nateng- karne-ikan, balancing vegetable-meat-fish diet

Bulalo @ RGT Bulaluhan, Tuguegarao City.

Sure, that's bulalo (beef shank and marrow stew) wallowing in its delicious soup of fat, promising utmost delight with that prized bone marrow and with its truly red meaty succulence, cooked so tender and so tasty it literally melts in the mouth without much effort of chewing its savory essence... Well, once in a while I also indulge myself into red meats, a sort of guilty pleasure succumbing to sweet temptations of cholesterol, because, well, i'm still a human, after all, and I can't offer so much resistance to the seduction of food.

Yet, when I consume fatty or cholesterol-laden food, I also make sure to somehow "balance" or kind of "neutralize" it by eating more vegetables, and fruits. And so, that particular bulalo cholesterol feasting I countered with this wild mushroom and marunggay leaves dinengdeng:

Dinengdeng nga uong ken bulong-marunggay.

Of course, though I prefer more on a vegetarian diet as as I could, I also eat the usual other meat and fatty dishes as the need or chance arises. Sometimes I cook pinapaitan, dinakdakan, dinardaraan, igado, lauya at home, or order them when I happen to have lunch in a resto. But I see to it that there's always a vegetable salad side dish or a main course of dinengdeng or pinakbet. 

Dinakdakan or warek-warek.

Pnapaitan at an eatery in Capatan, Tuguegarao City.

Dinardaraan.

Dinengdeng nga uggot-kamote ken bulong-marunggay with bits of chicken.

Dinengdeng a sabong ken uggot ti kabatiti ken rangaw ti paria with chucked clam meat (nagasagas a tukmem).

Or, alternately, I have fish and other seafood dishes like this, in lieu of meat, either as sinigang, paksiw, grilled or fried:

Inalseman iti kamatis a yellow fin tuna with marunggay leaves.

Fried tilapia.

And this, I wish this is my viand, soured bukto soup with its roe:

Bukto nga inalseman iti pias. Photo by James Felipe.

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