Welcome 2024! Happy New Year

Amidst the fireworks and revelries, food ushers in the new year with the traditional media noche. So what's on our table welcoming New Year 2024?

Our media noche has always been a light to heavy snack. It isn’t like a fiesta fare that comes with rice and lots of meat dishes.

So check out our fare welcoming 2024…

Always present is the HAM. Be it the sliced pork ham (Chinese-style) or whole chicken hamonado.

Another staple is a PASTA DISH but this time it was create your own. Linguine pasta with tuna-tomato, pork tomato, tuna, olive pil and pesto as sauce choices with Parmesan cheese.

Something new was the pepperoni QUESADILLA to give our media noche some Mexican flair.

Also some NACHOS to create some texture and flavor with its spicy cheese and creamy spinach dips.

Another staple is QUESO DE BOLA - perfect for that ham & cheese sandwich.

Adding carbo is the BAM-I mixed wit pork, seafood and veggies.

The one I really gorged on was the PANCIT MOLO with the dumplings from ready made from Kap Ising and a home made broth with lots of chicken strips and topped with fried garlic and chopped fresh kusay.

Some gold coins (a prelude to the Chinese New Year) and wines….

… and some fruits. Not complete 12 nor 13, though.

The other side - also with some gold coins and wine for symmetry.

How about a lightly creamed BUKO SALAD?

And some SUMAN LATIK just to fulfill a Filipino belief to have something sticky in welcoming the new year.

Some MINI DONUTS and REVEL BARS for dessert.

An appetizer or main is CHICKEN MACARONI SALAD.

Adding color, flavor and texture is the BUKO PANDAN gelatin with real macapuno strips.

Some MANGO FLOAT, another Pinoy staple during parties

Perfect center is the FRUITTY FOUR SEASON TORTE (Peach Fuzz) from Tinapayan Bakeshop

And finishing off this list is my favorite STOLLEN BREAD also from Tinapayan Bakeshop and CHOCO BANANA PIE from Jollibee.

Though the new year is barely a day old but already it seems to be full of life and of course, gastronomic delights starting with this traditional midnight meal welcoming the year ahead.

But no matter what food is one the table or how we celebrate it, the most important is outlook of optimism for the upcoming year.

Happy 2024!

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 por...

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 us...

Lauya nga Pata sang Baboy

It was a typical fiesta scene in a barrio that I got to taste this cholesteroliffic and delicious pork dish. I can still vividly remember that decades old gastronomic memory - very tender and almost fall of the bone pata, vivid orange sour and sticky broth, large chunks of unripe langka; all in one big large kaldero ! And it's been really a while since I've tried to recreate that taste memory and a few days ago, it was worth another try. Here's my simple recipe for Pata Lauya

Kusay

Often mistaken to be, sounding-alike, as kinchay , kusay has a very distinct aroma and flavour. A rather unfamiliar herb mostly anywhere, my Tagalog officemate call this as sibuyas na mura and in Manila groceries labeled as kutchay . It do looks like onion chives but kusay is flat unlike the hollow chives. We have kusay planted in our backyard for occasional uses like soup garnishing. However, it often takes a trip to the Central Market to buy them in large quantities if ever we make Pancit Molo since it is an important ingredient in the filling mixture and as garnishing.

Budyawi

Bujawi (budjawi, budyawi) is what Ilonggos refer to the fruit of the buri or century palm tree . Abundant in many parts of the province of Iloilo, the buri has many many uses from the leaves to its trunk. It produces a fermented drink (tuba), alcohol, vinegar, syrup, and sugar. The trunk yields large quantities of starch. The bud (ubod) is used for salad or as a vegetable. The kernels of the young fruits are edible and are made into a sweetmeats. The mature seeds are used for beads? (rosaries) and buttons. The petiole yields so-called buntal fiber of which, the famous Baliuag and Lucban hats are made, or which, when crudely extracted, is sometimes twisted into rope. Mature leaf is used for covering tobacco bales, rarely as a thatch for houses, while the ribs are used for making brooms. From the unopened leaf is obtained a very fine fiber, corresponding to raffia fiber, which is utilized in making cloth, fancy articles, and as string. Fibers ...

FLAVOURS OF ILOILO

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