lauya a kamanokan & darangidangan a kapapayaan, native chicken soup with partially riped papaya

One of the most delicious, most savory, most gorgeous chicken soup or stew, for me, is of course, that of the "kamanokan" or free-range native chicken cooked/stewed for almost an hour in moderate fire to let its insane aroma and tasty fat to ooze out, turning the broth golden and thick. The beloved lauya a manok or tinola a manok. And of course, with the obligatory add-on, the distinct and essential green papayas and chili leaves or paria leaves or marunggay leaves.

But I adore more the almost ripe green papaya to complete my favorite lauya, for its obvious sweetness that enhances the soup/broth more and turns it more golden and delicious.

This is it:

A perfect labay!

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More "kamanokan" dishes:

• Native chicken adobo
• Lauya/tinola a kamanokan
• Pinapaitan a kamanokan, "native" chicken bitter soup

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dinengdeng with tinapa [repost with new photos]

I prefer my dinengdengs plain and simple, if I could. I mean, just vegetables, without the usual or even required meat or fish sagpaw (add on). I like it all natural, the all-vegetable savor, aroma and all the goodness (vitamins and nutrients and all) there is, organic and all those hypes of being home-grown and cultivated without commercial fertilizers or pesticides, whatever organic means. I'm no vegan, I'm just used to it since childhood, raised in a poor farming community where vegetables is a staple as rice. I'm not used to a meat or fish diet because meat in those days, even fish, is a luxury. We only slaughter our native chickens, pigs, or goats on rare occasions. And I was taught by my mother and grandmother not to crave or indulge on naimas a masida (ulam, viand), whenever we have a chicken for lunch or dinner, my mother will only cook the bony parts for tinola, the meaty parts she sets aside to be grilled or fried for the next days as a sagpaw for dinengdengs. The same is true with fish, fresh or dried, some pieces like fish head will always be set aside to act as sagpaw to give savor to the broth of the dinengdeng. Typically Ilokano. And I just love being called kuripot with it, I don't care.

And so with tinapa, particularly tinapa a galunggong which is my favorite, fried with kamatis and bugguong plus lasona for a dip...

..with which is just perfect as a sagpaw for dinengdeng like this--uggot ken sabong karabasa, sabong ken bunga ti kabatiti, and kalunay:

The smoky scent and flavor of the tinapa blends so well with the rawness of the veggies and the fragrance of the bugguong, fusing as if magically, to yield a uniquely tasty smoky broth, like what miraculously happened to this dinengdeng--utong, okra, kalunay, marunggay, talinum:

And my favorite pair: ginisa a kamatis with fried tinapa, what else?

And here are more:

Now, where's my rice?

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More dinengdengs:

• Dinengdeng, glorious dinengdeng!
• Dinengdeng/inabraw, more, once more
• Dinengdeng once more, because one can live in dinengdeng alone
• "The Dinengdeng Debate: Authencity and Cuisine"
• Dinengdeng a bunga ti singkamas, jicama fruit stew
• Dinengdeng bunga ti singkamas a naalseman iti palali
• Dinengdeng a sabunganay, banana blossom stew
• Dinengdeng a mais, white corn stew/soup
• Dinengdeng a marunggay with kaggo, marunggay leaves and clam soup
• Langka/jackfruit and pallang/winged bean dinengdeng
• Dinengdeng a saba! banana/plantain stew
• Karabasa & utong, squash goodies and string beans stew
• Fresh veggies for dinengdeng in casantolan
• Dinengdeng nga aba, stewed taro leaves/stems/roots
• Kalalaki nga alukon, "male" alukon
• Dinengdeng with tinapa (smoked mackerel)
• Dinengdeng with fried paltat
• Dinengdeng nga uong-mais ken uggot-marunggay, wild mushrooms and marunggay leaves
• Saluyot and rabong variation--with bulong-sili, kalunay and utong
• Buridibod a kamangeg nga addaan pallang ken kalunay sa nasagpawan tinapa
• Red/purple katuday
• Dinengdeng a kudet (kuditdit) ken paria, bracket fungus with bittermelon
• Dinengdeng a bunga ken uggot ti karabasa, squash fruit and shoots stew

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dinengdeng nga uong (luklukanos) ken uggot-marunggay, wild mushrooms and marunggay leaves [repost]

Dinengdeng a luklukanos ken uggot/bulong ti marunggay

Uong season these rainy months and here's one kind of mushroom which grows abundantly in the open fields, especially cornfields (in the rotting corn stalks and leaves left in the fields after harvest). It is generally called "luklukanos"  but also called "uong ti mais" or "uong-mais".

Those fond of mushroom as a dinengdeng or as a soup agree that this kind of uong is perfect with leafy greens like paria, marunggay or saluyot. I tried to pair it with marunggay. I gathered the very tender leaves for this uong which I bought rather expensively from a corn farmer's wife who is selling his husband's uong harvest from house to house.

I simply boiled the uong in a little bugguong (not much bugguong so it won't spoil the uong's distinct aroma and flavor) and some onions, simmered it, and just before serving, I added the marunggay, and here's it:

It's so tasty, the broth delicious, sweetish, comforting. As a mushroom soup should be. The marunggay is just as crisp and succulent. It demands lots of steamed rice, though. But what the heck, this is like a once upon a blue moon treat, so, it's s kind of sweet indulgence.

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lauya/tinola a kamanokan

Lauya/tinola a kamanokan a nalaokan iti papaya ken bulong sili.

Now that the kamanokan (native free range chicken) is prepared (butchered, dressed, cut and cleaned), here's one most popular dish we can turn a kamanokan into a very savory and sumptuous soup: tinola or lauya with a variety of obligatory veggies like green papayas, sayote, tabungaw, kabatiti, etc. and various leaves of which sili, paria and marunggay are the most preferred.

These are the best cuts for lauya/tinola, the bony parts: head, feet, rib, back, wings (the testicles are here to make the soup even tastier):

First thing, sauté the chicken cuts in little cooking oil and lots of garlic, onions and ginger. Stir fry the meat in high heat until it turns brown and its natural oil oozes out and its distinct kamanokan aroma steaming and wafting garlicky and most of all gingerly. You can season and spice it at this juncture, add some salt or teaspoons of patis, a pinch of cracked black pepper. For a uniquely Ilokano zest and aroma, stir fry it with bugguong juice.

Done stir frying. The meat is melting with chicken and spicy goodness, its fragrance overwhelming the whole kitchen and its heavenly scent whiffing outside tantalizing neighbors' jealous noses. Now, pour in a couple of cup or so of water and season more to taste:

Let it simmer in moderate heat

Boil it for about an hour until the meat is tender enough and the soup a kind of thick. One way to check if the chicken is done is to see its feet,  the karaykay, if it's tender and soft and chewy. When cooking kamanokan, I boil it for over a couple of hours or more for it to render its intense aroma and flavor, adding more crushed ginger for a really spicy soup. For a thicker soup, you can opt to mash the liver into the broth.

And then, when the meat is tender enough, put in the veggies. In this particular lauya a manok, I added papaya, sili leaves and some sili fruit (aruy-oy a sili, siling-haba in Tagalog):

The soup will eventually turn golden or yellowish because of the chicken fat. As this one is boiled in ours, the soup is so insanely savory, tasty and spicy because of the ginger (I used native ginger here, and of course native garlic and onions (the Ilocos varieties)--all "native"!):

And here's it, the blessed tinola, the holy lauya a kamanokan in all it's glorious grace and goodness, the golden digo promising a divine providence, nay, an intervention, of gastronomic proportion:

My favorite tinola parts are here, all bony but the most tasty and delicious of all manok master pieces: ulo (sucking out the mata and the utek is not sacrilegious at all but religious), tengnged, payak, paragpag, kimmol, saka/karaykay...

The papaya is sweet, I prefer sligthly ripened papaya for most of my tinolas as I love the sweet pulpiness of the papaya. The sili leaves and fruit is just as aromatically good. Sometimes, I add but paria leaves just for the scandalously exquisite bitter soup it imparts to tease and please an Ilokano palate in me.

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More on native chicken:

• Native chicken adobo
• Panangisagana iti mailuto a kamanokan, native chicken preparation

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papait a naigisa iti itlog, papait omelette

Papait a naigisa sa nalaokan iti itlog.

What's good and delicious about papait, besides the popular salad it is usually known for or associated with? Of course it can be sauteed in onions and garlic and some tomatoes or in just plain soy and/or oyster sauce adobo-style; and it can be the bitter substitute of paria leaves in an inabraw, or in boiled beans (mongo, beans, cowpea, etc.). But what else?

Why, or course, it's perfect for an omelette! But this fact I only recently known and realized courtesy of a friend, Fidel Sambaoa of Anvil Publishing. I used to make an omelette with almost every edible leafy greens like that of marunggay, bilonak, pechay, paria, kalunay, kamotig, saluyot, etc. but I didn't yet try papait leaves.

Cultivated a "hybrid" a nagdadakkelan
a papait a kadawyan a mailaklako iti tiendaan.

First, I sauteed the papait in cooking oil, garlic and onions, stir frying it quickly in high heat with some salt and pepper:

For a ginisa a papait, this could have sufficed:

But I want a papait omelette, so here I am about to pour beaten egg:

Stir quickly and evenly in moderate heat, the egg cooks quickly:

And it's done!

As simple as this, my first papait omelette:

There's this distinct or should I say unique papait aroma that's now blended with the egg that makes this omelette kind of "exotic" and insanely palatable, the bitterness splendidly and subtly subdued rendering it deliciously sweet.

This culinary kind of master dish requires a lot of steamed rice. I spiked it more with some KBL (kamatis-bugguong-lasona) to enhance its bitterness that I adored in its salad state.

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More papait dishes:

• Bitter is better: papait salad appetizer
• Papait salad ken dinengdeng

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panangisagana iti mailuto a kamanokan, native chicken preparation

[Warning: Graphic photos of slaughtered fowl, maybe disturbing to some, please view with discretion. Thank you.]

Cut native chicken ready for cooking.

Preparing chicken for cooking into your favorite chicken dishes entails a lot of labor, so to speak, you’ll be obliged to know and apply some bits of slaughtering, quartering, cutting, cleaning techniques. Especially if you butcher kamanokan or that so-called “native” free range chicken. Of course, there’s an added thrill if you yourself will the one to prepare the chicken, unlike buying already cut “white” and “untasty” chicken from your meatshop or suki meat vendor for choice cuts like drumstick, thight, breast, back, neck, wings, head, feet, isaw. Not so with kamanokan because you buy it “live” as nobody sells dressed or pre-cut kamanokan. Even if you do not have native chickens in your backyard, there are available ones for sale in most public markets, but it’s sure expensive, from PhP200 a kilo and up.

A kamanokan for sale in a roadside talipapa.

I’m used to butchering kamanokan since I was a child in the barrio. Farm, okey, peasant, boys are expert butchers of native fowl, be it chicken, duck, goose, turkey and those wild birds caught in the ricefields and forested areas.

For one, I can prepare a native chicken all by myself, grasp and hold it so it can’t move (a chicken is so strong, moreso when it’s dying, it trembles so hard in its spasmic last it’s like having a violent seizure), then kill it by slashing its neck for that precious dara (blood, for sapsapuriket or dinardaraan later or as a delicious coagulated blood in the savory tinola) to gush out and then trickle down your malukong (bowl) with a ready little suka (vinegar) and/or diket a bagas (sticky rice grains).

Then, the dressing, (or is it really undressing?) the plucking out of its feathers after immersing the bird in hot water (to loosen the feather in the skin), a somewhat painstaking labor but worth the effort later for that promise of a tasty digo (soup) that only a kamanokan can assure.

And then, you’ve got to get rid of the tiny hair-like feathers which cannot be pulled out so easily from the skin, by making sarabasab (put over fire) the dressed bird into an open fire or flame, to burn the muldot (hair):

The sarabasab.

Chicken with its “hairs” burnt.

Then, the washing of the dressed chicken. Wash it thoroughly and vigorously in nagarasawan (ricewash water). Some even scrub and rub it with salt. Get rid of all dirt and burnt feather ends. Remove also the scales of its feet. Then wash it again and rinse it many times in tap or running water.

After which, the opening up and cutting up. Remove the kinarakaran (crop) and its esophagus as well as the wind pipe in the neck area. The gizzard connects to the batikuleng (gizzard), do not cut off the “connecting tube” at this juncture, remove them at once later, kinarakaran and batikuleng and the other organs (liver, heart, lungs, etc.) and the intestines:

Then open it up. There’s a little trick or technique on how to open up the bird like this:

Remove the butt with the intestine connecting into it intact. Be careful in doing this, you might cut it wrong and it will make a mess with chicken shit, errrr:

Here’s the bunch of the removed organs and intestines (notice that there also the “balls”, the testicles; yes these are male kamanokans, roosters), ready for cleaning:

The dara:

The cutting up and cleaning of the organs and intestines:

Choice cuts, especially for adobo—thighs, drumsticks, breasts, wings:

The dalem (liver), batikuleng, puso. And the apro (bile) is there, upper right, for the pinapaitan soup later:

The “buto-buto” (tultulang) or bony parts—feet, neck, head, ribs, back—ready in a pot, perfect for tinola or lauya:

All ready:

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Next: tinola/lauya a kamanokan!

Watch out: dinardaraan a kamanokan and pinapaitan a kamanokan.

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