the leaves of marunggay (moringa oleifera) or marunggi, as ilokanos fondly call it, can be prepared in a variety of ways. foremost, it is a basic, even vital, ingredient in the inabraw or dinengdeng potpourri of veggie leafy greens, shoots and tops and pods and fruits.

or as a solo marunggi broth perfect for a nutritious igup or labay.

i love it also as a leafy topping in my instant pancit mami.

it is also inevitable as a leafy mix in sauteed pinablad/boiled mongo or balatong and other dried beans/legumes or any other pusi like kardis, patani or parda. it’s even sometimes a preferred garnishing in tinola a manok if sili or paria leaves is scarce.

and of course, as a salad or kinilnat as simple as itself, slightly boiled or blanched and dipped in bugguong juice with some tomato slices or a perres of calamansi. or dressed, drenched with bugguong.

i love marunggi salad and i want it fast, quick express that my fancy way of blanching it is i just dip it whole, stalks with leaves intact, in a boiling water for a minute or two, season it, garnish it, and then enjoy it, as it is, again, with the stalks serving as a convenient stick to to hold it to your eager mouth and consume the sumptous leaves right away.

ahh, the versatility and the ilocano frugality of it all… what a gastronomic bliss!

katuday (sesbania grandiflora) tree, along with the marunggi tree, is often planted along roadsides in most ilocos provinces and in front/backyards of ilokano houses. you know you are in ilocos or in an ilokano neighborhood if you see one, or a combination, or all, of these staple ilokano “fixtures”: marunggay tree, katuday tree, alokon tree (“miniaturized” and sometimes planted in a sack or cut steel drum). although, of course, katuday or katuray is not exclusively ilokano because other filipino peoples also like it. but ilokanos just love it as a salad drenched with bugguong and garnished with tomato. and you can also find it as floral part in a dinengdeng/inabraw a bulbulong (boiled leafy greens) along with karabasa blossoms. katuday is also wonderful with your inabraw nga aba or ginettaan nga aba (taro stems/leaves/roots stew or with coconut milk), the bittersweet character of the flower leaves a unique sweetish aftertaste.

but i prefer the simple kinilnat a katuday or ensalada a katuday. put in a minimal amount of water in a pan, let it boil to bubling point and then put in your prepared and rinsed katuday blossoms. let it boil for some three minutes or less then transfer it immediately into a bowl and garnish it with bugguong and tomato slices.

a note on preparing the flowers: to be assured of a naturally sweet katuday dish, do not rinse or soak throughly in water to secure the nectar inside the flower (those which already blossomed). also, when already cooked, do not squeeze the boiled blossoms. you can also just blanch the flowers to capture more of the sweetnes of the nectar: rinse the flowers and with some waters clinging to the petals and all, put it in a pan without water and cover it, set it on high heat. after a couple minutes, check if the flowers are already somehow wilted, put off fire and transfer the flowers to a bowl.

the papait (mollugo oppositifolia) is popular among bitter-loving ilokanos who has the distinct and rather unique taste preference for something bitter, the more bitter, the better. which translates to the ilokano’s fondness for the “native” paria (the “ilocos” variety: round [or oblongish] and smallish) or for the more exotic wild bittermelons or balang a paria or paria ti bakir/bantay (forest ampalaya?). and yes, to our love of the authentic ilokano goat/cow/carabao pinapaitan, or kappukan and imbaliktad, flavored with the animal intestinal bile called “pespes” or “papait” in some places. bitterness defines authentic ilokano meat dishes as well as vegetable preparation notably pinakbet with the ilocos paria. or dinengdeng with paria tops. or simply roasted paria with bugguong and kamatis slices. or even the kilawen a paria, raw and succulently bitter.

and comes the even bitter papait that stands to its name of its bittery appeal and simpleness. papait is great with boiled balatong or other peas. and papait is even greater as it is, as a salad, simply blanched or boiled and garnished with bugguong and kamatis or perres (calamansi or dalayap).

i prepared my papait almost expressly (quickie). i blanched it in a boiling water for some 3 minutes or less. you should never overcook it. one other great way of blanching leafy greens is to wash and soak and partially rinse the leaves in tap water then put it in a empty kaserola or pan over high fire. let just the water that clinged to the leaves blanch the whole thing. then after a couple of minutes, put off fire/flame and immediately transfer the blanched leaves in a bowl and toss it with your garnishes. this is perfect for camote tops to avoid the darkening of the leaves/stems.

and here’s my simple papait salad with bugguong juice and tomato slices:

this is heavenly sweetishly bitter, so delicious with steaming rice:

agurong is a common black freshwater mollusk with elongated spiral shell usually found in abundance in creeks and rivers. we also call it leddangan in nueva vizcaya. it is similar in shape to the smaller suso and the more smaller duriken. but agurong’s meat is different from suso’s or duriken’s. suso’s is somewhat pumal-it or bittery. while duriken, well, you cannot even eat duriken’s tiny meat as duriken is usually cracked and boiled or blanched just for its tasty, bittery soup. nowadays, you can found agurong sold in small markets, but suso shell is very rare. and i have yet to see a duriken for sale (when i’m young, in our place, we used to pick suso and duriken in a river nearby).

agurong is cooked in a variety of ways. it can be simpley boiled in lots of tomatoes and gingers and onions and with baraniw (lemon grass) just like tukmem (bennek, dukkiang, or bukkaig; small freshwater clams).

and it’s perfect in coconut milk as well, just like leddeg or bisukol (freshwater black shells). and usually, with marunggay leaves, just like marunggay in crabs with coconut milk.

so here’s how i came with my agurong in coconut milk with marunggay leaves. first of all, prepare agurong by washing and rinsing it throughly (arasaw, just like rinsing any shellfish) and repeatedly until the wash water is somewhat clear. see to it also that you discard any dead agurong (dead ones usualy smell and float).

next, the cutting . you have to cut off its “tail end”, the apex of its spiral shell. this is so it is possible for you to suck the meat out later (through your mouth or lips; mind you, eating agurong is a “lips-to-lips” activity, although you can pick the meat out by using a toothpick or the thorn of the sua or pomelo tree). severing off the tail will let air pass to easily extract the meat out. use a large enough knife or preferably a bolo because the agurong’s shell is thick and rather hard.

when you are through with the cutting, wash the shells again to discard shell bits and remnants.

now, the cooking. at this juncture, we assume you already have made the coconut milk earlier and the getta or gata is ready (or if you prefered instant gata mix, you already diluted the coconut milk powder in water). boil the getta for some time. do not boil all the mixture, separate some amount of milk (preferably the first squeezeful or the kakang gata, if you made it from fresh coconut), about a cupful will do. while boiling you can blend in sliced onions, crushed garlic, and crushed ginger. afterwhich you can now add in the agurong shells. cook until tender (but do not overcook the shell, else the meat will “kumuttong” or become “thin” or shrunken). season with salt. just before you serve, add in the marunggay leaves and pour in the reserved coconut milk.

here’s the end result:

ahh, what a plenty of sweety oily and fragrant lips to kiss!

buridibod is a typical ilokano dish. and it’s truly a unique ilokano specialty to concoct what’s sweet and sweetish and pulpy with a variety of leafy green veggies. or some vegetable blossoms and fruits. ilokanos love their vegetable soup somewhat sweet or sweety, the magnificent blending of sweetness and saltiness of the blessed bugguong. a sweety, pulpy soup so bugguongy fragrant and that distinct leafy raw scent that’s so perfect for igup (soup to consume exclusively through spoonfuls or usually taken through the rim of the bowl), and labay (soup to go with rice) as well, to please a not so finicky but just characteristic ilokano palate.

any edible roots will do with this delicacy. camote or sweet potato is popular. and so with marunggay leaves, petchay, paria (bitter melon) leaves and tops, kalunay or kuantong (spinach and amaranth), and camote tops itself, and other leafy greens. but it also is known, buridibod still, with other root crops like aba (yam), tugi, buga, kamangeg, ube, balinghoy or kamoteng kahoy (cassava, yuca, or manioc) and others.

alukon or alokon (allaeanthus glaber) is also a popular ingredient. either blossoms or young leaves. but the flowers is preferred. the young fruit of the singkamas plant (jicama) is also a perfect ingredient, as well as the young fruit of the marunggay tree. i even sagpaw (add in) tarong (eggplant) especially the smaller and younger fruit (busel). or even young parda pods and kardis (kadios) young beans. it’s up to your ilokano instinct to add a variety of available vegetables.

my buridibod here is typically camote, marunggay and alukon. it’s alukon season when i made this dish. instead of the usual alukon and sauteed pinablad a balatong (boiled mongo beans) combination, or alukon in a pinakbet, i decided a buridibod when i spotted these lovely white and purple sweet potatoes and these freshly picked marunggay stalks.

i just love alukon blossoms. these are the kababai blossoms (female). there are two alukons that i know. the kababai and the kalalaki (male), just like papayas. and mind you, i like the kalalaki alukon more. its flowers (or is its fruit?) are roundish and aptly, resembles the human male testicles, complete with pubic hair-like, well, hairs that grew out of the flower/fruit’s pores. for me, it’s more edible than the kabaian alukon flower. but you can’t find male alukon flowers sold in markets, only the kabaian ones. i wonder why. we used to have a kabaian and kalakian alukon trees in my place in nueva vizcaya. but the kalakian tree is already cut down for pagtungo (firewood).

anyway, here’s how i came with my buridibod: i boiled some water in a pot for the bugguong. i peeled the camotes and cut them in to cubes. washed the alukon, and rinsed and segregated the marunggay leaves. after the bugguong is boiled for some time, i put in the camote cubes first and let it cook. here, you can prefer your buridibod somewhat drier or soft and pulpy. if you want a pulpy buridibod, boil the camotes some more or you can mash it by using a ladle. but mash it not too mushy so enough broth remain. you have to retain enough broth for your souping purposes. when the camotes are cooked, i put in the alukon blossoms, i let it cook for some time and then, just before serving, i put in the marunggay leaves. do not overcook the marunggay.

here’s the result:

a closeup:

what a heavenly viand to go with your rice!

this is edible wild mushroom variably called uong-kalaw, uong-bunton, uong-kimat, or uong-managadu. uong-kalaw because some folks say this mushroom misght be produced or induced by the bird called kalaw (in what way i really don’t know). uong-bunton because it usually grow around some anthills or “termite queendoms” or on moist reddish and clayish earth. and uong-kimat and uong-managadu because it really is induced by lightning and they grow and sprout abundantly in the night after a rainy, thunderstormy aftrenoon or dusk, to be picked in the early morning.

this one kind of wild mushroom is perfect for soups with greens like saluyot, bittermelon tops, marunggay tops, camote tops, kalunay tops or any other tops and shoots and young leaves an ilokano can imagine.

the sweet wild uong broth is so savory and so tasty it’s as if it is what vetsin or msg or umami is made from. i also like the slippery saluyot-like texture of this mushroom. which just suits well with green leafy veggies with somewhat coarse or rough texture like saluyot itself and that of the leaves, stalks and shoots of string beans (also called cowpea). it also blends well with nasabeng a bulbulong or greens with a peculiar smell of tartness or sharpness (napas-eng) like that of marunggay and alokon leaves and again, string bean leaves.

so i decided a mushroom and string bean leaves combination this time:

clean and wash the mushrooms thoroughly but do not squeeze them thoroughly else all that sweetness and tastiness of its succulence will be sucked out. remove all traces of dirt or earth and wash and rinse it in running tap water. also, as this kind of mushroom is prone to attack by some unsightly and very tiny pinkish and whitish worm, inspect the leaves for they might be starting to grow in there, between the filmy strands (called “gills”) under the mushroom cap. the older mushroom (those fully grown) and which is starting to wilt or wither is a suspect of being invaded by these worms, they even dig themselves in the stem.

a mushroom soup should not be too salty so put in just a mild amount of bugguong in the boiling water. some do not like bugguong in the mushroom soup at all because they claim the bugguong will overwhelm the broth it will become “naangdod” or smelly/bugguongy; you can use just table salt, if you prefer. or just put in a few drops of bugguong juice just for the heck of it to be called inabraw or dinengdeng the ilokano way (nabugguongan).

anyway, because of the utong tops, i need to neutralize the “sabeng” or “pas-eng’ with a right quantity of bugguong sauce.

put in some onion slices, some garlic “teeth” and put in the mushrooms first, let boil and simmer. when the mushrooms are cooked, put in the utong tops and simmer for some time. do not overcook the tops, make it just succulently crisp. put in some tomato slices just before you serve it.

enjoy the savory soup and the slick mushroom goodness!

once more…

one of my “favoritest” edible plant. and “favorited” greens as salad. as is. yes, as it is, freshly picked or plucked edible fern (also called fiddlehead fern because of the barikawwets or coils of its shoots) tossed in fresh calamansi or kalamunding juice and bugguong sauce. as simple as that. some prefer to slightly blanch it or even parboil it. but i prefer to kilaw it fresh to enjoy its crunchy and slippery raw state. this slippery texture of the edible fern is diminished when cooked.

so, here’s it, my simple recipe, pako shoots and leaves and stalks cut then tossed in calamansi juice, bugguong sauce, some vetsin if you like. garnish it with some onion slices if you like. you can even put in sliced tomato, if that’s what you prefer.

enjoy the ngarusngos act:

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?

and so i have my own precious home-brewed bugguong at last. now, i could content myself with a real bugguong to tinker with my simple binugguongan recipes.

so, at last, i should not worry about scouring stores for that elusive bottled instant bugguong which is, by the way, “in vogue” in most parts of the philippines, ilocos region included. surely, people is used to these instant mix things like instant sampaloc mix, instant kamias mix, instant ginisa flavor mix, instant meaty flavor mix, instant gata mix and so many other powderized and solidified mixes and other bizarre (but admittedly, nifty and practical) compact concoctions that they now prefer these to, well, instantly and without much ado, flavor their cooking. and bugguong included courtesy of the bottled liquefied brew. no more of the “bagas” of flesh, fishbone and all. gone also are the canned bugguongs which proliferated the market in the past (remember the famous “naimas ken nabanglo” ck bagoong? this was the most popular canned whole bugguong when i was younger). although, of course, you can still have a “sinukat” or a jar of whole bugguong straight from the bugguong vendors who display their bugguong in big plastic vats and some still sealed in plastic container inside huge straw bags. they`re still there, the bugguong traders as there are still bugguong factories in lingayen, dagupan or balayan (in fact, the enormously popular bottled bugguongs are also made by these big bugguong manufacturers). you’ll just have to be keen enough and be wary when you buy “sinukat” or “tingi” as some, or most, bugguong vendors has this vicious practice of diluting their wholesome bugguong with boiled tap water just to bloat the quantity of their bugguong. this is one disgusting “business strategy” of most small and big vendors in the philippines. they dilute your bugguong, they put formalin in your meat and vegetables, they sell you stale and expired and substandard goods, etc. this despite you paying the price they want. so, if you buy fresh bugguong or other stuff, you better have a “suki” that you can trust.

instant bugguongs is really the easy way to have your dinengdengs and pinakbets. but if you really want a hearty inabraw or pakbet that you can truly savor and enjoy because it’s a labor of love, you should use fresh whole bugguong.

and do the process of panamagbugguong act–the “panagsegseg.”

the first of which is of course, you boil some cups of water in a pan. you can calculate the right amount of water according to the type of dinengdeng that you want to cook, or in the amount of veggies, or even in the kind of veggies. soupy or broth types, naturally, need more water. pinakbet types require less or even nothing (some extremely dry pinakbets really need only the bugguong juice and the vegetables’ own sweet juice to cook).

the right amount of bugguong also depends on the above considerations. pinakbet types require more, though. but be careful that it won’t become too salty. a salty pinakbet, especially if cooked dry, cannot be “remedied” by adding some water later to neutralize its saltiness. not if you really preferred it dry in the first place. mind you, adding water to try to reduce saltiness will spoil your precious pinakebbet.

when the water is bubbling, scoop up boiling water into the bugguong bowl. the hot water will actually cook the bugguong and loosen the fermented fish in it so you could separate flesh and guts from fishbone. use the ladle to squash, mash and squeeze the fish, fishhead and all, until its flesh and other fish parts turn into a kind of a puree and blend with the mixture

then with utmost care, slowly and with calculated balancing act, pour in the liquid into the pan. use the ladle to trap or filter the fishbone while pouring the liquid to prevent fishbone and other thorny bony bits to fall into the pan. others use a fine mesh to filter thereby saving them of accidentally pouring “segseg” or remnants. but then, again, we are doing here the traditional way of panagsegseg, no easy shortcuts, please, use the ladle and test and prove your ilokano skills of the panagsegseg.

first pouring will not at all pour the fleshy liquid so you’ve got to ladle up some more hot water into the bowl and segseg it again, pour the segregated liquid again, until what’s left in the bowl are only fishbones and dregs.

let the bugguong broth simmer for some minutes, just give it time to boil to cook in its juice, in its own salty sweet essence. this way, to eradicate it’ “angdod” or for its peculiar bugguongy smell to evaporate and turn into a heavenly dinengdeng/pakbet scent. then you can now blend your vegetables and other ingredients for another savory and wholesome binugguongan mélange.

there’s this corresponding relativity to uniquely ilokanistic craving for the luxuriant bugguong, when you are away from your native land, ilocos land. the same whim, or necessity if you will, the same desire akin to addiction, to please a selfish ilokano palate’s demand for the equally elusive saluyot to grace your dinengdengs. but being in a strange land, i initially thought this is an appettite for the impossible.

do omanis, do arabs ever eat saluyot like we ilokanos gobble this “slippery when wet” delicacy?

i thought only ilokanos are crazy about the saluyot.

i was wrong.

of course, they do have saluyot in the hypermarts. after some desperate scouring and foraging in one of those labyrinthine supermarkets, i finally bumped into a treasure trove of bagged saluyot languidly lying frozen and harder than diamond in one cozy corner of those huge freezers, among slabs of hardened spinach, green peas, beans, sweet corn and other frozen veggies. it’s called molokhia. or mulukheyya. or molokheyya. whatever. it’s the egyptian arabic name, according to wikipedia, of the corchorus plant.

and yes, this one is imported from egypt. and surprise, surprise, saluyot is a staple food in egypt since the time of the pharaohs! some egyptians are even considering molokhia as their national dish. so that fact somehow demystifies our own popular thought that saluyot is exclusively ilokano staple food and that it’s supposedly endemic in ilocos land. the egyptians are devouring saluyot since time immemorial, period.

but the way we ilokanos and egyptians ingest saluyot/molokhia differ. while we love it fresh and whole, leaves and all, and boil it, stew it, pakbet it in bugguong, the egyptians and others prefer molokhia in soups or soup base. that’s what i’ve discovered when i finally opened the plastic pouch of the frozen molokhia. i never thought of saluyot being cooked into a soup, a real soup. i only know saluyot soup as dinengdeng soup, boiled saluyot leaves with mixture of other leafy veggies or with bamboo shoots, its traditional ilokano partner.

when i spotted the frozen molokhia, i was enthralled with the perfect picture of fresh saluyot leaves in the packaging and then and there readily dreampt of pinakbet a saluyot, saluyot leaves stewed dry in bugguong, vinegar, garlic, ginger, onion and peppercorns.

and i was horrified when i found out that my precious saluyot was a thick mush of a paste meant to be “soupified,” indeed! my desire crumbled. what am i going to do with this mucus-like slimy mess? i wanted to say yuck! yuppie-like, but then this is saluyot all the same and i do not want to blaspheme on the sanctity, the sacredness of the blessed saluyot.

i googled for a possible recipe. and i found out an original egyptian molokhia soup recipe called “egyptian greens soup” or simply “molokhia” (the dish and the plant are one, amongst egyptians and sudanese and other peoples in the mideast). it requires some spices like coriander, chilli, cayenne and bay leaf. and chicken stock for soup base. and butter, to “fry” the soup.

i followed the recipe to the letter and here it goes, the saluyot soup boiling with a distinctly unfamiliar aroma wafting tantalizingly:

and after some time, here it is. it’s still saluyot, flavor and fragrance and all. although because of the added spices as contrasted to the simple ilokano way, it become more of the aromatic herb that it was popularly intended and consumed in its egyptian origin. but it’s a very tasty, delicious, thick soup best for entrée. or as is the ilokano practice, it can go with your rice as “labay” and of course, it’s perfect for that “bumanerber nga igup” that we usually enjoy with dinengdeng broth, especially with saluyot with that distinct “gumalisgalis” texture.

but still i’m not satisfied with my first oman saluyot meal. i still crave for a whole and fresh saluyot with its leaves intact and not chopped or minced or pulped into a paste.

and imagine my joy when i finally came upon fresh saluyot bundles in the vegetable section of the hypermart. this is a local produce and i learned later it’s plentiful in the local veggie souks (markets) though its availablity is not regular. and again, a sizeable chunk, or the whole of it, of the saluyot-ilokano-exclusivity myth in me is shattered. of course, omanis, the locals, the arabs love saluyot, too. and it’s a part of their own cuisine as well. who else are buying these and for whom are the local farmers are planting these saluyots? certainly, not only for the handful of expat ilokanos or filipinos here. but for themselves. they are also molokhia lovers and this is molokhialand. get that.

and so, without much ado, i cooked my precious saluyot pakbet. you do the usual ilokano way of stewing. the panagdengdeng act. the panamguong act. use only a minimal amount of water. throw in crushed garlic, crushed ginger, sliced onion, cracked or uncracked peppercorns. simmer a bit, then place the washed saluyot tops and leaves. simmer for a while. optionally, put in some sagpaw like dried shrimps, dried fish or meat. simmer some more. if the the saluyot is kind of “slippery” or tender, put in some tablespoonfuls of vinegar (suka ti basi or suka nga iloko is preferred, but other blends like paombong is just well). i do not add the vinegar at the beginning, i wait for some time for the saluyot to cook and only then will i add vinegar. this is for the saluyot to retain some texture and smoothness. sometimes when you add suka by default (at the start), the saluyot “hardens” or “coarsens.” but this is optional or preferential. after putting in the vinegar, simmer some more until it dries up with only a hint of broth underneath. be careful to moderate the “broth drying” as it may burn at its base if you don’t attend to it. you can retain some more broth if you want, to mix as labay with your rice.

and this is it, my favorite saluyot dish, pakbet basking in all its glory:

once more, a close up of the heavenly dish in its rightful splendor:

but wait, here’s more. i soon found out that there’s a dried saluyot in the same hypermarket.

look at those gorgeous egyptian saluyot leaves in its petrified state. it’s as if it promises a glorious psychedelic trip to gastronomic heaven. no, not to be smoked like a pot, you sucker, but to be ingested pakbet-wise after it is boiled up in bugguong in a pot. that, i have yet to try. but then again, we dry aba or taro leaves, paria leaves, mushroom, kudet or kuditdit, even marunggay leaves in the philippines. and why not saluyot? this dried ambrosia, this saluyot, can be a concocted into an excellent soup or turned into a magnificent pakbet, all the same, fresh or dried or pulverized, it’s still saluyot, molokhia or molokheyya. does it matter?