How To Make Tableya

ilocano tableya

Tableya is the simplest form of chocolate. The original color as never alters with artificial food coloring. The original taste was there as it was not added with milk or any kind of nuts. Except for a little bit of sugar to sweetened, tableya is the original form of chocolate made directly from cacao fruits traditionally.

Cacao fruits now are not just kind of fruit that children sipped the nectar because of the sweetness then throw away the seeds. People now know the fruit is the best and only source of chocolate. So throwing them elsewhere is not a good thing to do. Make it into tableya.

How to make tableya the traditional method?

Bunog, The Ilocano Fish Favorite

Bunog fish and the dishes include paksiw and fried.

Bunog is a kind of freshwater fish commonly found in the shallow parts of river, lakes and ponds.

The fish usually grow up to around 4 inches when maturity but can be harvested when it reaches 1 inch or more. The fish also have tiny fish scales but it’s fleshy specially the upper body. The stomach part becomes bulky and that’s because of eggs in it. That would be the best part to it.

There are many recipes for bunog but Ilocanos usually cooked this as pinaksiw or cook in vinegar with onions, pepper, salt, ginger. This is common recipe because it’s a fast cook dish. Folks love this goby fish because of the roe that makes the tummy bulker. When cooked as pinaksiw, the roe make it so tasteful that they choose the tummy part to eat.

How To Make Ata-Ata Dish

ATA-ATA dish

Ata-ata is an Ilocano food made from very lean meat of either cow or carabao. For common Ilocano meat eaters this is first class meat dish especially when added with the so called "papait".

The meat is thoroughly cleaned and is cut into desired sizes, sometimes is smaller cube sizes. Yes sir the meat will not be cook but just let the vinegar or calamansi to sterilize and mint the meat.

Add some ingredients like chopped white onions, pepper, ginger and other seasoning that you want to add.

Papait is signature to Ilocano ata-ata dish because of the bitter-sweet taste of the meat.

Of course, though considered to a good food in every meal but the best serving of ata-ata is with favorite wine or beer.

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.