dinengdeng a padpadol, singkamas, pallang, ken uong

Yet another delicious and super palatable vegetable dish, dinengdeng, this time with the beloved natural umami-flavoring uong ti garami (also called uong-saba because it also grows wild on rotting banana stalks/leaves or right on the foot of banana plants specially during the wet/rainy season; but it naturally thrives most and abundant and robustly on decaying mounds of rice straw/stalks or garami as substrate, thus the name "rice/paddy straw mushroom). And yes, it is paired with the now-famous fruit or pod of the sabsabidukong or bagbagkong vine, and together with another equally being famous veggie fruit nowadays, singkamas pods. Some pallang pods are also added later.

The mushrooms are not presentable in their wilting state here because it was wrapped unceremoniously when bought at the market. But nonetheless, the freshness of its being an uong is intact.

The singkamas and pallang pods are not photographed before cooking. But here is the result of the mix, already cooked and so fragrant because of its bugguong implement.

The padpadol (one of the monickers of the sabidukong pod, being a dagger-like one), is so sweetishly enjoyable palate-pleaser in this one-of-kind dinengdeng:

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For more Ilokano vegetable dishes, you can follow Ilokano Food page on Facebook and enjoy more sumptuous photos of dinengdeng and other vegetable dishes plus more veggies! 

Follow also Ilokano Food @ Instagram and subscribe to Ilokano Food YoutTube channel for more photos, videos, and stories about Ilokano food, cooking, cuisine, and culture.

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More about sabidukong:

• Sabidukong, the edible wild flower with so many names
• how and why bagbagkong, padpadol, pusapusa, kapaskapas is named as such
• Sabidukong, edible wild vine flower

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, papait, kabatiti, patani, nasagpawan iti kaluit (kumukusay)

This particular dinengdeng might somewhat be a weird for some, but this is it, I've done it, just so to prove/show the versatility of the dinengdeng or an Ilokano way of preparing and presenting and designing available vegetables and pair or combine it with almost everything edible, palatable, tasty, easy.

And here's a dinengdeng with a shellfish called kaluit or kalwit (also called sikadsikad, maninikad, aninikad, kumukusay). This is the plicate conch (scientific name: Strombus labiatus) which is abundant along reef coastlines. Its shell is kind of hard and its "meat" wedged deep spirally inside its whorl and spire you have to use a "pick" like that of a pomelo thorn to gouge it out. Some just resort to cracking the shell and simply gather the meat and cook it in a savory soup. But like agurong, suso, leddeg, bisukol, picking/extracting out (sultop or tudok) the meat is a thing to enjoy. Cooking this shellfish is simply boiling it with the usual tomatoes, ginger, onions, lemon grass like that of the usual freshwater clams and mollusk.

But here, it graced my dinengdeng of uong (those are straw mushroom buttons), papait, patani, and kabatiti (what an unusual bunch!):

What a mix! The broth is so tasty, it brings forth the aroma of the sea, the reefs, the seaweeds, and the dinengdeng is heavenly, as it were, as  the kaluit essence is enhanced by the umami of the straw mushroom, the sweetness of the kabatiti, the starchiness of the patani, and the inevitable bittersweetness of the papait.

My rice, please!

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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

For more Ilokano vegetable dishes, you can follow Ilokano Food page on Facebook and enjoy more sumptuous photos of dinengdeng and other vegetable dishes plus more veggies! 

Follow also Ilokano Food @ Instagram and subscribe to Ilokano Food YoutTube channel for more photos, videos, and stories about Ilokano food, cooking, cuisine, and culture.

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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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dinengdeng nga uong ken kabatiti ken balang a paria, straw mushrooms soup with patola and wild bittermelon

Mushrooms, mushrooms! And what’s more delicious than those growing and picked from the wild, like these gorgeous straw mushrooms (locally called uong garami or uong saba):

And paired with these equally wild or “native” vegetables for a truly exotic veggie delicacy—wild bittermelon (balang a paria) shoots and fruit, and patola (sponge gourd, kabatiti):

Small but insanely bitter vegetable fruit to challenge or tantalize your palate:

Cooked in the traditional Ilokano dinengdeng way, here’s the eventual result—all that mushroom flavor with the double dose of exotic wild paria bittery goodness and sweetened by the native kabatiti, all in fusion with the essence of bugguong (fish paste/sauce). And no, if you cooked it right and rightful, the kabatiti will not make it the more bitter but its sweetness as fruit veggie will magically moderate the pait of the paria. The end result is just so amazing and a beauty to behold:

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See more mushroom treats and recipes:

Uong ken lantong-utong, wild mushroom with young bean stalks/shoots

Dinengdeng nga uong-mais ken uggot-marunggay, wild mushrooms and marunggay leaves

Dinengdeng nga uong-bunton ken balang a paria, wild mushroom soup with bitter melon leaves

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dinengdeng nga uong-bunton ken balang a paria, wild mushroom soup with bitter melon leaves

Dinengdeng nga uong-bunton ken balang a paria.

Yet another mushroom here growing and picked from the wild: uong-bunton, named sobecause it usually grows near anthills (termite hills or bunton) during the rainy seasons and gathered after a night’s thunderstorm (the lightning is believed to be inducing the growth of mushrooms and other fungi, especially wild edible ones.

One early morning, an ambulant vendor passed by the house and offered this bundle for about PhP50. I readily bought it, along with some wild bitter melon tops the same vendor sells (she sure knows the fact that uong and paria are inevitable soup partners).

With a little bugguong (or patis, or salt, if you’re not used to the distinct bugguong aroma of a mushroom soup) and some slices of onion boiled in a minimal water, cook the uong, boil and simmer a bit for it to ooze its sweet and so tasty essence into the soup. Add the paria a minute before putting off fire while the soup’s still boiling. Serve immediately and consume the paria at once so that it won’t render your soup more bitter than tasty:

The tastiness and sweetness of the tender uong-bunton and the soup is more pronounced with the subtle bitterness of the paria (if cooked right briefly, paria leaves, even if it’s a wild variety, is not all extremely bitter):

More: 

• Uong ken lantong-utong, wild mushroom with young bean stalks/shoots
• Dinengdeng nga uong-mais ken uggot-marunggay, wild mushrooms and marunggay leaves

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kuditdit, kudit/kudet (bracket fungus, tree ear fungus)

Come rainy or thunder-stormy season, especially when the late afternoon rains bring a plenty of lightning and thunder, you can expect that early in the morning, an abundance of mushroom has grown in the wild, like the uong-kalaw, uong-bunton, or uong-managadu and many others. The rains and the lightning also induce edible fungi, like the kuditdit (also called "kudet" or "kudit", bracket fungus or tree ear fungus). There are some kinds of kuditdit, some are commercially grown (large ones called oyster/abalone mushroom), but the most popular and most preferred of course is the small wild and "native" kuditdit which grows on dead/rotting trees. I used to pick, as a child in Nueva Vizcaya, kuditdits on fallen mango and tamarind trees.

Wild kuditdit growing on a dead tree. Photo from Wikipedia.com

Kuditdit has also become rare nowadays, and thus it has become a kind of another exotic fare. You can usually find them sold in the market and is quite pricey but nonetheless a best seller as it is a prized companion to a savory dinengdeng/inabraw especially when partnered with wild mushrooms.

Kuditdit for sale by the glassful.

When preparing kuditdit, you have to wash/rinse it thoroughly to remove dirt, but don't squeeze it too much and just rinse it once or twice only, to preserve its natural flavor and succulence.

Kuditdit is great with paria, leaves or fruit, and with other leafy vegetables and veggie fruit like pallang and tarong.

Kuditdit with wild mushrooms, kalunay (amaranth, wild spinach) and kabatiti fruit.

The soup/broth is so good with the fusion of two wild fungi goodness, sweetened by the young kabatiti!

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dinengdeng/inabraw, more, once more

Just can't get enough with dinengdeng (inabraw, if you will), this Ilokano gourmand in me (yes I consider dinengdeng kind of a gourmet), I have it in almost daily basis, my life could be so sorry and bleak, truly incomplete without it in my table in a day. I have exclusively blogged about it here and here today, once more. And more to come next blog entries. For dinengdeng is so versatile a dish it can be done in countless of ways and means with a variety of available veggies (especially green leafy) in season or all year round, as long as there's the blessed bugguong ready to lend its distinct flavor and aroma to every dinengdeng combination you can think of.

So, here are some more of my dinengdeng creations:

Winged beans (pallang), string beans (utong) and camote tops soured with young tamarind fruit.

Kuditdit or kudet (bracket fungi, tree ear fungus) and wild ampalaya (paria a balang/paria ti bakir)shoots with kinirog nga udang (fried freshwater shrimps).

Wild ampalaya shoots and straw mushrooms (uong-garami or uong-saba) with fried fish.

Chayote with dried ipon (goby fries). This is my personal favorite, that of chayote and/or papaya (green papayas) solo dinengdeng, which I usually flavor with lots of crushed laya (ginger). The soup is so savoury and gingery hot.

Uong, young tarong, sabong ken uggot kabatiti, with shrimps. 

A very savory dinengdeng I promise you, mainly because of its prized gamet (dried red seaweed). Gamet is like the Japanese nori. It enhances the flavor and aroma of the dinengdeng, especially its broth. Gamet seaweed is primarily gathered and dried in the northernmost towns of Ilocos Norte (mainly Burgos, and Pagudpod), and even in Cagayan (like Claveria). In this dinengdeng, you have there young tarong, sili nga aruy-oy (sweet pepper), and the flowers and shoots of kabatiti (the native, angular sponge gourd, patola).

Kalunay, katuday, uggot ken sabong kabatiti, with broiled native paltat (catfish).

Boiled utong (cowpeas) and sabong ken uggot ti karabasa (squash flowers and shoots), with bits of deep fried pork. Quite a different dinengdeng, you say, but it's good.

Tugi ( lesser yam, Chinese yam, Dioscorea esculenta Lour.), pallang, katuday (katuray, West Indian pea), and kalunay (spinach, amaranth, kulitis) with udang. This one, with the presence of the tugi, can also be called a buridibod. And it's so good, the soup is sweetish.

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