voice-over asks, "Eh ang gatas ng baka, para sa anak mo?" (but, cow's milk is for your child?).

~ ~ ~

Posts on Galactagogues

Sabaw (Soup)
Tinola (chicken soup with malunggay)
Manok tan Labong (chicken with bamboo shoots)

Vegetable
Kamansi

Shells
Seashells in Soup
Tahong-Halaan Tinola (mussels and clams in soup)

Kakanin (Traditional Rice Dishes)
Kiniler/Ginataang Halo-halo (bananas, rice balls and root crops in coconut cream)
Pinipig sa Gata (green young rice in coconut cream)
Suman sa Gata (rice roll)
Masikoy (flattened rice balls in coconut cream and toasted sesame seeds)
Inlubi, recipe here (toasted/smoked young rice pudding)
Inlubi with Toge
Baked Buchi (baked bean-filled rice balls in coconut cream)
Latik (rice with caramelized coconut cream topping)

More dishes incorporating coconuts in a Lasang Pinoy blogging event I hosted last February, entitled Loco Over Coco.

Danggit-Longganiza Pasta

Just a quick pasta for a harried party. There are exactly six babies in my neighborhood born less than a month apart from one another, starting late last year. My own infant daughter's birth was penultimate of the lot, with the eldest baby turning one year this month. So it's a merry neighborhood, with six growing infants, and six monthly birthdays celebrated every month.

We usually just have cake, and some nibbles, reserving the big party for the milestone year. But sometimes we (meaning the mothers) find ourselves on an extravagant mood, and suddenly there are impromptou dinners under the moonlight and with flickering reflections of many multi-colored hurricane lamps.

I found myself in such a collective mood last weekend, with three consecutive dinners in a row. My daughter's birth day falls towards the end of the month, so I am usually last at my turn at hosting. Since it was on a weekend, and it was all rather unplanned, I was caught off guard - I do my groceries in Metro Manila, where the choices are aplenty (my neighborhood commissary is commonly lacking in party food items), and I didn't want to make the trip from Cavite.

So I scavenged whatever had been stored in the cupboards, and came up with this combination as the main dish. It was actually perfect, because I am posting this to join Dhanggit's perfect party dishes event, over at Dhanggit's Kitchen, in celebration of her daughter turning a year old (happy birthday, Mayumi! Such a nice and very Filipino name!)

It is perfect, not because it's a perfect dish, but only because it uses danggit, the favorite dried fish of the South - thin, boneless and butterflied rabbitfish, salted and sun-dried - which I assume to be the inspiration for our host's pseudo name.

The chorizo is also distinctively Southern - Cebuano to be specific. This pairing was actually a revelation. I had long been making pasta sauces using tuyo (dried salted herring), usually as a substitute for anchovies, like in puttanesca, or pesto. I've never used longganiza (the local term for chorizo, or garlic-cured pork sausages) before, though, and I'm glad it was on hand.

The danggit-chorizo tomato-based sauce was chunky and sour-sweet with my use of fresh tomatoes, aromatic with herbs and garlic, and rich with the meat and fish. The saltiness of the danggit cut through the richness, and provided moments upon moments in which to mumble mmm...?, and then mmmmmm!

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I boiled two kilos of fresh tomatoes until the skin wrinkled, then put them under running water until cool. They were skinned and sliced, the seeds removed. Then I heated some olive oil, sauteed finely pounded garlic (two cloves), a big onion finely sliced, two red bell peppers chopped, and the tomatoes.

While all these were sweating out in the oil, I put about a kilo of thinly sliced longganiza (casing and knots removed) in a pan with a little water and turned up the heat. I turned them over while the water was allowed to dry up, then the heat was turned down to medium.

While waiting for the sausages to render fat, I turned back to the sauce, sprinkled some herbs (I used an Italian blend) and poured about two liters of boiling water and put the lid on. When the sausages had crusted a little I transferred them with a slotted ladle to the sauce and let it simmer. Then I tore the flesh of some five big pieces of danggit into tiny pieces and fried them up into crisps in the sausage fat, draining them on paper towels afterward.

The sauce was poured over a kilo of previously boiled and drained pasta, then topped with the danggit, some diced kasilyo (optional), five pieces siling labuyo sliced thickly, and everything tossed over. The kasilyo melted a bit (stretched) in the heat.

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Note: I know it is a tall order for Dhanggit to procure danggit and chorizo in Southern France, where she currently lives. This post is as much for sentimental reasons as also a tribute to her Filipino heritage, which I hope she passes on to her French-born daughter.

But the Filipino ingredients in this dish can be substituted with anchovies, any type of sausage, fresh mozzarella, and dried chili flakes (or hot chili pepper sauce). And oh, I would have loved this with torn fresh basil leaves, but they were not available in my part of the globe.

Longganiza and danggit, fried, are common breakfast items in the Philippines, paired with slices of fresh tomatoes, and eaten with rice. It is usually one or the other and eggs, though both can be had at the same time when you are feeling festive, or have some guests in the house.

Danggit-longganiza pasta is like a deconstruction of this Filipino breakfast, or maybe a re-construction - minus the eggs (although sliced itlog na maalat or salted duck eggs can also be added for saltier flavor - notice I didn't add any salt to the sauce), the pasta in lieu of rice.