The Pinoy Foodie in Iloilo: A gastronomic and historic welcome in Sta. Barbara

It started last March during the Sooo Pinoy event of Unilever Food Solutions in Iloilo when I met Ms Maricar Erese, the Executive Producer of the TV show THE PINOY FOODIE. The show is hosted by the (self proclaimed she always say) "Adobo Queen" Nancy Reyes Lumen and shown every Sunday 830am on GMA NEWS TV. Plans of having the said show shoot in Iloilo began to take form and just last week, I co-organized the The Pinoy Foodie Iloilo Food and Heritage shoot with Mr. Eugene Jamerlan, among others, that spanned 3 days of non-stop eating, shooting and more eating ...

It all began with a breakfast in Sta. Barbara, Iloilo hosted by the Municipal Tourism Officer Ms. Irene Magallon. Everybody digged in the delectable “pamahaw” prepared by Ms Irene consisting of kusahos (a local beef tapa version which is sundried for days), binodo (tuyo that has been “soaked” in salt for days then fried and finally having a vinegar as broth), linagpang nga bangrus with guinamos (grilled milkfish then stewed in sauteed local bago-ong called guinamos) and kadyos, manok kag ubad (a dish of local beans, native chicken and the pith of the banana tree). Completing the breakfast were chorizo recado, kalkag (shrimp fry) fried rice and boneless dilis.

With the town hall, centennial museum, Gen. Martin Delgado monument and one of the biggest flags in the Philippines as backdrop, the show began shooting with a cooking segment sponsored by Solane (formerly Shellane).

Ms Nancy together with two Santa Barbara barangay nutrition scholars, cooked an Ilonggo favorite dish – kadyos, manok kag ubad. Read more about this dish.

Changing backdrop to the historic Sta. Barbara Parish Church, the trio then dished up Linagpang nga Bangrus with Guinamos. An easy to prepare that involves grilling and stewing. Read more about this dish.

After a quick tour inside the church and convent, snacks of native delicacies followed consisting of baye-baye, bingka, puto lansom, bandi and kamote juice as food finds. And we then discovered how the delectable bingkas are made by Sta. Barbara's bingka queen, Leling (right) in her makeshift stall.

And finally, a shoot inside the Original Jaspe Baye-Baye in Brgy. Cabugao Sur for the mouth-watering baye-baye, considered to be one of the most popular Ilonggo native delicacy.

It was a day (actually just half of daytime) full of great food finds as well as Ilonggo food and food ways as The Pinoy Foodie started their food and heritage tour around Iloilo. And surely there will be more to come ...

Ms Nancy Lumen proudly wearing her souvenir T-shirt from Sta. Barbara beside Ms Irene Magallon.

An Ilonggo favorite - Valenciana

Found in almost all occasions like fiesta, birthdays, reunions and others, Ilonggos really love valenciana because most if not all have grown accustomed of having it in special gatherings at home. A complete " go, grow and glow " dish because it has the carbohydrates, protein and vitamins and minerals in just one spoonful, Valenciana is really an " occasional dish ". Here's the recipe for Valenciana

Ultimate Ilonggo Favorite: KBL Kadyos, Baboy, Langka

K.B.L. or Kadyos, Baboy, Langka is the ultimate favorite dish of most Ilonggos. It is also one of the most missed native dishes as kadyos and the souring ingredient, batwan , are hard to find when outside of the Ilonggo region. Basically, it is boiled/stewed pork dish owing its "deliciousness" to the combination of the soft and tender pork, the tamed sourness of batwan and the malinamnam na sabaw . One of the "secrets" of the malinamnamn na sabaw , is the fact that the pork, whether just the plain meat or pata (hocks) are first grilled or broiled. This gives the broth a rather smoky taste that makes it more appetizing.. Learn how to make the Ilonggo dish KBL (Kadyos, Baboy, at Langka) with the recipe below. Ingredients 1 kilo Pata (pork hocks) or pork cubes, GRILLED and sliced into bite size pieces 1 unripe Jack fruit, cubed 2 cups pigeon pea (kadyos) 6-8 pieces batwan fruit (or tamarind powder) 1 piece pork broth cube (

Easy Century Tuna Recipes

If you're looking for simple, easy and delicious Century Tuna recipes online, congratulations, you've found it right here! How about spicy tuna sisig or tuna sinigang ? Maybe stir fried tuna with pickles or just yang chow fried rice . I love Century Tuna from its flakes in oil variety, the spicier the better, but when I discovered the versatility of its solid variant, it became an obsession. At first I was just into the usual tested recipes; pasta and sandwich filling, but then it got simpler – I just eat it straight from the can! Usually with a piece of bread or an apple. I just add a few drops of vinegar to spice it up a bit. Then came the experiments. Yup I got tired of that habit that one day, I decided to test my skills in the kitchen. Serendipity, you might call it yet most of them turned into good recipes that I have shared now and then. Satisfying my Palabok cravings had me experiment on this recipe on the spot. With Century Tuna in lieu of the usu

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.

A native delicacy called Inday-inday

Now you may ask, what is Inday-Inday ? It's another repetitive-feminine named native delicacy that is made from rice like its more popular sister - baye-baye . While the latter is has its own original flavor and make, inday-inday is actually a combination of two well loved native delicacies - muasi ( palitaw ) and bukayo . But the muasi portion is not the the usual palitaw recipe for the it's more firm and gummy (I don't know the English term for kid-ol ). Actually its more like a hardened kutsinta and this makes it more to my liking since I'm not really fond of muasi in the first place. And its not quite easy to find inday-inday in the market today, though I've seen and tried it in Sabor Ilonggo stalls but their's is more like suman latik for the based is ibos -like. Ibos is malagkit rice boiled in gata which is called suman in Tagalog. Despite the uncertainty for its nomenclature (I've read that inday-inday is just plain pal

FLAVOURS OF ILOILO

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