Foot and Fire

By GERLIE M. UY Linaga nga Baka with Langka... Weekends are best as we have time to slow-cook like this linaga. Beef soup are best with slow cook so that one can get the real beef stock. It is always a treat! Once in a while, it is great to have meat protein for this vegetable girl. 1 kilo Beef (Cuts with bones) 3 liter water batuan (sour fruit popular in Visayas) 3 thumbs of ginger 1 knot of lemongrass leaves Jalapeno Chili Salt 1 T of Chinese Five Spice (optional) Slices of unripe jackfruit Wash the beef cuts and place in a cauldron with water. Bring to boil until meat is tender. At least 2 hours in charcoal fire. But this must be shorter in pressure cookers. Add crushed batuan, crushed ginger, and lemongrass. Bring to boil until the spices are in the soup. Add salt. Add jalapeno, more salt if needed, Chinese five spice and the unripe jackfruit. Let boil until jackfruit is cooked. Where we cooked it... Whole fresh batuan, crushed. Sliced unripe jackfruit.

By GERLIE M. UY (FYI: In my Beijing trip, I learned that this is a lucky cabbage for the Chinese and they make jade and gold sculptures of this)  Two heads of Chinese Cabbage 3 medium pieces sweet potatoes or potatoes 1 can tuna (solid in water) salt and pepper to taste Some toothpicks How to: Prepare the Chinese Cabbage by remove 1/4 of an inch from the ends. Separate and wash each leaf. Save the smaller leaves for other recipes. Can yield 12 pieces for each head. Boil the sweet potatoes. Peel and mash. Put the mashed potatoes in a bowl, add the tuna (include the water). Season to taste. Form the mixture into balls. Since we just love cabbages, I use the whole leaf to cover the ball of potato and tuna. You may opted to cut them into half. Secure the wraps with toothpicks. Steam for five minutes. Remove the toothpicks and serve as appetizer or side dish. For dipping sauce, I used dalanghita. Any citrus will do. Fish Sauce 2 pieces long chili (jalapeno) See my previous post of...