Ginat-an nga tambo

Ilonggos and fans of Ilonggo cuisine would instantly recognize this native cooking of tambo or bamboo shoots. With coconut milk and greens like saluyot, takway and okra plus sahog like shrimps or crabs – this would automatically induce a lot of cravings. Especially when you’re abroad where raw ingredients are often hard to find and if they are luckily available, it still doesn’t taste like the one you might have grown up with.

Even so, it is more than enough one's craving for this Ilonggo cuisine, no matter where you are in the world.

Here's a Ginat-an nga Tambo recipe courtesy of ILOVEILOILO blog

INGREDIENTS

• Tambo or bamboo shoots
• 1 coconut to produce the pure and the diluted Coconut Milk or “gata”
• onions (sibuyas)
• “Subak”
-bago-ngon- for the simplest recipe
-shrimps or pasayan – for the regular recipe
- 3 crabs or alimango- for the ultimate recipe
• leaves
-tugabang (saluyot leaves) – for the simplest recipe
-okra or takway- for the regular and for the ultimate recipe (or it could be a combination of the three)
• corn-for the ultimate recipe

HOW TO COOK

1.) Blanch tambo, then when done, squeeze until dry; or you could squeeze it with salt.
2.) Cook tambo with diluted coconut milk.
You can add your “subak”, however, if you’re going to use shrimps add it five minutes before the dish will be finally cooked
3.) Add seasoning. Add onions.
4.) Add the leaves.
5.) Then, when the dish is finally cooked, add the pure coconut milk.

Fruits from the grocery

These packs of cut up fruits were bought from SM Delgado's grocery. Got enticed by their color and luckily, they were as good as they looked, especially the papaya. Each was just less than Php 22, really a bargain!

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Batwan

Ilonggos know batwan or batuan by heart as the fruit is almost endemic to the Western Visayas. Its scientific name is Garcinia binucao, derived from the Tagalog name for the fruit, binukaw. It is a large green fruit with large seeds and its a favorite souring ingredient in most Ilonggo dishes especially KBL or kadyos, baboy, langka and the Ilonggo-style paksiw known as "pinamalhan". It is characterized by a tamed sourness compared to tamarind and kamias . The fruit is sold by pieces or kilo in wet markets and even big grocery stores. Batwan is the preferred souring ingredients for the Ilonggo favorite- KBL. The photo shows boiled batwan with skin and without skin (right) A favorite riddle when we were young - "Among the many fruits in the forest, but one (batuan) is the best. What is it?"

Takway

The gabi (taro) is just one of those plants which is edible from "roots to tops". The most popular of which is the tuber part which is used in a variety of dishes and mostly in combination with coconut milk. Its leaves, of course, is the main ingredient of a Bicol specialty, laing . It is dried then chopped and sauteed with other ingredients including, again, coconut milk. Then there is takway . The local term for its tendrils/runner, that part which is torn between being a stem or a root for it neither grows upwards nor downwards - it grows sideways . Scraped off of its outer skin, takway is often a key ingredient in vegetable dishes like laswa and the gabi tuber with coconut milk and local snails know as bago-ngon . It is also popular when cooked adobo style with guinamos , the local bago-ong . It is very popular in the region that even big supermarkets sell takway in style - cleaned and plastic wrapped in styro with some additions to make it easier to prepare.

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