dinengdeng a mais, white corn stew/soup

Mais, corn, young corn kernel, is one of the best for soups, well, Ilokano-wise, Pinoy-wise. Well, besides being boiled and/or grilled on the cob. And the best, for me, is the small "native" diket (malagkit, "sticky") white corn. The dish is popular all over, it's called "sinuwam na mais" by the Tagalogs, the Ilokanos simply call it as "dinengdeng a mais."

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dinengdeng a saba! banana/plantain stew

You might be surprised to know that saba (saging na saba, the dippig variety, plantain, banana) can also be made into a hearty dinengdeng! Well, it is, really, and I'm cooking it every time I fancy or when I terribly miss my mother's dinengdeng a saba which we often partake when I was still in Nueva Vizcaya. Folks here in Cagayan seem unaware that dippig a saba can be cooked as a masida (ulam, viand) or as dinengdeng. Most know only of its culinary significance in its ripen state as a kind of souring or sweetening agent in a lauya (boiled pork or beef). Or only as boiled saba, banana cue, or as a turon, or cooked in molasses/sugar to serve as an ingredient in halo-halo.

An Ilokano dinengdeng a saba with marunggay leaves.
(click on photo to enlarge)

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kaimito, star apple milky summer delight

Kaimitos for sale in the Tuguegarao City public market.

It's summer time again, and so with some of the seasonal fruits that we so eagerly anticipate. Like kaimito, or star apple (Chrysophyllum cainito). In the Philippines, this is a childhood favorite. As a child who grew in the barrio, you used to feast on this fruit come summer, March and April, where it fully ripens to its so-sweety and so-milky goodness, the purple ones and the greenish-white ones. Never mind if its sticky latex builds a thin "mustache" around your lips, you climb the tree to pick the sun-ripened fruit, taking care not to fall or break its brittle branches laden with numerous balls of delight. Or shoot them with a palsiit (slingshot). Or pick them down with a long bamboo pole.

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