kilawen a pako, fiddlehead fern salad

Pako. One of my "favoritest" edible leafy greens. And "favorited" greens as salad. As is. Yes, as it is, freshly picked or plucked edible fern (also called fiddlehead fern because of the barikawwet or coils of its shoots) tossed in fresh calamansi or kalamunding or dalayap fuit 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 pako is diminished when cooked. Pako is also a good companion to dinengdeng a bulbulong (stewed/boiled leafy greens) and sinigang or paksiw nga ikan (boiled, soured fish). And it's great with pinablad a balatong (boiled mung beans) or other boiled legumes. It's also good as sinursuran or ginettaan (cooked with coconut milk) like ginettaan nga aba (yam leaves/stalks with coconut milk).

So, here's it, my simple recipe, pako shoots and leaves and stalks cut then tossed in calamansi juice, bugguong sauce, some vetsin (MSG) if you like. Garnish it with some onion slices if you like. You can even put in sliced tomato, if you prefer.

Enjoy the ngarusngos act (chewing)! Perfect as appetizer:

(Originally blogged October 31, 2008)