FLAVOURS OF ILOILO

A favorite of many Ilonggos, ginat-an nga tambo is heaven to them and fans of Ilonggo cuisine. With coconut milk and greens like saluyot, takway and okra plus subak 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 recipe for 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 f...

A well loved recipe, ginat-an nga tambo (bamboo shoots in coconut milk) is a dish most Ilonggos find irresistible and most often missed when away from their hometown. Usually it has tagabang (saluyot) and okra as partners with seafood as subak (the "meat" part). Most of the time, shrimps, crabs or local snails known as bago-ngon makes it more delicious but this one has pinakas ( daing ) nga lison which makes it more appetizing since this is a favorite salted and dried fish of mine. Its more fleshy, often good as subak in most vegetable dishes but even better on it's own - dipped in sinamak (spiced vinegar).

Seafood and vegetables often make a good medley when cooked together. A few of the celebrated Ilonggo vegetable dishes are made with this combination like laswa and ginata-ang tambo . Others like nilatik or the Ilonggo adaptation of pinakbet can also be revised to include seafood. Laswa is probably the simplest among the Ilonggo vegetable dishes. Its a stew of differnet kinds of vegetables usually kalabasa (squash) , tagabang (saluyot) , hantak (string beans) , okra , talong (eggplant), takway (taro plant tendrils) and a lot more. Dried seafood like pinakas na guma-a (daing) or balingon (dilis) often accompanies this recipe for the saltiness of the fishes add flavour to the mix of vegetables. Another favorite is ginat-an na tambo (bamboo shoots with coconut milk). Shrimps and/or crabs create a perfect dish in combination with the bamboo shoots, saluyot and at times, corn all cooked together in coconut milk. Another coconut milk based vegetable dish is the quintessential ni...

A well loved recipe, ginat-an nga tambo (bamboo shoots in coconut milk) is a dish most Ilonggos find irresistible and most often missed when away from their hometown. Usually it has tagabang (saluyot) and okra as partners with seafood as subak (the "meat" part). Most of the time, shrimps, crabs or local snails known as bago-ngon makes it more delicious but this one has pinakas ( daing ) nga lison which makes it more appetizing since this is a favorite salted and dried fish of mine. Its more fleshy, often good as subak in most vegetable dishes but even better on it's own - dipped in sinamak (spiced vinegar).

What more can I say to this "concoction" of tambo (bamboo shots), corn, okra and tagabang ( saluyot ) cooked in gata (coconut milk) with kalampay (small or midget? crabs) but Namit (delicious)!

Photos courtesy of Labeth of SSC Forum A perfect combination for another well-loved Ilonggo dish.

An unlikely adobo. I was looking for a side dish for my chicken adobo rice when this ready to cook tambo greeted me from the fridge. It was dismay that made me create an adobo out of an unlikely vegetable since the puso ng saging I intentionally bought for that purpose became useless when I peeled it. I was supposed to make a sitaw-puso ng saging adobo but it never came. Though I still have my sitaw if ever I can get another puso ng saging . I just threw in whatever I saw for this on the spot adobo but it turned out great. It even looked and tasted like my usual tuna sisig. So after rounds of shots, I finally finished this experiment on tambo.

A picture story showing how this freshly harvested bamboo shoots become one of the Ilonggo favorite dishes

A favorite dish that is very much fiber enriched at the same time delicious. At home, it is almost, always paired with okra and tagabang (saluyot) with shrimps or crabs (or its mutilated parts).

Bamboo shoots locally known as tambo is a popular ingredient in some Ilonggo dishes. Most popular of which is ginata-ang tambo with tagabang (saluyot) and pasayan (shrimps) or alimango (crabs). Another dish is paklay , which is just sauteed t ambo with ground meat and/or shrimps. But eversince, I haven't really seen what it looked like prior making it into my plate. So it was a surprise when I finally saw these newly harvested bamboo shoots in our dirty kitchen. Not really enticing, but once the outer covering is scraped off and the dirty white inside is revealed, it then slowly becomes like the tambo we are familiar with. It is sliced according to our needs; thin strips for paklay dishes or just thin slices mostly for ginataang tambo . It is boiled to soften and to get rid of the unwanted taste. Then it is ready for whatever it would become.

Paklay is what we call a dish made of tambo (bamboo shoots) cut into strips. Though I dont have any idea if this is solely for tambo or generic for all vegetables like radish, singkamas, etc. This one is what I call cooking-whats-in-the-fridge. Having leftover tambo, some ground meat and shrimps, this dish was just sauteeing and simmering. Though the tambo was not cut into strips, we still call this one "paklay".

Young bamboo shoots popularly known as tambo have made its way into most regional cuisines. Be it made into atsara, filling in lumpias or plainly sauteed with ground meat. To prepare bamboo shoots for this dish, thinly sliced tambo must be boiled around 30minutes then squeezed to get rid of its bitter flavour. To the Ilonggos, tambo is a slimy and milky "laswa" dish consisting of saluyot, okra and coconut milk, it oftentimes has shrimps or crabs as meat.