Kipil

I go to the market every weekend, stocking up on fish and vegetables for the next seven days as I work during weekdays. I buy what is in season and what is abundant during my market days. Sometimes a variety of fish overflows all the bins that it sells so cheap, and I am prevailed upon to bring home kilos of it. This is why my husband buys me large two-door refrigerators with huge freezers (we've moved residence from one city to another a total of four times ever since we got married, leaving each ref each time to buy a new one).   

When a fish is  at a particularly give-away price and my suki fishmonger tells me to buy two kilos, I roll my eyes and ask what will I do with all those fish shivering rock-hard in my freezer? And each time, I extricate a precious nugget of information on the stand-bys of local cooking.

One that's repeated itself is this - buy kipil, and make pangat. I've had this advice for those pretty in pink dalagang-bukid, and for small round scad, allegedly the "real" galunggong, called galunggong lalaki in Cavite City.

And what is kipil? It is pronounced maragsa, accent on the second syllable. I've only seen kipil in Cavite City and nowhere else, but I'm sure every Filipino and most Southeast Asians are familiar with it. For it is not known by that name, and is not used like this.

For kipil is the flesh of peeled ripe tamarind, or sampalok, lumped into a stony, sticky, gooey bronze mound that survives in open air throughout the year. This is the same ripe fruit made into those stony rolls of sweetened tamarind sporting cubed crystals of salt. Green, unripe tamarind is also sold when in season, but for sinigang. The kipil is more common, and is for pangat.

When I was new in Cavite City I was curious, but wasn't baffled, thinking Tagalogs like slightly sweetened dishes, having tasted their nilaga with corn or saba, or adobo with caramelized sugar. I was thinking, of course, about those sweet tamarind rolls.

Two fish vendors had two methods of using kipil - the one selling dalagang-bukid said to wash the handful of kipil, and top it on fish boiling in water seasoned with soy sauce, onions and peppercorns. The galunggong vendor instructed me to manually dissolve the kipil in a pot of water and strain it into the fish, adding the soy sauce, onions and peppercorns and boiling like in adobo.

I am a Pangasinense, so I had to add a thumb of ginger peeled and diced, like we do with all dishes we cook. I tried both methods, and found that the dalagang-bukid version is tailored for that delicate fish. 

I prefer the galunggong way, though, as it imbues the fish, and the sauce, with the sourness of the tamarind that wakes up that collective national liking for tart dishes. But both kinds of fish do not lend very well to long cooking, disintegrating into spiny bones.

So I went out of my way and tried kipil with tulingan, which is ever-present in the public market at stable prices. Tulingan, after all, is famous in that Batanguena dish that stews seven hours in a pangat using dried kamias. Its firm flesh and thick bones are ideal for long stewing, absorbing flavors like sponge.

So I am now partly indoctrinated into Cavite cooking, but like most cuisines, my kipil dish is an inter-marriage of regional methods and ingredients. What I can't get over, though, is the intense sourness of the kipil. I grew up eating sweetened sampalok, after all, and I am psyched to expect that if it is dyed bronze it must be sweet. So while I was stewing the kipil and found it to be not a tad sweet I had to add a spoonful of sugar. It didn't really turn out to be a sweetened pangat, but it cut the sourness somewhat. And I found that I can be a Tagalog, too. 

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Back to School

School has just opened for my kids today, and I am still suffering from birthing pains. I get nightmares even during midday naps so I have no choice but to acknowledge that I am in a panic. 

The kids were more excited than usual, though. It usually takes an ambulance siren inside the house to wake them up at 6AM, and I have to nag every second for them to start moving, but this morning the alarm went off at 5AM, and they were off to take a bath - without hot water, miraculously - while I vainly tried to go back to sleep. Even the youngest was ready to go 30 minutes before the transport service arrived.

I still have 20 pieces of long folders to cover tonight - because the pre-covered ones cost ten pesos more than the do-it-yourself - and I still have to check that all the school stuff and boxed toiletries  that have to be brought to school tomorrow for the three of them are complete according to the list the school gave out. My elder daughter has no uniform to wear as she has outgrown every piece she has and I couldn't find someone who could finish all three sets in time for today. And oh yes, I have to adjust the hook in my younger daughter's skirt, as well, as she has grown a bit, too. 

In short, I am so abashedly unprepared, so caught up was I in enjoying the freedom of not having to rush home every evening to supervise homework and reviews, that I forgot days zip by with the speed of light.  We haven't yet gone to all the museums the kids wanted to visit. And we haven't taken that 10-hour train ride to Bicol. 

And now we're here, and in the excitement of the moment I neglected to check my cellphone this morning and so I failed to see the announcement that preschoolers need not go to school today. The kid had been picked up, and I was already on my way to the office when I knew, so I just called home to say that she should be home anytime. 

After two hours she has not come home yet, and I felt like I was having an asthma attack when I couldn't get in touch with anybody at home and in school. It just so happened that I just changed my cellphone and I kept getting a wrong number when I had been dialing the correct ones. When I had figured out what I was doing wrong it turned out that a  few mothers didn't get the announcement in time either, and so the kids were allowed to socialize and play in the classroom for a couple of hours before being sent home. 

So all ends well, and I hope everything goes right tomorrow. By the rate this day went by I am going to need the Independence Day holiday on Wednesday to recuperate and locate my bearings. I am bringing home these cute pastries from Bread Talk - Mr. Beans, filled with sweetened mashed red beans, and JJ Baby, filled to the ears with chocolate - for the kids' baon, but more to bring me a little comfort and some spirit of positive thinking. I hope I can smile like they do, soon.

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We have vegetables most meals. But for breakfast it kind of doesn't fit, like it's too serious so early in the day. Though I know it doesn't have to be, and it's just psychological. 

But we do have fresh fruit, first thing in the morning, so our empty stomachs get to absorb most of the beneficial natural vitamins. And because tomatoes are supposedly fruits, they usually accompany  rice breakfasts. The sour-sweet juiciness greatly complements smoked and other deli meats, and pairs perfectly with fried marinated fish, or smoked or salted and dried,  that are normal Filipino breakfast fare. 

Tomatoes pair even better with vinegar stews adobo and paksiw. Their mild sweetness plays with the intense sourness (plus saltiness in case of the adobo) of the dishes, and provide a layer of flavor that teases the palate. 

We usually just slice fresh tomatoes and mix them with bagoong alamang, or salt if that's not available, in a salad. If there's salted duck eggs that's sliced and mixed in, too, but in place of the bagoong or salt. But they say that unlike other fruits, tomatoes are much more beneficial cooked than fresh. And one simple step takes the tomatoes to another level, at the same time maximizing their potential. 

There's nothing simpler than sauteing tomatoes. It's the first thing I learned how to cook. It's just peeling garlic and crushing them to release flavor, then putting them in hot oil to stir fry. Then slice onions and mix them in. I slice the tomatoes and separate the seeds, but other people like the seeds, so it's optional. The tomatoes are stir-fried along with the garlic and onions, then seasoned with salt and pepper. Cooking time depends on how you like the tomatoes - whole, wilted, melting or disintegrated - taking from a minute to ten. 

This is already good to eat, but to make the dish richer beaten eggs are added in and incorporated. Now this can go two ways. Either just an egg or two is mixed in, just to enrich, the tomatoes retaining dominance in taste and visuals. Or add four or more to make an omelet. For the latter the sauteed tomatoes is mixed into  beaten eggs before it is poured in a frying pan and allowed to set, or stirred around to get large soft curds. 

Adding other ingredients to this egg-tomato dish can take it along many different directions. Herbs, perhaps, or leeks, or green leafy vegetables like pechay or cabbage. Maybe even sardines. For us, though, in Pangasinan, we add a thumb of ginger peeled and sliced thinly, which goes into the frying pan before the garlic. It brings a  bit of heat, and spice, and a sort of comforting angle to the dish. For you see, it evokes home-cooking, that which was made by lolas and mamas and yayas who evoke the nurturing zone of childhood.

So I never forget to buy tomatoes during my weekly market jaunts all through out the year, that I have a line graph of its price per kilo year-round here in my head. It's at rock-bottom now, so I've been buying more than we need for a week, which we saute and freeze for the time when the price escalates, which is when the typhoons hit. 

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Chili Flakes Kimchi

Koreans arrived in droves during the last quarter of the previous century, and many shops catering to them sprouted, first in Metro Manila, then radiating out towards the cities in nearby provinces, then to the cities down south that served as entrypoints to tourist destinations, particularly in Cebu where there is a direct flight connecting the two countries. 

So we were introduced to Korean culture. And even before the burgeoning of the restaurant scene by the 1990s, Korean restaurants have already been part of city landscapes. I remember Korean Village in Ermita (haven't been there recently, don't know if it still exists, or even if Ermita itself still exists), and the adjacent old houses turned into restaurants along Burgos in Makati. I remember in particular one restaurant along Kalayaan Avenue in Makati, which I never ventured in, but was pointed out to me as serving boiled dog in soup. As if I'd be interested.

It took less than a decade for Korean stuff to be assimilated into the Pinoy consciousness. This length of time is a blink compared to the time it took for us to assimilate things Chinese, with whom we have been dealing with for more than a thousand years.

The level of assimilation of Korean versus Chinese isn't on the same level, however, at least in as far as food is concerned. For most of the Chinese traders who reached our shores were Cantonese, who have fairly benign cuisine. As Korean food is liberal in the use of spicy heat, its robust integration into the ordinary day-to-day meals of Pinoys is limited. Filipino food is not pervasively hot, and our use of spice is relegated to a few dishes, and only to cut richness, or remove lansa from raw seafood.

Me, I have no problem with spice and heat. So I embraced the cuisine with the same enthusiasm as I give to anything new. I sometimes even prefer it over Chinese, as it comes across as simpler, with a "cleaner" taste, just like Japanese food. And because much of it involves fermented "sides," which is probiotically-rich, I have welcomed it into my home as well.

I started with introducing the cuisine to my family. A Korean restaurant was where the hubby and I first dated, actually. Then I regularly bought kimchi for eating with grilled bangus, other seafood and meats at home.  My elder daughter was enamored of it, and consumed pouches and pouches of the stuff.

I had been content with buying pre-made kimchi, for I thought to let the experts keep their trade. But when I read over David Lebovitz' kimchi recipe and discovered how easy it was to do, and how cheap it would be to make your own considering the amount of the fermented vegetables we consume, I took matters into my own hands.

So kimchi has been the flavor of the house this year. David had trouble hunting for Korean chili powder in Paris - I didn't bother, though I'm sure it is available in most supermarkets. I have this big, big jar of dried chili flakes that has been occupying valuable space in my refrigerator for a long time, so I thought to turn into something more productive.

The chili flakes had a second life, and didn't in any way differentiate my kimchi from the kimchi made with legitimate chili. And I got to know that the Chinese pechay that has long been a part of Pinoy meals is called napa cabbage.

I like to use the small, green ones that are about half the size of the regular, so the leaves are not so long. Making kimchi is just a matter of peeling, slicing, steeping in a salt solution, mixing everything together, and letting it ferment. The fermentation can be as short as a day, two to three days at the most. Storage is advised to be two weeks in the refrigerator, but I make big batches and keep them by the back wall of the ref to keep them from fermenting too much.

The benefits? Besides the practical side, I get to have a say in the salt content and the heat level. I can have more of the radish and the ginger, too, if I choose. And we can have kimchi anytime. And I redeem myself in the eyes of the kids, for I have made it a rule that processed food should be consumed very rarely, if at all. Since the kimchi I used to buy came in a pouch it appeared processed to them. Now they are proud that we make our own. What's more, it is an excellent alternative, sweat-inducing side to adobo.

Please find the recipe here. Mine replaces the Korean chili pepper paste and Korean chili powder with dried chili flakes of roughly half the aggregate amount, but feel free to use more.   

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