Dinuguan (the chocolate meat)

Dinuguan

In one of our training seminars, a nurse supervisor recounted her experience working in the United States. She said that fellow Filipino nurses loved doing potluck and they gathered somewhat discretely to eat their baon after the shift was over. Now, a Jewish colleague happened to see them and got curious. When she asked about a particular dish, my nurse supervisor simply said that it's called "the chocolate meat". Well, you can probably tell what took place next. It must have happened too fast before anyone could properly warn the Jew. Let's just say it's not her fault (the Jew nor anyone else).

So what made it sinful? Dinuguan is pork and blood combined. The fresh pig's blood is added at the end of cooking after the meat is braised and becomes tender. Majority of Filipinos are Catholics who have no religion-imposed restrictions on food. Thus, it is a treat rather than a sin to us.

Hungry for diningding

Diningding

Diningding is second to pinakbet in popularity in terms of the Ilocano food heritage (and that's according to me!) Both use bagoong to give a distinctive flavor, but the stronger taste obviously belongs to diningding. Hence, it only ranks below pinakbet (again, this is just my opinion).

How to prepare diningding


You can choose from the vegetables included in "Bahay Kubo" , perhaps modifying the dish by adding other seasonings, but you can't call it diningding if you don't have bagoong in your recipe. My dad's technique involves heating bagoong with garlic (no onion) and any previously fried or broiled fish (leftovers are fine), with just enough water to immerse the rest of your ingredients later on. When it boils, you can start adding your vegetables. The harder ones get in the pot first. The leaves come last.

Tips in cooking

Don't stir the bagoong in the water when it hasn't boiled completely or you'll end up with a very pungent bagoong soup. Wait for about two minutes before you start stirring to get a more delicate flavor.

You can sweeten your diningding by using sweet potatoes. Just be patient because you have to chop it so small that it almost melts in your concoction, becoming nearly undetectable if not for the taste.

Lastly, for the hypertensive Pinoy, try neutralizing the effect of sodium in your meal with more garlic. 

What's for lunch?

Daludal 

Pork intestine served in vinegar, salt, and onions

Filipinos have peculiar dishes that are as varied as the laguages/dialects spoken in the archipelago. Being truly proud of my roots, I would like to share some of these which were prepared from our own gas stove. 

The first dish is called daludal,  young taro shoots cooked in bagoong (the juice of salted anchovies) and spiced white vinegar. It is truly Ilocano because of the strong bagoong flavor. When cooked, it becomes slimy, which other people find disgusting. Even so, I just love it!

The second dish is like kinilaw (meat served raw) but you can't really chew raw intestines with all its gooey contents, can you? We only call it kinilaw because it copies the kinilaw marinade (vinegar and calamansi juice with chopped onions, garlic, and a dash of pepper, salt and/or patis) in which the pork intestines are eventually placed after cooking in low heat with some water. Pork intestines can also be used for adobo.

Now

Today is not so far from yesterday, while tomorrow seems like light-years away. Only a fool can feel certain of his destination; he traipses and never finds the end of the road. But be patient. Be humble. Persevere. Now is your chance to make the future yours.

The limit

Science has a way of quantifying things to arrive at conclusions objectively. For example, pure water boils at a temperature of 100 degrees centigrade. Thus, it is impure if it is boils under or above this level. When drawing blood to test sugar, 110 mg/dl of blood glucose is generally the upper normal value, and one must stay close to this limit to avoid the dreaded medications. We can all thank research for making it possible for men to know what is going wrong through these numbers.

In everyday setting, these values are a useful tool for companies as well. If an employee calls in sick, then she should see a doctor for a medical certificate The doctor checks the sick employee and notes no fever nor apparent abnormality on physical examination. But the employee complains, "I really am sick". The doctor recommends further tests to disprove her claim. The poor employee smiles. Feeling beaten by the system, she decides not to proceed with it and leaves the clinic. The next day, poor girl has not shown up for work again. Her phone rings incessantly with her manager on the other line. She picks it up then slams it against the wall. She closes her eyes and sleeps.

Adobo

Back in high school, adobo was almost staple in our diet, just like rice. But we weren't complaining. It's good that we still had pork in the table, because that means we had money. If we had more, then my aunt (who acted as our guardian while my parents worked in the middle east) would buy chicken, mix it with pork, and cook it in soy sauce. Sometimes, we had vegetables prepared as in adobo, like the adobong sitaw. When we visit my other aunt who lived in a nearby town, she would skin frogs (the edible ones, because some contain poison) she bought in the market and used them as her main ingredient.  You have to use your hands if you are finishing a plateful of adobong palaka (frog adobo) as forking through the small and thin bones to separate the meat takes a long time. When my mom came home to settle here for good, she brought with her variations in the traditional recipe, complementing soy sauce with oyster sauce and adding pineapple chunks to make it sweeter, completely discarding laurel leaves (bay leaves) in the process.

Today, my adventure begins...

Everyone needs attention, and so does this blog. Unfortunately, I was not born to write, and putting up a blog makes me wonder if anyone will ever want to know what is going on here. Of course, I intend to keep my anonymity just in case my writing gets sleazy.