utong is one of my favorite veggie. sumptous, delicious greens. be it fruit stewed or in soup, or in a crisp salad with bugguong juice and tomato slices, or sauteed or in its adobo version; or the bukel, seeds, the beans itself boiled or napabellad (napablad) sauteed in lots of garlic and onions and garnished with paria tops, marunggay tops, kalunay tops, camote tops, alugbati tops and virtually all tops and green leafy veggies you can imagine or you can take in.

utong. string beans, that is. pardon, but i’m not talking about the tagalog utong (which, btw, is equally sumptous, i gather).

and utong tops, of course. i usually dengdeng, stew, string bean tops as solo, without the usual partnership of other tops and green leaves. although i also love it as a salad. but i love the glorious soup out of it, the inherent sabeng or distinct “aroma” akin to marunggay’s or alukon’s fragrance when cooked.

and when available, i add this great dried shrimps to further enhance the flavor of the broth.

flavor it with the preferred amount of bugguong. make it that it won’t become too salty. to moderate saltiness, put in just the right amount of bugguong so you won’t need to add table salt. bugguong itself is salt, so why add more salt?

don’t overcook the tops. make it just as crispy and succulent as you would with the salad version. add some slices of tomato just before you serve.

here, isn’t it a heavenly, ambrotial, soup?