kaggo & karibuyo

Kaggo & karibuyo soup.

Kaggo is a big clam found in brackish and muddy waters in Cagayan, where rivers or swamps meet with the sea or sea water, usually under or along nipa trees. Also called kappo in other places, it is the same as the lukan of the Tagalogs. But they're more abundant and popular on the notherrn Cagayan towns along the coast, like Sanchez Mira, Pamplona, Abulug, Ballesteros, Aparri, Buguey and Sta. Teresita. Karibuyo is a sea clam gathered along the seashore of same coastal towns including Claveria, Gonzaga and Sta. Ana.

Kaggo can be made into a savory soup or stew, boiled/blanched, grilled, or simply into a kilawen or eaten raw right from the shell dipped in calamansi juice just like that of oysters. Its meat shucked, it's perfect as a sagpaw (add-on) to your dinengdeng or pinakbet or as a topping in pancit dishes like bijon or canton or other seafood dishes.

Karibuyo is so good as a soup, its broth is so tasty with the karibuyo's great juicy meat. It can also be consumed raw, the meat and "juice" mildly salty like that of gakka (tiny sea clams consumed as a saramsam or snacks just like watermelon seeds) shells.

Karibuyo for sale at the municipal fish port in Sta. Teresita, Cagayan.

Kaggo being grilled.

Shucked grilled kaggo in Villa, Sta. Teresita, Cagayan.

Slightly boiled kaggo, ready to be shucked for my kaggo "salad." If you prefer to boil kaggo, don't overcook it to retain the "fatness" and succulence of the meat. Just boil it mildly just so its shells crack slightly for you to break it open. Save its naturally salty "juice" as a broth.

Slightly boiled kaggo meat with its own juice as a little broth. I seasoned it with some salt, garnished with onions and ginger, and soured it with calamansi.

The karibuyo, I made into a kind of tinola. I sauteed onions, garlic, ginger and tomatoes in little oil, and boiled it with some pieces of chayote, and then the karibuyo shells. Don't overcook the karibuyo. Just put it in when the broth is boiling. Simmer quickly and put off fire immediately and serve hot when the shells are open.

Enjoy tinola a karibuyo. The soup is so good, the meat is just so tasty.

I reserved some of the kaggo "salad" and tinola a karibuyo for what a "lethal" ("pamatay" he-he!) dish that I'm planning for the next day. And here's it, I made it into a combo kaggo and karibuyo soup: I mixed all the meat of the shells and their soup/broth and made it into one great clam soup with petchay (I just browned/caramelized some garlic and onions, poured the soup and boiled it and then I put in the petchay stalks and leaves, and then the kaggo & karibuyo meat):

What a bliss!

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inasar a kakalkalap a tilapia

Inasar is tinuno, that's grilled or broiled over hot coals. And yeah, right, these are tilapia fish just caught using a tabukol (fish net) from a pond.....

.... cleaned, and skewered at once and put on over eager embers.

And the result is this, inasar a tilapia served on a banana leaf covered make-shift table, with nakalamansian a bugguong (bugguong squeezed up with calamansi) for a dip, and of course, steaming steamed rice--picnic style.

Chow!

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saluyot & buntiek, soured saluyot stew with grilled mudfish

I usually cook saluyot solo and the usual Ilokano way: napaksiw, napakbet, tinimtiman, inalseman. Whatever you may call it, it's the same: soured, with either plain vinegar or with souring agents such as sour fruits like pias, kalamansi or dalayap juice, green mango, young tamarind (fruit and/or leaves) and even with lubeg fruit. But for me, the best alsem to cure a paksiw a saluyot is the famous suka iloko (sugar cane vinegar) right from the Ilocos.

Here, I made another tinimtiman a saluyot, soured with sugarcane vinegar, and this time, I added a grilled buntiek (small mudfish; also called attasi, and if larger, it's burikaw or just the generic name dalag) to add more flavor for an absolutely gorgeous and delicious pinakbet a saluyot.

Just take a look at it, how amazing this beloved Ilokano dish has become:

These are the blessed buntieks that I grilled. One of them luckily mingled and blended with my pinakbet a saluyot:

Here are just photographs of the heavenly dish I painstakingly created, enough perhaps to titillate your palate. But surely, you folks want to know how it came to be like this, one of the most delicious thing that I happen to cook, from the plainest of all, the lowly saluyot, now made a kind of exotic gourmet dish with that grilled buntiek atop it, basking in its all glorious deliciousness.

I just spiced it with lots of garlic, onions, ginger and of course, bugguong and suka iloko. I let the concoction boil quickly and simmer before adding the saluyot. I also added here leaves and stalks of young sweet onions. I didn't add water, I just let the bugguong and vinegar and the natural moistness of the saluyot leaves form and concoct a wonderful broth. I cooked it in low fire, slowly, so it will not burn underneath (maksetan).

I cooked the saluyot until all is wilted and a kind of slippery, and then I added the natuno a buntiek and let the broth simmer and thicken until almost dry. I made sure there is a broth left to flavor the tinimtiman and the steamed rice thereafter.

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More...

• saluyot a napakbet iti lubeg, lubeg-soured saluyot stew
• dalag/attasi/burikaw/buntiek (mudfish, snakefish)
• classic dinengdeng: rabong & saluyot
• saluyot and rabong variation--with bulong-sili, kalunay and utong
• saluyot & tarong

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labay, plateful, various plates of ilokano dishes

Labay means plate, the plate where you are eating right at the moment, breakfast, lunch or dinner. Or the act of mixing broth or soup of your sida (viand) into you rice. Whatever, here are several instances of my own labays, showcasing various Ilokano dishes I consumed the passed days or months in different places (if my memory won't fail me):

This is lunch time in my residence in Iguig, Cagayan. I've got here boiled balatong with paria leaves, boiled cabbages with sliced tomatoes and bugguong, and fried tilapia.
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Lunch, Iguig, Cagayan. Boiled young tarong with bugguong as a dip.
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Breakfast, Iguig, Cagayan. Steamed camote tops with sliced tomatoes and bugguong, grilled okra, and fried daing.
(Click on photo for a larger view)

Lunch, Tuguegarao City. Baradibod nga ube with alukon and shrimps, pinapaitan a baka, kappukan a baka, and grilled tilapia.
(Click on photo for a larger view)

Dinner, Santa ana, Cagayan. kalkalunay salad, pakbet nga alukon, and bopis.
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Lunch, Currimao, Ilocos Norte. Paksiw a malaga, Ginettaan nga aba (laing), baradibod a bunga ti marunggay, and pork adobo.
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Lunch, Currimao, Ilocos Norte.  Pokpoklo with tomatoes, grilled bangus, and sweet golden watermelon (dessert).
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Lunch, Currimao, Ilocos Norte.  Pinakbet, dinengdeng a rabong ken saluyot, and lechon carajay.
(Click on photo for a larger view)

Breakfast, Tuguegarao City. Nabaraniwan a leddeg, and pinapaitan/sinanglaw a baka.
(Click on photo for a larger view)

Lunch, Gonzaga, Cagayan. Paksiw a malaga, steamed crab, boiled ipon, chicken tinola, pinapaitan a baka, and chopsuey.
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Mealtime in Pasuquin, Ilocos Norte (not mine, photo from Pasuquin Facebook page). Dinengdeng, pinakbet, ginettaan nga aba, seaweed salas, pinakbet a paria, grilled tilapia. 
(Click on photo for a larger view)

.....posted from Bloggeroid

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dalag/attasi/burikaw/buntiek (mudfish, snakefish)

Mud fish is so common a freshwater fish in the Philippines you can find it everywhere in creeks, rivers, lagoons, lakes or in small and big irrigation canals and in the muddy fields and ponds. And it has quite a share of names, aside form the generic dalag, in Cagayan it's generally called attasi. While in some places, it has a name according to its size or growth. It's called burikaw when it's quite that big, and buntiek when it's small.

And there's a variety of ways and means you can prepare a sumptuous dalag dish. It's commonly cooked sinigang or paksiw a dalag, (or pesang dalag, as the Tagalog prefer) soured with any agent preferred (young tamarind fruit/flowers/shoots, pias, green mango, tomatoes, or vinegar) with soup or stewed dry. It's also great when grilled/broiled (tinuno/inasar/pinulpogan) to consume as is or made into a tinenneb, broiled mud fish poured in with hot water and then soured with crushed young tamarind fruit or with sliced tomatoes, garnished with sliced onions, and swpiced with hot chilis.  Or even baked. Or fried. Or made into a buro, pickled with rice.

Paksiw a dalag.

Tinuno a dalag.

Baked dalag.

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tinuno a kabatiti/roasted patola (sponge gourd)

One of my "most liked veggie fruit" is the native kabatiti (patola, sponge gourd, Cucumis acutangulus Linn.), the native bilidan (angular) variety (I prefer the bilidan kabatii than the one with soft skin and "nabanglo a kabatiti" (aromatic patola); the native bilidan is more sweeter and palatable, while the soft-skinned one is somewhat bland like tabungaw (upo; bottle gourd) or tangkoy. It's a childhood favorite as I was used to a vegetable diet which is typical in a farming community where I was born and grew. My mother would prepare it "special" by sauteeing the kabatiti sliced roundish with fragrant native bawang and native lasona, and then boil it. It's a very savory soup, so sweet, that I enjoy up to my adulthood. I make it occasionally, this time with sotanghon or misua or even bijon, and/or with Spanish-style sardines (in olive oil). Native kabatiti a bilidan is also a perfect veggie fruit ingredient in dinengdeng as it enhances flavor and sweetens the broth.

A kabatiti (bilidan) in trellis in our place in Nueva Vizcaya.

Native kabatiti is cylindrically short and roundish.

And one of my preferred preparation of the kabatiti fruit is roasted or grilled. Not many Ilokanos know that kabatiti can be prepared this way. This is a practice usually in the away or in farms. For me, this is the most delicious way you can consume kabatiti fruit as roasting it with its own juice trapped and intact inside assures you of its raw succulence and sweetness. It's just like roasting freshly picked straw mushrooms wrapped in banana leaves.

Here, I would have roasted my kabatiti over live embers but no charcoals available, so I just contented myself roasting them over LPG fire instead for a quick grilled kabatiti fix.

You know it's well and done when the kabatitis are soft (to the touch). Don't over-grill the fruit or it got burn all over and you'll have difficulty "skinning" the burnt skin that may "badly puncture" the fruit and spill much of its sweet juice.

After removing the burnt skin, cleanse with running tap water (when washing, do it slightly and don't squeeze the kabatiti or you'll be deprived of its prized juice!), and then cut the fruit this way:

See the succulence of it? The juice oozing out?

You can season it with a bit of salt or some drops of bugguong. Don't put in too much salt or bugguong, lest the sweetness will be overwhelmed. Garnish it with sliced tomatoes or young onions, if you like.

Perfect with steaming rice, even without the usual fried fish or meat. The burnt skin adding a unique aroma to the dish, akin to the prized smokiness of a bacon.

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