bucaio: bahay kubo

Showing posts with label bahay kubo. Show all posts

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Black Summer

"goma" sundae

The proliferation of Korean and Japanese restaurants and food outlets in metropolitan cities is affording us a glimpse into the food culture of our Asian neighbors. One that I couldn't fail to notice - much because it is not common in the Philippines - is the use of black sesame.

I only know of one Filipino dish that uses linga, and that is palitaw, boiled sticky discs of ground glutinous rice flour eaten sprinkled with grated coconut meat, sugar and white or toasted sesame seeds. But the use of linga is not an absolute - not all the palitaw I've eaten around the country boasts of sesame seed topping.

In Pangasinan, for example, we don't use it, but there is a variant made by my in-laws that submerges the dough discs in a viscous sauce aromatic with toasted linga and does away with the dry toppings, called masikoy. But the sesame seeds used are white, toasted in a hot pan to bring out the nuttiness and for color. For a while I thought all sesame seeds were white, and the brown and black ones were only according to toasting preferences.

I'm curious, though, because the children's folk song Bahay Kubo speaks of sesame plants flourishing all around a countryside backyard, and yet indigenous Filipino cuisine doesn't seem to have much use for it. Of course now sesame is in much use, the seeds as topping for burger buns, and as coating for buchi. I liberally use sesame seed oil as flavoring for noodles and vegetables. And in Asian restaurants we have battered fried meats and stews sprinkled with sesame seeds. But all these are rooted in cuisines outside our country.

black sesame milk tea

This summer was explosive with black sesame seeds. The nuttiness was ground and made into a tar-like paste to top the goma sundae at Pepper Lunch, while a sprinkling of white sesame seeds ensured that the flavor is unescapable. It is heavenly, akin to eating cold, melting palitaw that does not sink as a rock in the gut.

I don't like Serenitea milk teas that much, but the selection is so varied that I go there intermittently to taste-test. The black sesame milk tea caught my eye, and tongue. With a choice of roasted tea or assam as the base tea, it can be had hot or cold. I prefer the cold version, of course, in this heat. The black sesame is not even a flavored syrup, but real seeds that have been ground to a coarse powder so the drink comes out gritty. It is similar to the goma sundae, in melted form, and drinking it is like drinking a liquid palitaw.

Outlets of the Korean bakery Tous Le Jours sprouted like mushrooms all over the metropolis, enlightening Pinoys to French goodies with a Korean/Asian touch. It is like a trendier, and more expensive, version of pioneer Bread Talk, without the floss.

Several pastries sport black sesame seeds atop, like a crown of sparse cropped hair, but remarkable is one of their bestsellers, sweet black rice bread with black sesame cream cheese. An immaculate bun gets an ebony spray, and cradles inside a generous filling of cream cheese pocked with the seeds that shatter with crunch and nuttiness with every bite.

It's like palitaw and siopao and cheesecake all in one.

At katsu Japanese specialty restaurant Yabu the condiment tray adorning every table invites diners to season and spice the otherwise insipid battered fried meats and seafood. But served with the entrees is a small bowl with notched interiors for grinding the spoonful of keyboard-hued sesame seeds. Grind to preference, then ladle in the gooey, dark-brown dipping sauce that's reminiscent of worcestershire and teriyaki.

The sesame salad dressing with black sesame seeds peeking out is slurpable, and is excellent both with the katsu and the unlimited shredded cabbage. I've found a similar salad dressing at the supermarket under the Kewpie brand, and it is just as good, and maybe even better, since I can have it at home to douse on whatever I fancy.

Among all the sweets mentioned in this post, the Mochi Sweets' black sesame mochi is the closest in taste and texture to palitaw. For of course both are made with ground rice dough so they have the sticky, chewy feel. But least of all is the black sesame taste tasted here, for it seems the filling is extended with black beans or dyed sweet potato. Which is unfair, considering the price of this small treat.

Palitaw

Masikoy

Unda-Unday

Bahay Kubo

Bahay kubo, kahit munti
Ang halaman doon ay sari-sari
Singkamas at talong, sigarillas at mani
Sitaw, bataw, patani

Kundol, patola, upo’t kalabasa
At saka meron pa, labanos, mustasa
Sibuyas, kamatis, bawang at luya
Sa paligid-ligid ay puno ng linga

Roughly translated as:

Bahay Kubo
(Filipino folk song)

Nipa hut, even though small
the plants surrounding it are varied and many
turnips and eggplants, winged beans and peanuts
yard-long beans, hyacinth beans, lima beans

wax gourd, sponge gourd, bottle gourd, squash
and there’s more, radish, mustard
onions, tomatoes, garlic and ginger
the surrounding spaces filled with sesame

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Lugadang Dilis

Lugada is an authentic Caviteno dish that involves sauteeing seafood with greens. It's usually a showcase dish for sting ray, but I learned recently that it is also good with dilis, or anchovies.

And because I had access to fresh dilis, and because I didn't know how to clean and cook sting rays (though I don't lack instruction - vendors at the market assure me they would clean and chop the ray so it's ready for cooking), I took the opportunity to make lugadang dilis.

Lugada rhymes with regada, the water festival celebrated around the Feast of St. John in Cavite City. So it was even more appropriate that we had lugada.

Lugadang dilis, more or less, is sauteeing in a little oil crushed garlic, sliced onions, ginger and tomatoes, then putting in the washed and cleaned fresh anchovies and a little miso after everything has wilted. Then mix sliced mustard greens and native pechay, which will leach out water that would cook all the ingredients.

That's basically it, but a fishmonger's version includes diced salted duck eggs (itlog na maalat)and fresh Cavite carabao's milk cheese (kasilyo), so I included them as well.

It's important to behead the dilis to be able to conveniently enjoy this dish. I actually had qualms about cooking dilis this way because of the tinik - a bane for mothers. But as long as the anchovies are beheaded and the main spines pulled out, this dish is spot on. The process could be cumbersome, but fresh anchovies can be bought already cleaned at the Cavite wet market.

What defines this dish is the mustasa. Ordinarily, mustard greens can be very peppery for comfort - the bite is overpowering for children and even for adults. But mixed with pechay, the bite is diluted and is reduced to an accent, but still very much present. With the umami aspect of anchovies and the salty-creamy notes of the egg and the cheese, this is a multi-dimensional, sophisticated dish inspite of the ordinary and common ingredients.

Mustasa is also made into buro in Cavite, preserved in brine. This tempers the peppery trait of the vegetable, and is eaten as a side, perhaps with the function of a pickle. It is washed before cooking, and is also sauteed sliced with garlic, ginger, and tomatoes.

Related Posts
Isdang Cavite
Isdang Cavite: Puti at De Kolor
Bibingkoy
Alakaak
Kasilyo

Bahay Kubo

Bahay kubo, kahit munti
Ang halaman doon ay sari-sari
Singkamas at talong, sigarillas at mani
Sitaw, bataw, patani

Kundol, patola, upo’t kalabasa
At saka meron pa, labanos, mustasa
Sibuyas, kamatis, bawang at luya
Sa paligid-ligid ay puno ng linga

Roughly translated as:

Bahay Kubo
(Filipino folk song)

Nipa hut, even though small
the plants surrounding it are varied and many
turnips and eggplants, winged beans and peanuts
yard-long beans, hyacinth beans, lima beans

wax gourd, sponge gourd, bottle gourd, squash
and there’s more, radish, mustard
onions, tomatoes, garlic and ginger
the surrounding spaces filled with sesame

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Patani

These fresh beans have been lately appearing in the spread of my suki vegetable vendors, both in Cavite and at the Guadalupe "peripheral" market (along the busy alleys where Ilocanos and Batanguenos sell, and not inside the sprawling official market building). I sometimes come across them still in their pods, and I buy them freshly shelled.

But at other times they come already packed in small plastic bags at Php10 each, or a mound of them are waiting for me to scoop a handful. The quality of the pre-shucked beans are not inferior to the freshly shelled ones, based on my experience. I don’t always cook them the day I buy them, anyway, storing them first in the refrigerator, so it doesn’t matter.

Ironically, it is only now that I am regularly eating patani. I never had them at home growing up. I don’t see them at the public markets I frequent in Pangasinan, either. The first time I ate patani was in an inabraw in Laoag, up in Ilocos Norte, at the onset of my adulthood. Which was just right since these beans are associated with Ilocanos. And now I understand Tagalogs eat them, too.

That first time, I don’t remember which vegetables were put in the stew. There was a humongous kaserola of it, to nourish a group of us, among other things, while enjoying the white beach of Pagudpud. What I do remember was that the entire dish was full of rough, brownish things. But I ate a bowlful of it, as eating vegetables was indelibly ingrained in my meal-time acquired behavior.

Patani are large relative to the dried beans I am most acquainted with – monggo, black beans, kidney beans, agayep (sitaw). But the texture of the inner flesh is very smooth, almost buttery, like finely mashed kamote. The kids deem the skins inedible so they discard them.

It’s just unfortunate that the beans boil to a nondescript brown color and don’t retain the delicate green hue while raw with that exquisite pink doodles on the surface. If they do I’m sure the kids would eat the skins, too.

I gather patani are called lima beans, and have been brought to the archipelago from South America. I see other kinds of beans here that are also popular in the American continent, like the white-splashed maroon ones, called Christmas lima beans, also known in Italy as fagioli del papa or Pope’s beans.

There’s also something like what’s called Florida butterbeans in the Americas, black and white in irregular patterns. All these are heirloom beans that are currently being commercially cultivated in the West.

They are collectively known as patani here in the Philipines, though I’m not sure if they are differentiated somewhere else. The extent of cultivation is not commercial, and a major part thrive in the wild.

I like patani boiled with okra, bataw and eggplants, in a stew flavored with bagoong and topped with grilled or fried bangus. Sometimes with squash, sigarillas and malunggay pods. The green patani cook in a short time, but the Christmas and butterbeans require an overnight soak to soften them before cooking.

Perhaps making up for the additional prep time, the latter ones taste nuttier, ascribed to possess a chestnut flavor. It probably explains why popes adore them.

Bahay Kubo

Bahay kubo, kahit munti
Ang halaman doon ay sari-sari
Singkamas at talong, sigarillas at mani
Sitaw, bataw, patani

Kundol, patola, upo’t kalabasa
At saka meron pa, labanos, mustasa
Sibuyas, kamatis, bawang at luya
Sa paligid-ligid ay puno ng linga

Roughly translated as:

Bahay Kubo
(Filipino folk song)

Nipa hut, even though small
the plants surrounding it are varied and many
turnips and eggplants, winged beans and peanuts
yard-long beans, hyacinth beans, lima beans

wax gourd, sponge gourd, bottle gourd, squash
and there’s more, radish, mustard
onions, tomatoes, garlic and ginger
the surrounding spaces filled with sesame

Monday, March 08, 2010

Lasona

During summer, you'll know when you've hit the province of Pangasinan going through the Camiling, Tarlac route, which goes into Central Pangasinan, an alternative and less-traffic-dense way from the MacArthur Highway (the way to Dagupan or Baguio) skimming the northeastern part of the province. You'll know you've arrived by the pungent smell that wafts from the warm earth and assails your nose, even inside an airconditioned vehicle.

For in Bayambang, the first town of the province bordering Tarlac, are hectares of onion plantations. And by onion I mean THE red onion with which I grew up. Small but powerfully pungent, red and red-hot, a single cut of the knife is enough to induce a crying spell that seems rooted in heartbreak.

We never dared eat small red onions raw. Cooked, it retained its kili-kili power (our slang for the smell and taste - similar to the overpowering scent of underarms of the great unwashed), imparting great flavor to vegetable stews with bagoong (fermented salted fish sauce). Sautes are elevated a notch higher.

Early in my life I never knew there were onions tamer than these, such that when I learned that there's such a thing as French onion soup, I vowed never to have it. I imagined I'd gag on the pungency of it right at the first spoonful.

But there's a variety of red onions we actually use for summer salads of sliced native tomatoes and bagoong, eaten raw. It's red, and still flavorful, but the pungency is not as pronounced, refreshing more than cutting the tongue, and it's more succulent, the bulb segments thinner.

This is what is known as sibuyas Ilocano, and called by the local term lasona. Funny, I recently found out that lasuna, which I think can also be the spelling of this red onion as it is how it is actually pronounced in the native tongue, is the Sanskrit term for garlic. Our Indio ancestors must have mixed up the terms in confusion, specially since down the line we still associate onions with the Indians....

And that's not all. I also found out that the term for lasona in Bahasa, a language used in many parts of Southeast Asia, is bawang, which in turn is the name for garlic in most Philippine languages. Really quite confusing. More tidbit of information - the French shallot originated in Southeast Asia, and it looks like lasona is an ancestor.

Lasona is sold in bunches, the bulbs growing in bunches, too, such that not one is perfectly round like the common red onion. A flat side with a bulbous half is the normal shape.

As with garlic, lasona is said to have healing properties, as well. The bulbs are harvested with their spring leaves and sold thus, or trimmed just a little. This is because the leaves are eaten, too, providing a different dimension in texture and level of flavor. This can be particularly evident in ingisan lasuna - chopped bulbs and leaves sauteed with garlic - served as a side to fried or grilled fish and heaps of steaming rice.

Across the country this is what is used in pickled onions, and thinly sliced fried onions mixed in arroz caldo/congee and fried rice. I prefer fried minced garlic in my arroz caldo and fried rice, since I'm not very fond of fried onions.

Lasona harvest had been early this year, as with the regular red and white onions that I wrote about in the previous post. The air had been pungently thick since before Christmas. Probably better for all of us, hoping the health effects of lasona countered the excesses of the season.

Bahay Kubo

Bahay kubo, kahit munti
Ang halaman doon ay sari-sari
Singkamas at talong, sigarillas at mani
Sitaw, bataw, patani

Kundol, patola, upo’t kalabasa
At saka meron pa, labanos, mustasa
Sibuyas, kamatis, bawang at luya
Sa paligid-ligid ay puno ng linga

Roughly translated as:

Bahay Kubo
(Filipino folk song)

Nipa hut, even though small
the plants surrounding it are varied and many
turnips and eggplants, winged beans and peanuts
yard-long beans, hyacinth beans, lima beans

wax gourd, sponge gourd, bottle gourd, squash
and there’s more, radish, mustard
onions, tomatoes, garlic and ginger
the surrounding spaces filled with sesame

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Gundol/Kundol

It used to be, before pastries and cakes and ice cream concoctions and cold salads of canned fruit, that candied gundol* was one of two (the other is, by default, leche flan) featured desserts in any festive occasion. And I mean really festive - grand celebrations like Catholic baptisms and fiestas. And probably even weddings.

These occasions, in those more serene times not so long ago, were a field demonstration of home-cooking and bayanihan. And bayanihan - the time-honored practice of helping out your neighbor in preparing for a big event - is needed during feasts, because everything laid on the table, from the appetizers and soups to the salads and mains (actually, it's more of a smorgasboard of main dishes, mostly meat) up to the desserts and drinks, everything is cooked/made right there at home, where the feast was usually held, anyway.

And not just cooked, but the animals to be served were also slaughtered, cleaned and dressed and chopped to the appropriate cuts right there in the premises. Big wood fires were built, around which big, somewhat flat rocks were arranged, so kawas and kalderos (huge cooking pots and pans) could be put atop the fires for the occasion.

Homecooking was practical because occasions such as those mentioned above were usually a barangay (roughly the equivalent of a village) event. Just as everybody volunteers for the preparation, everybody likewise comes for the occasion, no invitation needed. As such, the slaughter of an animal to use all its parts, and the use of home-grown ingredients, including the fruits and vegetables, were economical.

So with the use of gundol, which grows abundantly. I associate gundol with fiestas because that is when it was usually served. But this is actually because our town fiesta is in January, when gundol - known outside the country as winter melon or wax gourd (Benincasa hispida) - is in profusion. The last and first quarters of the year are also choice times for binyag and kasal, and I have attended my fair share of those (what Filipino hasn't?) that's why gundol is festive food, for me.

Gundol is a pulpy, oblong gourd with waxy skin. It is similar to upo (bottle gourd), with as many seeds in the center, but the flesh is drier. It is eaten as a vegetable, again same as the upo, usually added in soups. But when I was growing up we never had it as a vegetable.

Gundol is always a candy for me. The thin waxy coating on the gourd acts to protect the fresh fruit, so it can be stored for a length of time. Candying it goes further in preserving it. Because it does not need chilling, it is ideal for serving in big occasions, when the ref is normally bursting at the seams and about 30% of the food usually spoils before the event. Its long shelf life is a guarantee that it can be made ahead.

Having said that, I'll add that it can be had anytime of the year, and there's no need for an invitation to a grand feast or wedding, or even a contemplation of gate-crashing a binyag, because it is sold year-round in the public markets around the province, at the puto kiosks in Calasiao, and in Romana's.

But in case you come across a fresh gourd, it's easy to candy a gundol. A vine sprouts at the backyard of my in-laws, and I happened upon a couple of fruits at the Malasiqui market one time, so I've had practice. Just slice open the fruit, scoop out the seeds, then cut the flesh into long, fat wedges. Drain these, then sun-dry.

not dry enough, and the slices were too French-fry-thin
- they should be in thick wedges

Three days of sun-drying in the cold, Habagat-fanned holiday season yielded a still moist gundol for me, but I guess about three days in the summer sun is enough. Spread the wedges on a single layer so they dry properly.

When dry enough, mix in white sugar and put on a thick-bottomed pan to cook, stirring constantly. The gundol will moisten, but will harden again when thoroughly cooked. Store in an air-tight container at room temperature, but I like eating candied gundol cold, so I usually store them in the freezer.

Commecially produced gundol candy are usually harder and whiter than home-cooked ones because of the addition of lime (dena in Pangasinan - the mineral calcium oxide, not the acidic fruit). Gundol is made to steep in a lime mixture overnight, which dehydrates and bleaches the fruit. Which is a good enough reason to make the candies at home.

___________________________________________

*The terms gundol and kundol are used interchangeably, and understandably because of the guttural similarities of the two initial letters, but kundol is more a Tagalog term and gundol is used more in Pangasinan.

Bahay Kubo

Bahay kubo, kahit munti
Ang halaman doon ay sari-sari
Singkamas at talong, sigarillas at mani
Sitaw, bataw, patani

Kundol, patola, upo’t kalabasa
At saka meron pa, labanos, mustasa
Sibuyas, kamatis, bawang at luya
Sa paligid-ligid ay puno ng linga

Roughly translated as:

Bahay Kubo
(Filipino folk song)

Nipa hut, even though small
the plants surrounding it are varied and many
turnips and eggplants, winged beans and peanuts
yard-long beans, hyacinth beans, lima beans

wax gourd, sponge gourd, bottle gourd, squash
and there’s more, radish, mustard
onions, tomatoes, garlic and ginger
the surrounding spaces filled with sesame

Friday, May 22, 2009

Bunga'y Lakamas

In Pangasinan we call this bunga'y lakamas, which translates to bunga ng singkamas in Filipino, and "potato bean fruit" or "yam bean fruit" in English (American and British, respectively).

These are the pods of the lakamas/singkamas/jicama (Pachyrrhizus erosus Linn.), which is more popularly known for its root, a white, sweetish succulent turnip-like tuber that is snacked on in the Philippines, peeled and julienned and dipped in salt or salted vinegar, and also added in salads and cooked as a vegetable, mainly for its crunch factor.

The pods are somewhat a cross between green beans (called Baguio beans in the Philippines) and snowpeas - not as bulging as the former but not as flat as the latter, just halfway through. But unlike these two smooth pods, jicama pods are quite hairy, though finely enough so as not to be frightening.

They come out only in summer, and in such small quantities that I get so spirited when I spot a bundle in the markets in Pangasinan. They should be harvested immature to be edible, or they turn a plastic-like texture when cooked.

We cook the pods in a stew of okra and luko (gabi/taro), sometimes with squash, flavored with bagoong isda (salted fermented anchovies), and a piece of pork, but preferably the head of fried or grilled fish (bangus, of course). The okra and taro counterpoint the pods with their soft mushiness and chewiness, and the pods make the stew very aromatic, in a green sort of way.

Before cooking, the pods are stringed and split, revealing such tiny seeds that are almost invisible. These seeds, though, are power-packed, as they contain rotinoids, flavonoids, phenylfuranocoumarins, and have effective antifungal and antibacterial properties.

The common term jicama has been adapted in the Philippine languages to the general term singkamas. But as with many terms and names in the country, the name singkamas is ascribed to a misunderstanding between members of the former Spanish colonizers and Filipino indios who could not speak the colonial language.

It narrates in this website that some five Spanish soldiers were touring the countryside and spotted some farmers harvesting singkamas. Upon tasting the tuber, a soldier asked that they be given one each, or five more, which is cinco mas in Spanish.

The farmers, not knowing any better, gave the soldiers another tuber, which resulted in the soldiers repeating cinco mas, cinco mas. Which concluded to the farmers concluding that the tuber must be called cincomas, and adapted the name, with the replacement of the "n" with the "ng" of the local tongue, so becoming singkamas.

Bahay Kubo

Bahay kubo, kahit munti
Ang halaman doon ay sari-sari
Singkamas at talong, sigarillas at mani
Sitaw, bataw, patani

Gundol, patola, upo’t kalabasa
At saka meron pa, labanos, mustasa
Sibuyas, kamatis, bawang at luya
Sa paligid-ligid ay puno ng linga

Roughly translated as:

Bahay Kubo
Filipino folk song

Nipa hut, even though small
the plants surrounding it are varied and many
turnips and eggplants, winged beans and peanuts
yard-long beans, hyacinth beans, lima beans

wax gourd, sponge gourd, bottle gourd, squash
and there’s more, radish, mustard
onions, tomatoes, garlic and ginger
the surrounding spaces filled with sesame

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Luyang Dilaw

background - turmeric rhizomes, foreground - cross-section, in powdered form

This is the ginger I am just starting to get to know well, for I only knew one kind of ginger until about a couple of years ago. I have heard about luyang dilaw in college, when I started making friends with people from all over the country, but did not actually came face to face with it until the family moved to Cavite.

Of course I have been eating it in a blend in the form of powdered curry since I was small, but not as a main ingredient on its own. There is no name in Pangasinan that I am aware of, since it is not prevalently used in the province.

It is more commonly known as dilaw (the Tagalog term for the color yellow) because it turns everything it gets into contact with an attractive lemony yellow. Known in other Filipino languages as kalabaga (Bisaya) and kulyaw (Ilokano), and turmeric the world over, or at least in those places where English is spoken. In other languages its name is the equivalent term for the color yellow.

As the common ginger (Zingiber officinale) is the ginger I know and prevalently use, it is the standard to which I compare other ginger I meet, or did not meet early on in my life. So relatively speaking, luyang dilaw is more peppery than gingery. More earthy. The fresh rhizome smells like wet socks, or wet dog fur at the extreme.

up top, common ginger, bottom, luyang dilaw

It looks exactly like a ginger rhizome, with branching nodes and pale, thin skin, the thick flesh compact. But it looks emaciated when placed beside the common ginger and another variety, galangal. It looks like a pinkie, the cylindrical form more defined, while the latter two are much more thicker than a thumb with a more flattened out shape.

Beneath the thin, pale skin of the turmeric a glimmer of orange shines through. Peeled, the flesh is more porous and not as fibrous, more akin to carrots than ginger. It is a brighter orange than a carrot, though.

I sometimes buy kilos in Cavite to bring home to the elders in Pangasinan as organic pasalubong. It is very much appreciated, because of its anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant, and subsequently anti-carcinogenic, properties, as well as its lowering effect on cholesterol levels.

A poultice of the rhizome also purportedly heals skin eczemas and dermatitis. It is boiled and made into tea to ingest its heath benefits, and for its believed potency in expelling intestinal worms.

So far I have been rubbing and marinating roasted chicken and chicken steamed on a bed of salt with pounded pulps of turmeric, mainly for the nice color it imparts, and not for the flavor. The flavor is too subtle to make a difference, anyway, in such dishes.

I try mixing it with our daily kalamansi juice , which gives it a rather unnatural deep yellow color, like we were drinking powdered mango or dalandan juice. And in arroz caldo, with unfavorable outcome.

But I have eaten a nice, aromatic dish of marine catfish steamed in turmeric and lemongrass (alimusan sa dilaw) at an eatery in Iloilo, and bringhe, a delicacy in Pampanga where glutinous rice is seasoned with turmeric, coconut milk, meats and seafood, and wrapped in banana leaves.

Friends from Bulacan tell me luyang dilaw is used in paksiw na isda (fish stewed in vinegar), and there is a festival celebrating the plant (annually in May 2, in Marilao). In Cavite it is used in adobo, where the adobo is stewing meats only in vinegar.

I hope to encounter more Filipino dishes using this spice, so I could incorporate it more in my cooking. Though I’m sure I’ll find it as an ingredient in many cuisines, as it is used extensively the world over. Perhaps I’ll try my hand at drying some rhizomes to pound into powder, especially now that turmeric is in season. Maybe I could even come up with my own curry blend.

Bahay Kubo

Bahay kubo, kahit munti
Ang halaman doon ay sari-sari
Singkamas at talong, sigarillas at mani
Sitaw, bataw, patani

Gundol, patola, upo’t kalabasa
At saka meron pa, labanos, mustasa
Sibuyas, kamatis, bawang at luya
Sa paligid-ligid ay puno ng linga

Roughly translated as:

Bahay Kubo
Filipino folk song

Nipa hut, even though small
the plants surrounding it are varied and many
turnips and eggplants, winged beans and peanuts
yard-long beans, hyacinth beans, lima beans

wax gourd, sponge gourd, bottle gourd, squash
and then there are more, radish, mustard
onions, tomatoes, garlic and ginger
the surrounding spaces filled with sesame

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Native Kamatis

"Native" means it is endemic, or is traditionlly rooted to a specific place. It is what is used to refer to this kind of tomatoes, to differentiate it from the common Filipino tomato, which is round, yellow-reddish, thick-skinned and acidic.

Probably the more correct term is heirloom, but in the countryside native is understood well enough, while heirloom would be Greek, its pronunciation subject to a lot of interpretation from North to South (let me see, irlum, erloam, hherlom...).

This heirloom tomato is more bulbous, some segmented, the cross-section of which results in a beatiful star, or flower, is pinkish without any yellow or red or even orange shading, skin as thin as an onion's, and sweet without any hint of acidity.

Its native designation nonetheless, it is not commonly found anywhere in any market or town. It is highly seasonal, appearing during summer in Pangasinan, and only for such a short period.

Though it is sold for the same price as the common tomato, Pangasinenses value the native kamatis more. Since it is thin-skinned, it is not cooked, but just sliced and eaten fresh, with rock salt, bagoong or agamang. Which is just the perfect accompaniment to anything grilled. As it can be had only during summer, it is the side of choice during frequent summer outings - to the beach, or picnics under mango trees.

I love native tomatoes with salted fermented krill, best made in Lingayen, and it featured in many a summer evening meal as I was growing up. Sultriness meant lazy days, and summer dinners usually called for fried tinapa (smoked scad), eaten with rice and sliced native tomatoes seasoned with agamang.

My childhood was defined by souped rice - rice inundated with soup made from vegetables, the vegetables usually mashed up and mixed in. During summers of tinapa and tomatoes, my mother didn't bother to make soup, but she improvised by letting the tomato juices leach from the saltiness of the agamang. The juice became my soup. Sometimes, actually most of the time, my mother poured a bit of water onto the tomatoes, and the resulting juice-water mix was then poured onto my rice.

I don't think that was just my mother's caprice, since sometimes I see my husband pouring water onto our tomato-agamang salad, too, then proceeding to spoon the "juice" onto his rice.

More than the sentimental value, the tomato-agamang mix, with soup, is a prized side to fried and grilled fish that makes my mouth water. The freshness and sweetness of the tomatoes is countered very nicely by the meatiness and saltiness of the minute shrimps. Such that I cannot live without agamang. And heirloom tomatoes.

Bahay Kubo

Bahay kubo, kahit munti
Ang halaman doon ay sari-sari
Singkamas at talong, sigarillas at mani
Sitaw, bataw, patani

Gundol, patola, upo’t kalabasa
At saka meron pa, labanos, mustasa
Sibuyas, kamatis, bawang at luya
Sa paligid-ligid ay puno ng linga

roughly translated as:

Bahay Kubo
Filipino folk song

Nipa hut, even though small
the plants surrounding it are varied and many
turnips and eggplants, winged beans and peanuts
yard-long beans, hyacinth beans, lima beans

wax gourd, sponge gourd, bottle gourd, squash
and there’s more, radish, mustard
onions, tomatoes, garlic, ginger
and all around are trees of sesame

Monday, February 02, 2009

Cabuey

[Goa Bean/Winged Bean]

Psophocarpus tetragonolobus, also known as asparagus pea, four angled bean, manila bean, but commonly known in the general Tagalog region as sigarillas/sigarilyas/sigadillas.

(If it is called something else in your area please let me know via the comments section or email, so we could compile the local names, listed below)

In the Pangasinan language we call it cabuey (KA-BEY, with a guttural e, as in perm) or gabuey. My dad once told me the plant is a weed - it grows just about anywhere, on its own, and without any care - and is valued as a weed. But we eat the fruit (the elongated, square-angled pod), cooked as a vegetable.

What little literature about this vegetable indicates that it is a perennial, but I see the fruits only seasonally, like about half the year, starting from the end of the rainy season. And the whole plant can be eaten, including the flowers and roots.

The pod comes in two colors - waxy green, and red violet - and in two sizes - really long ones, about a foot, and the really short ones, three inches or thereabouts. It contains vitamins A and C, calcium, iron, and other trace vitamins.

Unlike any other pod that I know, the cabuey is four-cornered, but thankfully there are only two "strings" that need to be pulled out from its "seams" before cooking. Frills, or linear "wings," run along all four corners, thus the name.

Cabuey has to be harvested young, or else it becomes rubbery and inedible. And it has to be cooked on the same day it was harvested, to get its premium taste (likened to asparagus). I've seen it sliced thinly and stewed in gata (coconut milk), a common dish in Kapampangan restaurants, called gising-gising.

In Pangasinan it is boiled with bagoong isda (salted fermented fish in paste) and a thumb of ginger, along with other vegetables, like squash and string beans, perhaps, or maybe sliced green papaya. A common Ilocano mix is patani, bataw, and sigarillas.

Here I sauteed sliced (more like torn) cabuey pods with previously boiled cubes of gabi (taro tuber), seasoned with bagoong. A simple but classic pairing.

Ginisang Sigarillas at Gabi

a thumb of ginger, peeled and sliced thinly
garlic, peeled and crushed
one small red onion, peeled and sliced thinly
a tablespoon or two of bagoong water, strained
2-3 bunches sigarillas, de-stringed and quartered
100 grams (about 4 small pieces ) gabi, peeled, halved and boiled

Heat a teaspoonful of cooking oil. When smoke is rising put in ginger, frying for about a minute.
Put in garlic and stir around until golden.
Mix in the onion, and cook until translucent.
Pour bagoong water, stirring around until it starts to bubble.
Mix in gabi and sigarillas, then pour a swig of water. Let boil for about two minutes, covered.
Adjust the flavor by adding more water if too salty, or adding more bagoong if bland. Serve immediately.

Yields one serving. String beans can also be added, even kamansi, and okra.

Names in other areas in the Philippines

cabuey / gabuey / parlang [Central Pangasinan, or where the Pangasinan language is spoken]
padlang [Pangasinan, in outlying areas where Ilocano is spoken]
pallang [Isabela]
kalamismis [Batangas]
pagulong (Bicol - Camarines Norte)
balagay (Hiligaynon)

Equivalent terms in other Asian languages:

dambala [Sinhala]
kacang botol [Malay]
kecipir [Indonesian]
jaat [Sundanese]
sirahu avarai [Tamil]
tua phoo [Thai]
đau rong [Vietnamese]

Bahay Kubo
(A Filipino folk song)

Bahay kubo, kahit munti
Ang halaman doon ay sari-sari
Singkamas at talong, sigarillas at mani
Sitaw, bataw, patani

Gundol, patola, upo’t kalabasa
At saka meron pa, labanos, mustasa
Sibuyas, kamatis, bawang at luya
Sa paligid-ligid ay puno ng linga

Friday, February 22, 2008

Baktaw

Common names (Philippine languages)

baglau/bataw/bulay (Bisaya)
batau/bataw (Bikol)
bataw/sibachi/sibatsi (Tagalog)
itab (Ifugao, Bontoc)
parda, parda-atap (Ilokano)
baktaw (Pangasinan)

Scientific name Dolichos labiab Linn.

Baktaw has been in season since late last year, along with other vegetable pods. The young pods are mixed in with other vegetables that are usually sinagsagan, or boiled with bagoong (salted fish paste), in Pangasinan.

It looks like snow peas or Chinese peas in shape, size, and thinness, but the pod skin is rough, the color lighter green. One variant has characteristic violet shading along the edges.

It is not a prized vegetable, and it is neither cultivated for commercial purposes. The plant usually sprouts on its own when its season arrives, usually during the colder months of the year, after the rains. The pods are plucked and sold in the markets as an alternative, or additional, ingredient to any cooked vegetable mixture.

When cooking, the edges are trimmed and the pods split lengthwise. Traditionally, it is added to pakbet, or any mixture of vegetables distinguished as Ilocano/Pangasinan (sitaw, patani, sigarillas, kamansi, papaya, et.al.). I find this too gloomy, though, or too green, too homogenous. Not too exciting.

So I add it to squash, probably mixed with cabuey (sigarillas/winged beans) if available, and squash' interminable companion agayep (sitaw/string beans or yard-long beans), and some chopped tomatoes. The squash brightens up the vegetable dish, in visual terms as well as in taste.

I am not particularly enamored with baktaw, either - I buy and eat it because it is....there, if you know what I mean, and because eating what's in season is in line with my food philosophy. It doesn't have any distinguishing taste, nor scent, and it is not really missed if it's not in season.

But blogging about food has led me to discover many things. I've learned, for example, that baktaw contains significant amounts of calcium, iron, vitamin C, and other minerals.

More importantly, a team of researchers from the Central Luzon State University, led by Lilia D. Torres, learned more benefits from baktaw, along with other native vegetables, in a study entitled “Investigation of selected agricultural products and wastes in Region III as sources of natural products and pulp,” published at the DOST website. And I quote:

....Extracts from the seeds of bataw contain saponins and alkaloids with anti-tumor agent.

Alkaloids have strong anti-bacterial and anti-cancer biological activity and are widely used as component of drug and herbal formulations.Saponins are surface-active agents producing foamy suds when mixed with water. These are used as ingredients for cosmetics, detergents, shampoos, emulsifiers, and fire extinguishers.

Saponins exhibit hemolytic properties, which act as poison, show cytotoxic or pesticidal activity, and have a variety of medicinal applications. They can inhibit growth of cancer cells, lower cholesterol, boost immune system and energy, act as natural antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-oxidant....(emphases mine)

So now there's more reason to buy baktaw.