Twist For Miki Noodles That Is So Good For Merienda

That one bowl—one big bowl, enough for anyone to be full. The good thing is that its nutritious to make you health and active. This is the miki being sold in one of the snack house in Candon City. It’s a flat noodles with a twist.

The noodle is made from flour and added with the healthy vegetable like the squash fruit. It will be served with the thick orange-colored soup in the large bowl. The soup alone will make you full and the taste is yummy.

Stir-fried Water Spinach With Pork Meat

Water spinach or kangkong as we popularly known this green leafy vegetable is such a hit in Filipino meal. It's one of the easiest way to provide meal in table without even spending big amount of money. Sometimes, you just have to go to rice field or in the shallow river and gather the good quality leaves of this vine vegetable.

There have been many dishes which can be cook in as short as 5 minutes: bland, adobo, pinaksiw or as special ingredient to sinigang. But of course, one of the most popular dish is the ginisa or the stir-fried kangkong.

Native Chicken With Native Ampalaya Leaves

Perhaps one of the best dish for chicken is tinola. But people in northern Philippines cannot appreciate the taste of tinola if its not native chicken.

Compared to the so called 45 days chicken, native is meaner and tastier. The reason is so simple, because native chickens are raised in the backyard and eat with grass and other natural food and not grown with feeds and other growth enhancing product.

And speaking of tinola, its not just any ingredients to be included in the dish but you have to choose the young leaves of native ampalaya leaves. That bitterness is the best bitter taste in vegetable. Just don't overcook the leaves and you find it the best in soup of the chicken.

Well of course anyone can opt with papaya,  malunggay and sayote for chicken tinola but this leaves makes it so different.

Try it in your tinola dish.

Leddeg, The Freshwater Snail

Ilocano call it as "leddeg"-- the freshwater edible snail commonly found in freshwater area like ponds, lakes and ricefields. Darker in color and have longer tails compared to other escargot like the golden variety.

Season to gather them starts when the raining season comes. Usually thriving in shallow water with muddy soil people gather them by their hands.

The gathered snails are not directly cook as it need to be cleaned and detoxified by letting them live in a pan with clean water.

Cooking the snails can be fried, in fresh coconut milk and the Ilocano way which is "dinengdeng".

Dinengdeng usually have lots of water added with ginger, onions and local vegetables like string beans, squash blooms, white turnip fruits among others.

Taste can be sweet to the tongue of Ilocano. Well, the taste could be differ from other people. This is good for lunch and dinner.

Marabukakaw, Spotted Hard Shell Crab

marabukakaw in sinigang

In Ilocos we call this crab “marabukakaw”—a kind of hard shelled brown crab with three spots in its back. Commonly found in the rocky part of coastal in Ilocos it is called “camilo” in Batangas (as what I search online). But aside from these names, I could not get the English name except it’s a hard shelled 3 spotted crab.

Hard as may it seem with its brown shell but it’s a delicious food among Ilocanos particularly in coastal areas. It’s a rare you can find this crab in the market in our place. This is usually being sell by the fish vendor who roam around the villages.

Just like any crabs the most common for this food is sinigang. Of course it can also be cook over the heat we call “tinuno”. There are other recipes but this is the common for this crab.

Sinigang, the tamarind based soup is usually for homecook. You just need the usual ingredients which is tamarind fruit (for sour tasting), onions, young leaves of non-hot chili or kamote and of course the salt and other seasoning.

Cook as sinigang. Just like that… just add the marabukakaw or hard shells crab and serve in the table. As I have said, the shell is hard so you need some knives to crack the shell from the bottom.

The rock may be hard as rock but the taste is yummy as… well, seafood. You going to love it.###

How To Cook Sapsapuriket

sapsapuriket

Sapsapuriket is an Ilocano cuisine of native chicken in its blood. Using the coconut milk and other ingredients, this very Ilocano dish is famous during special occasions in homes like birthday celebrations or anniversaries.

During the Tobacco Festival 2017 of Candon City fiesta, a cooking contest was held and one of the dishes to be prepared was sapsapuriket. The Farmers Association of zone 3 composing Alex Almazan, Ismael Lozano and Elmer Perez presented this recipe of sapsapuriket.

What you need?

1 native chicken with its blood

¼ butter

1 piece onion

1 ginger

3 cloves garlic

Ground pepper

Coconut milk

Seasoning

How To Cook.

1.       Prepare all the ingredients

2.       Dissolve the butter in small heat.

3.       Sauté the chicken meat with garlic, onion and ginger until the color become reddish.

4.       Add small amount of water and let it boil making the meat tender.

5.       Add the coconut milk.

6.       Let it boil until the water decreases.

7.       Add the chili pepper.

8.       Add the chicken blood and stir thoroughly.

9.       Sautee to taste with salt and seasoning.

10.   Ready for plating

ramanam

Sinigang Na Malaga In Camias

 

sinigang na malaga in camias

Sinigang is an all-time favorite. And Ilocano have our own way of making this ginger based sour soup to be special. Doing it with camias fruits instead of tamarind or vinegar.

Camias should be no problem in Ilocandia because household have their own camias tree in the backyard—almost every home. Malaga a brackish water fish which usually catch in a part where the saltwater and freshwater meets.

The malaga fish is one of the favorite fish among the locals because of its soft and tasty flesh. It has tiger-like printed skin colored gray and back. It’s quite expensive because it’s hard to catch and harder to grow. But once in the table, it’s a hit.