FLAVOURS OF ILOILO

Laswa is among the most popular Ilonggo vegetable dish and among my most "blogged" about. It has so many variations despite it's simplicity and mostly dependent on the the availability of vegetables. Usually it has kalabasa, talong, okra, hantak (sitaw), tagabang (saluyot), patola and a host of other vegetables. For this recipe puso ng saging (banana heart) was added not only as "extender" but to add some texture. Cooking laswa is simple - just stew the vegetables and subak (usually fresh seafoods like shrimps, crabs, or even snails locals call bango-ngon ) then season with salt or use broth cubes . Others prefer to use dried and salted seafoods like pinakas for it adds more flavour to the dish at the same time makes this vegetable dish more appetizing. Or at times this is solely a vegetable dish (no subak whatsoever) and is perfect partnered with fried or grilled meat and fish. No matter how you cook it or what you partn...

If you love canned or bottles Spanish-style sardines, here a simple recipe that would sure excite your taste buds. How about some home-made Spanish-style bangus ? It's easy as 1-2-3 and simple as prepare-pressure cook- wait... All you need are thoroughly cleaned and thickly sliced bangus or you can opt to have whole small bangus. Add some crushed garlic cloves, onions, olive or corn oil, bay leaves, sliced carrots, pickles, water, salt, and whole pepper corn with the optional ingredients chilies and tomato sauce and paste. When everything's ready, just arrange everything in the pressure cooker, making sure the bangus and other ingredients are covered with the water and oil mix.  Pressure cook for about 30 minutes or until the bangus is cooked. Serve and enjoy! Link to detailed recipe >>> Spansih Style Bangus

I love puso ng saging, be it kinilaw or adobo but my ultimate favorite is when it is made of part of sinigang na bangus.  I was leaning to having some leftover pork tocino for lunch but when I opened the kaldero and saw the milky sabaw of this bangus sinigang - all the tocino thoughts disappeared. It's a really simple dish - just cook like the way you make sinigang and instead of radish, okra and other sinigang veggies, just use puso ng saging plus the "undeveloped" bananas.  The preparation of the puso ng saging is where the tedious work begins, as you have to be experienced in doing so. There's the peeling of the outer layers until the white one appears and the washing to get those bitter taste off.  And it has to be cooked right away to get the milky color of the broth. I haven't really seen and tried a non bangus sinigang with puso ng saging though I think it would work also as good. Maybe shrimps next time, for the play of ...

Always in the center of a typical Filipino Noche Buena is the "hamon". No matter which brand or what kind ham it maybe, the Christmas Eve midnight gastronomic gathering would seem incomplete without it. One ham that seems to be just within the taste and price range of the Ilonggos is the house brand of Iloilo Supermart - Right Choice . For around PhP 600+ per kilo, the Right Choice Ham is not like those typical hams which were made months earlier in preparation for Christmas. Instead, it can be termed as a freshly made ham yet still almost have the same taste and texture of the typical ham. So with this ham, I made my own healthy "double down" with kangkong mixed with three cheeses (Parmesan, Queso de Bola and Cheesewhiz) and chili garlic. It was a refreshing take as the ham complemented the taste of the vegetable concoction I experimented on. And my other experiment was "kangkongetti" - a typical tomato sauce, ham and cheese mix but with kangkong...

Being tired of mixing kalkag with rice or garnishing it over laswa dishes, I decided to make torta to have some variety to my kalkag diet. I just mixed the available ingredients I could find that time; kalkag, egg, flour, bell pepper, tomato, onion, granulated seasoning and sesame oil . Frying them on a non stick pan took only a few minutes and then it was a feast for me and my 5 year old nephew who with ate bare hands, with soy sauce and calamansi dip. Namit gid!

Though not having the ingredients of a typical laswa dish, this merry mix of vegetables bought from the market and grown in our backyard still brings the gastronomical pleasure of a simple laswa dish. Just stew all the available vegetables with seasoning and subak of choice, and within minutes, you'll have a a delicious and nutritious dish. There's gastronomy in simplicity - and this is clearly manifested in this simple vegetable dish Ilonggos call laswa .

Though bukayo refers generally to sweetened coconut strips, I can't help but refer this sweetened squash as such. Unlike the one I had before ( dulce de kalabasa ), this squash delight is easier to prepare. The squash was cut into thin strips then boiled in water with sugar and maybe with some vanilla. There's no mashing involved since the finished product still shows the kalabasa strips but just softer and a lot sweeter. Depending on several factors - squash variety, heat exposure, size, etc; the finished product would show variation too. For this particular recipe, the strips had a sort of "gelatiney" texture that one can still have a bite. The best way of serving the sweet is "fresh from the fridge" and could give haleyang ube a run for its money as halo halo topping or just another sweetened "vegetable".

Fruitcakes are often associated with the Christmas season and it has this "infamy" of lasting months after the Yuletide season has "come and go". Indeed it's true as we still have half a loaf of it in the fridge - lol. Usually I just slice and toast it to make it more appealing but I don't know what came over me that I suddenly got an idea of making a smoothie out of it. I just crumbled some of the fruitcake over my usual smoothie combo of milk, sugar and crushed ice. It was surprisingly good for it has the usual freshness of any smoothie and the essence of the fruitcake. Of course, there was the tinge of wine that makes it more than the usual ice cold quencher not only on a hot summer afternoon but in times when you crave for something out of the box!

It may look like any ox tongue dish at first glance but this is really a home made dessert I call "saging con haleya". It's made with sag ing na saba (plantain) boiled in gata (coconut milk) concoction (with sugar) to create a sinful dessert mix. The haleya provides an oily sweet sauce characterized by the "linamnam" of the gata. The cooking methods are simple, just boil and mix, though may take long since. If the raw ingredients are just within reach, then there's no stopping you of trying out this simple and new version of minatamis na saging.

It took me just around twenty minutes to concoct this mango pasta from all the Noche Buena and Media Noche left overs I found inside the fridge. I was looking for something to eat then all of a suddent seeing some left over spaghetti had my thoughts clouded with so many possibilities. The mango pasta was just a last minute inspiration upon seeing a lot of mangoes on the table. So I took ripe mango and squeeze it all out with my bare hands. Then I mix evaporated milk, cream and some powder seasoning (since I can't find some cream of corn soup and the likes  mixes) to give flavour at the same time balance the sweetness of the mango and the creaminess of the dairy. Then I got ham slices and quickmelt cheese nd mixed them all together before putting the sauce mix into the microwave. Yup it's basically a no-cook recipe since is just made from left overs. It's the aroma of mangoes you'll encounter first so that makes your taste buds ready for the sweet encounter. Bu...

Tiramisu is one quintessential Italian dessert that has been adapted all over the world.  Literally meaning "pick me up" or "lift me up",it is made of ladyfingers dipped/soaked in coffee (and rhum nowadays), layered with a whipped mixture of egg yolks and mascarpone cheese, and flavored with cocoa.  Kefir , on the other hand, is a fermented milk drink made with kefir grains and is believed to have its origins in the Caucasus Mountains. It is prepared by inoculating cow, goat, or sheep milk with kefir grains. Traditional kefir was made in skin bags that were hung near a doorway; the bag would be knocked by anyone passing through the doorway to help keep the milk and kefir grains well mixed. Aside from just being a healthy drink, kefir can also be made into cheese - the softer variant, and still has the signature taste of kefir. And as cheese, it can be made into a variety of other "products" like this Kefir Cheese Tiramisu. Through the able ...

Ubad sold at the Santa Barbara Public market. This is different from ubod but practically the same. Confusing? Well ubod is the pith or the center of a coconut tree while ubad is the pith of a banana tree. To have an ubad means a whole banana tree has been cut down and stripped to bare its center. So goodbye to banana fruit, leaves and heart. To prepare an ubad for cooking, first thinly slice, around half a centimeter, the cleaned pith (must be very white and sized like a fluorescent lamp to be sure of the quality.) . Then using a barbecue stick, remove web like fibers "interconnecting" these slices (these are actually hardened banana sap). When finished you can crush is into smaller pieces and add to your cooking. Ubad is mostly used as extender to the usual meat and vegetable dishes, the most famous of which is the ubad-kadyos-chicken combination. Another dish that goes well with ubad is the usual ginisang monggo . With pieces of pork and malunggay as ...

Just felt another round of earthshaking a few minutes ago just like a few weeks earlier.As parts of Western Visayas were rocked by the strongest earthquake since July 1990, I can't help but reflect on the current events with food. And here's linugaw - c ommonly known as ginata-an , this concoction of sticky rice flour, coconut milk and sugar plus ube, cassava, saging na saba, sago, coconut strips and a lot more. And while we're at it LINUG is the local term for earthquake. We were often joked during our younger years that if we are naughty days before our birthday, our “handa” during the party would be “linugaw”. And that made us become little angels prior to the big day. There’s nothing really degrading but for kids, exchanging cakes, spaghetti and hotdogs on sticks among others for linugaw would seem like a horrible birthday party. Of course that never happened and linugaw became more appreciated now than before. The recipe varies from place to place much mor...

The Cybercrime Law (RA 10175) is just two hours old and in protest, here are some BLACK gastronomic delights we can all indulge in. Adobo is the most quintessential and, most often, among the simplest way of preparing pusit (squid) or lokus in Hiligaynon . No fancy ingredients nor methods of cooking, just thrown in the key ingredients in the pan then after a few minutes it is done. Just like any adobo dish, it requires vinegar and soy sauce with bay leaves, garlic and onions. Some add chili to make it spicy and others cook it until almost dry then add some oil. Depending on the size of the squid, if it is big then it is recommend that it is sliced into thick rings but if they are just bit sized, then it will do as is. There is no singular recipe for adobong pusit and like adobo , in general, it comes down to personal preference. Juts learn the basic recipe then add some more ingredients of your own and make some tweaks in the preparation methods to discover a recipe of your...

I love puso ng saging [banana heart] especially when made part of sinigang na bangus . The sour and milky broth often commands cups of rice to go with it. Also as part of laswa , chopped puso ng saging gives in more fiber and texture to the merry mix of vegetables. Then there's the adobong puso ng saging in which it has the familiar vinegar-soy sauce flavour without the guilt of cholesterol. And ginata-ang puso ng saging - this could also be kilawin of sorts as vegetables can also be made into one. I had my share of this specialty the few times I've been to the H appy Kitchen Diner at Amigo Plaza mall. Though this may not be their recipe but it almost like the one my tastebuds got to try and remember. INGREDIENTS 3 pcs fresh banana heart 2 Tbsp coconut milk 3 pcs shallots, thinly sliced 5 pcs calamansi 2 pcs red chili salt PREPARATION 1. Peel off the reddish outer layers of the banana heart to reveal the whitish core. 2. Cut off the stem and discard. A...

T he sun never came out today and there’s no sign that the rain will stop any moment. Yes, it’s (still) raining cats and dogs as I am writing this piece. B ut if there’ any consolation for this weather, it’s got to be the arroz caldo I just had for lunch - very simple yet fully satisfying. Not shouting with the usual yellowish color but just the natural hue of sautéed ingredients – chicken pieces and liver. But I just had liver for this session for it’s more photogenic. Arroz means rice and caldo, broth; so it’s just soupy rice. I haven’t tried making one myself, I just enjoy eating it. But based on taste and looks – it may just seem easy. Just sauté chicken pieces in garlic, onion and ginger then add chicken stock and/or chicken flavoured broth cubes. Add rice (sticky or even) but make sure that the rice-liquid ratio is more on the broth side. One can also add “kalawag” powder or turmeric to give more yellowish tint and hardboiled egg as garnish just like in most restaurants specifi...