Foot and Fire

I bought the stringbeans from the junior high school trade fair. When I said how much is the "balatong" a girl corrected me that it is "sitaw." I laughed and said the song Bahay Kubo has mentioned Sitaw, it is tge Filipino word but for us Ilonggos, it is balatong in hiligaynon. She smiled! I made and adobong sitaw. Sone versions add alamang, meat or tofu but I made mine just the beans.  Adobong sitaw Stringbeans, cut 1 inch long Garlic, minced Onions, chopped Oil for sautè Water, if needed Soy sauce Fish sauce Vinegar (used banana vinegar I made, see previous posts) Bay leaf Sall & pepper Sautè garlic and onions in oil until transluscent. Add stringbeans. Close with lid for 3 minutes.  Add a little water if needed. Then add the rest of the ingredients. Stir. Close with lid for 3 minutes. Taste the stringbeans, it should be crunchy if you want it half-cooked or an eaay bite if you want it well done. Remove from fire. Serve hot over rice. 

     Laswa or vegetable stew is a Visayan favorite and this comes in many variation. My mother would say that when you cook " laswa " you should have an odd number ( Even is a no no!!) so that everything will go well or sampat in our Hiligaynon mother tongue.       Okra and saluyot are two magic ingredients because they give that special slimy texture in the soup, so either of these two must be present. What makes this laswa special is the mushroom and the mongo sprout since they are not usually used to add flavor to the soup. Usually, dried fish or shrimp is used to add flavor to this favorite dish.  Lastly, malunggay or moringa is one leafy green that is staple for laswa. I did not consciously observe the Odd rule here but hey, I got 6 main ingredients but I'm still lucky that it turned out yummy. tomatoes onion water lemongrass, bound Oyster Mushrooms, shred Saluyot, half chopped and half whole 3 stalks Malungay (Moringa) leaves 2T...

LASWA, an Ilongo vegetable soup that is worth featuring for the nth time in this blog.  One secret to a good laswa is to use odd number of vegetables so it can have a perfect result. So in this one, I used squash, malungay or moringa, saluyot or locally called tugabang, balagay or winged beans and okra.  My nephew asked me what are the other names of okra as.my readers might not understand it. I said, it is mostly known as okra but Wiki suggested "English-speaking countries as  ladies' fingers  or  ochro." So be it, but lady's finger here in the Philippines refers to a small fragrant and tasty banana that looks like its name, a lady's finger. So back to laswa, I have 5 ingredients and they all went well together.  I used miso paste as my seasoning and it went well with the fish sauce. That is a must try inlieu of the usual dried anchovies or shrimps. 2 tomatoes 1 onion Saluyot, 1/3 chopped and reserve the rest Winged beans Squash Okr...

ADOBO NGA TAKWAY For Ilonggos, this is a vegetable delicacy. Slimy with smooth texture, it's almost melt in the mouth vegetarian experience of adobo. But personally, there is no other vegetable that could effectively evoke childhood memories of five siblings simultaneously as strong as Takway.  With Tatay as our team captain then, we used to gather around a kalalaw to keenly peel off the brown layers of each strand of takway, a long growing extra root of gabi, because the peeled ones in the wetmarket are too little for our appetite that we have to peel our own so we can eat in gusto. It was like a fiesta at the house when we had this .  Too bad for me today; adobo nga takway goes well with lots of rice and I just had some with a mere half rice.