No, I didn't go back to school nor plans on doing so. It's just I want another acronym in my post title just like the previous one. MBA just stands for monggo, balingon and alugbati. Monggo is probably the most popular legume in the Philippines with more than a hundred (or so) dishes that can be prepared using this bean from soups to even desserts. Balingon, the local term for dilis, is also among the country's most popular dried seafoodand prepared mostly for breakfast but now has been elevated to appetizers, snackfood (love those sweet, spicy and crispy dilis) and even salads. Alugbati meanwhile, sounds and looks (even tastes) "foreign" to most (outside Western Visayas, maybe). It's a leafy green vegetable with purple stem and a perfect partner for monggo dishes. It's also great with kalabasa (squash) with pinakas (dried fish) for another acronym dish. Take your pick from PKA, KAP, KPA, APK and so it goes - lol.Also in this dish, is balagay known as sigarilyas to many. It's ..... actually difficult to describe it -lol.
It was only today that I remembered buying a pack of ready-to-cook pancit Molo. Locals are fortunate to buy them at groceries here saving them time, money and effort in the tedious preparation of pancit Molo. Anyway every pack of the RTC pancit Molo has the balls and the lang-lang . Its the balls that entice the buyers and the lang lang that "dictates" the price and weight. For this blog entry, I opted for the AR brand (150 grams for PhP 21) since they had the more photogenic combination at that time though I'm more partial to the Cares brand. Separating the contents makes you realize that what you actually bought but for that price, it's already a bargain, can be cooked in many ways and can serve 2-3 people. It is then up to you what you can make out from a pack or more. For this preparation, I used 2 chicken broth cubes and just estimated the amount of water. Upon taste test I added a pinch of salt, a dash of pepper and few drops of soy sauce. I boiled the lang