Balo-Balo Experiment

A heap of the potato-balo-balo mash with some veggies.

Following my Quite General Pinoy Fermentation Post, I decided to act upon my idea that balo-balo, Capampangan fermented rice with fish or freshwater shrimp, has a tart cheesy taste that will work well with making certain people eat their vegetables.

So I made a thickish mash using lots of garlic, coconut milk and potatoes (this would be great in a moussaka), and added the rice part of balo-balo (I don't eat the seafood part, but I like the rice!). This resulted in a mash that we scooped over our vegetables, which were a sauteed mixture of sigarillas, pako fern, and the astringent blossoms of banana.


Just the vegetables.

While it is a good combination for layering, or as slathering material, the potato makes it too thick in a starchy-irresistible way to eat just a little bit of. Call it the impulse to pile on anything potato. Perhaps I will thin it out with more coconut cream and less potato next time.

I will be experimenting more in finding interesting ways to use fermented foodstuffs. As a last note, the lactic acid from our balo-balo apparently might help reduce obesity.

Tofu "Sandwiches"

The tofu thingies with some corn soup (and squid there in the back for the seafood eaters in the family).

What to do with tokwa (or tao kwa, if you are Thai)? This pressed soy cake has less moisture (and is therefore drier and firmer) than other forms of tofu. It is also way cheaper.

Usually, a little bit of crunch or flavor sets it up for me. When it's extremely crunchy and cooked through, I can eat it without sauce. It's a good substitute for meat in dishes. And also, it's a good substitute for fake meat that is substituted for meat in dishes. (Fake meat sucks!)

Earlier this week we were supposed to do the whole simple tofu-balsamic vinegar thing, but the lure of the garden lured. After some foraging, I came in and made a paste of lemongrass, garlic, and guava in the dikdikan and cooked it over low heat with a bit of mascobado sugar, soy sauce, and sesame oil.


Guava season! Peeling, before removing the seeds of this small sucka.

Meanwhile, I sliced each cake of tokwa in half. I fried them until they were adequately brown and slightly crispy. I laid these out like small sandwiches and spread the lemongrass paste on them. I then laid several leaves of kulitis on, and covered with the other half of tokwa.


It is okay to play with your food before serving it.

And on top went some malunggay leaves, arranged like a little flower. The rest of the paste went on in similarly dotty fashion. In the end, I took the oil from cooking the paste, mixed it with more soy sauce, and drizzled it on top. Drizzled sounds fancy, no?

My brother said it was a bit too garlicky for his tastes. I, on the other hand, am a screaming fan of garlic. I wish I made more paste, and just slathered the whole thing with flavor.

Simple Pleasures

Gardencore!

Food experimentation is doubly nice when you use stuff from your own backyard. We are surrounded by edibles, mostly dismissed as weeds or "just" trees. If I weren't vegetarian, I'd probably be hanging around parks and going for the pigeons.

The above dish was made by sauteeing various leafies: talinum, kulitis, young green mango leaves, kamoteng kahoy tops, malunggay, eggplant, and alugbati in a lot of garlic and ginger.

A paste of onions, sampaloc leaves (the light green small ones), wood sorrel, and another red kind of sorrel that tastes like kamias (all sour leaves with varying character) was mixed with mascobado sugar.

I combined the greens and the paste in the pan, and let them sit for awhile so they could "get to know each other". The whole thing was then topped with slices of burong mangga, which I made a few weeks ago. Around the whole "glob" I put fresh leaves of pansit-pansitan and Thai basil.


With betel leaves (soaked first in water and a bit of mascobado sugar for ten minutes) and crushed Indian papadum to sprinkle on rice.

This was laid out with some betel leaves (the same one they use for Indian paan) to make small wraps with. Locally, this vine is known as ikmo, and older people use it to when they chew nganga, along with the betel nut (bunga). It has a slightly sour flavor, and can be found in many Southeast Asian dishes.

Weed Rolls

A semi-foraged meal. Pancakes are separated by langka or jackfruit leaves. These make it easy for you to pick the next one up!

Not that kind of weed, but uray. Considered by many to be a pesky plant, it can be made into wonderful things. I got a whole bagful yesterday from someone else's land. The variety was spiny, so I was a bit slow in collecting. But I was able to listen to someone making up a rap in Filipino about tomatoes, so it was worth it.

Today I made thin pancakes out of ground munggo and sticky rice, and another "found herb" that tasted like green mango. Tossed these all in a blender (whilst dreaming of a bike-powered blender, that would be really cool) and spread like a crepe onto a pan. You can use a leaf to rub oil onto the pan.


Ready to roll!

On these went the garlicky sauteed uray, which had a very distinct taste-- like spinach but more pleasant. Picked some basil and put on the side.

The sauce was made with lemongrass, garlic, ginger, onion and soy sauce with vinegar. (I used my homemade kombucha vinegar, but you can use any sort.) Just pound them all up with a mortar and pestle. Add some sugar or honey.

Extremely cheap and fresh!

Fried Saba Variation

Nom nom nom... My brother thinks that fried saba bananas pre-dipped in atta flour taste funny. I think they are good, although they absorb a lot of oil because of the coating... They tasted especially nice with the palm sugar Jana brought from Thailand.

Before I fried them, I cooked some ginger, lemongrass, and cinnamon bark into the oil.

Lokal Cereal

I drink my coffee with coconut milk, and it is delicious. But sometimes I want to, you know, put other stuff in it. Since it is halo-halo season, pinipig is readily available. However, it is more often of the puffed sort, instead of the authentic pounded rice.

When I want some grown-up and Filipino cereal, I mix it all together: kape, gata, pinipig and ripe mangga. Add some mascobado sugar and you have a nom-nom calorie bomb. My favorite part of making this snack is buying the coconut.



I especially like watching coconuts being split in half. Coconut-crackers always do it with such skill and confidence, like they have been doing it since infancy. You cannot help but think: "That is how a job ought to be done!". All model citizens, they are.

This particular merchant had a stone worktop with a channel carved on it-- like a little tributary-- to lead the juice into a waste bucket.

People probably used to take them home in the emptied-out shells. If that seems messy, try to take a reusable container with you, to spare yourself from having to take a plastic bag home.

Onde-Onde and the Southeast Asian Connection

I recently made a batch of onde-onde, an Indonesian/Malaysian dumpling made of sticky rice flour with sweet filling. It calls to mind palitaw, a Filipino favorite. Like most dishes from our region, they have countless variations. But in general, both are boiled in water (and they likewise float when they are done). Both are eaten sprinkled with grated coconut.

The onde-onde, however, is a filled ball, and the palitaw is flat. Onde-onde contains coconut milk, while palitaw uses only water for its dough. Palitaw's sweetness comes from the sugar and sesame seeds on top.

Filipinos rarely ponder their relationship with the rest of Southeast Asia, probably because we are isolated from the mainland, and have an identity so defined by our supercolonial past. It thus came as quite a surprise that onde-onde's name is so obviously related to the Pangasinan snack unda-unday. This regional sweet is also made with sticky rice flour, but has no filling, is flat like palitaw, and is served with coconut sauce. (Are you confused yet?)

To complicate matters further, I decided to include some of the onde-onde (sans toppings) in guinataan, a Filipino pudding made with coconut milk. This is to celebrate the mixed-up-ness of everything, which is a reflection of the beautiful movement of people and knowledge through time. Food reminds us that we are part of a larger, evolving whole.



This is how I made my version of onde-onde:

First I made a pandan-tanglad extract by boiling pandan and lemongrass leaves in water. I strained that and mixed it with enough coconut milk to make a dough out of about two cups of sticky rice flour.





You need to pinch enough dough to make a ball, bore a small hole in it. In this hole goes raw sugar. Indonesia uses palm sugar, which was rendered obsolete in the Philippines by the Spaniards. So I used the more available raw mascobado sugar (from sugar cane), which works just as well, except it has a heavier and more cloying molasses taste.

For good measure, I added pulp from ripened Indian mangoes, as well as a bit of sesame seeds.







Seal it, and seal it well so it does not leak as it cooks.



Every ball goes into a pot of boiling water, rising to the surface as it is ready. After letting them drain, roll them in freshly grated coconut. Liquid sweetness will burst forth with every bite. A good but heavy snack!