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.

Bahay Na Bato of La Union

many faces in Bahay na Bato

Luna, La Union. In this remote town of this province you can find one of the tourist destinations being visited by thousands of tourists because of its unique man-made attractions and the millions of pebbles in the beach. Located in western part of north La Union is the tourists hub called Bahay Na Bato or Stone House

The fusion of natural beauty of the nature comprising of the coasts of Luna town that boost the beach of millions of pebbles that decorated the more than 5 kilometer shoreline of  villages here. Then the one of kind collections of arts from the imaginative thinking of the Korean artists who carved many animals and creatures in the unique wood formations, big stones and hardened lime stones.

wood carving

The arts of stone sculpture that carve many things like artistic formed of faces, animals like head of gorilla, crustaceans among others.

head of gorilla

Also the wood carvings from dried roots and trunks of a tree that sculpted to an artistic heads of dragons, grottos and other religious images and other animals.

head of the dragon

The latest attractions are the antique collections of things used by farmers, fishermen, carpenters, World War 2 memorabilia and many more.

 You think you can spend your 1 hour of roaming and enjoying the moment in Bahay Na Bato? Think again. Your two hours might not enough for you and roam around the not so wide area of this venue. Besides, many of things here are really appreciable and a mere seeing and touching them is not enough. You have to know the stories of each art in the park.

So, if you love nature and arts, gas your car for one hour ride from national highway of Bangar and enjoy the arts and beach pebbles.###

Cassava Bibingka

Bibingka is one of the famous delicacies in the Philippines. Be it made with cassava or glutinous rice. It’s part of the tradition of the Filipino that during special occasion and party, there should be bibingka in the table.

Cassava or as we call it "kamoteng-kahoy" is one rootcrop easily found in the country in any region. The abundance of the said rootcrop resulted to many local delicacies.

What we need to bake now is cassava bibingka.

What you need:

7 cups of grated cassava

3 pieces of coconut

2 cups of sugar

1 cup of evaporated milk

Butter

Banana leaves

For Toppings

1         cup of coconut milk

2 spoonful of flour

1 cup of condensed milk

2         eggs

3         grated cheese

PREPARATIONS

Thorough beat and mix  the eggs and sugar

Add other ingredients and then put  in the pan with the banana leaves

Add together the coconut milk and flour

Add the condensed milk

Cook in low heat until become sticky

Add the egg yolk and mixed together

Cook thoroughly up to 5 minutes

Add to the baked bibingka

Put some cheese

Cooked until it turn to color golden brown.

Ramanam.

Tinungbo, Cooking Rice In Bamboo

Tinungbo is an early Ilocano way of cooking rice. There could never be any race or tribe to cook rice like this but this traditional way of cooking have been here particularly to the race living in the northern part of the Philippines. Well, of course, when it comes to survival, you may have experienced cooking rice the way we cook it.

Tinungbo is simply cooking the rice using the bamboo. That's it, no more than that. No secret ingredients and no special way of cooking the rice. Just like you are not just using the rice cooker or the pan to cook the rice. There is bamboo variety called 'bolo' that best suit to cook the rice grains. The bolo bambo have thinner skin which help the rice to cook faster.