Find the transcript of my interview with Kimberly Eng and Ken Cazenas below.
INTRO
Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I’m your host, Nastasha Alli.
This episode’s the first of a couple from my trip to the Western Visayas region of the Philippines. Today, we’re in the provinces of Iloilo and Antique.
Let’s get to it!
It always amazes how as soon as I get back to the Philippines, I just slip back into talking the exact same way I did when I was 19. It was a sunny morning in August, and I just gotten off a plane, barely slept for 24 hours. And I’m starting my Western Visayas food trip with some solid quality friend time. Meet Anton, who picked me up at the airport and drove us straight to Iloilo’s La Paz Public Market, because I was pretty insistent on what I wanted to eat. I wanted the real deal La Paz Batchoy - Iloilo’s famous noodle soup filled to the brim with all sorts of porky, delicious things, like chicharron and liver and a healthy dollop of offal - like, intestines, and kidneys - my favourite.
01:40 Netong's Batchoy at La Paz Public Market
NA: So, eto, yung sabaw, ma-garlicky, nalalasahan mo young chicharron.
A: And yung scallions.
NA: So Anton and I start talking about why Netong’s is his favourite - because their soup is more savoury, and not as sweet as, like, Deco’s which is around the corner. But, I asked, ba’t kaya siya matamis?
A: It’s either sugar, and maybe the bones (of the pig). Kasi naturally, bones are sweet.
NA: Anton, by the way, worked as a chef in Manila, and Dubai, and the Maldives after culinary school. So he kinda knows what he’s talking about. He tells me to dip this hefty rice cake into the bowl of soup…oh my god, ang sarap.
A: Di ba, medyo dense siya? (It’s dense, right?)
NA: And while I've eaten with this guy a bunch of times - I mean, we grew up along the same main street, and went to kindergarten, grade school, high school, AND college together - this one was different. I know it sounds strange, but taking this little space of mine for the podcast - far from perfect as it is - really just reminds me of why I like podcasting in the first place.
“Nag-request ka ba ng extra?”
I might not be a mukbang star - that things where people watch other people eat on the internet - but I guess this is kinda similar. This little space is where I can do things like share a very regular conversation with a friend - with the slurping and joking in Taglish and all. I mean, this is how I regularly talk - when I'm in the Philippines, anyway - and it's just as real as when I talk into a microphone in my apartment in Toronto, like I am right now, because they're really just two sides to the same version of me.
04:00 The language I'm most myself in
NA: I think that one thing that'll still take me awhile to get, is how "changing" myself to fit into Canadian society, affected me, and shaped me, and continues to challenge my understanding of identity. For a while, shortly after we got here, I was very ashamed of talking in Taglish - the language I grew up with, and really felt the most myself in. I mean, English is just as natural, don't get me wrong, but it’s really just another side of the same coin. English is like formal, professional, writerly Tash - and Taglish is everyday Tash. Like I've said - a bowl of soup is never just about the food.
Next, we try pancit molo. Molo is a district just past the boundary of Iloilo City, home to a wonton soup called pancit molo. Now pancit, in this case, refers to the wonton wrapper - these days it’s made with wheat flour - and basically are dumplings filled with a ground pork or chicken filling, sometimes there’s shrimp - served in a bowl with delicious, clear broth, again made from either pork or chicken bones. Most places that serve it offer toppings like chopped green onions and fried garlic.
So Anton and I make our way first to Molo Church, built in 1831, this beautiful cathedral looking structure in the middle of the plaza, with lots of people around, vendors selling ice cream on the sidewalk, and kids playing in the playground. The church itself is made of corals and stone, set with egg whites mixed with sand. Naturally, the egg yolks, leftover from the building process, had to go somewhere, and in the neighbouring town of Jaro, Iloilo, bakeries like the famous Biscocho Haus - which we also visited - have long churned out biscuits and pastries that make full use of those egg yolks.
06:15 Pancit Molo at Panadería de Molo
NA: Back to Molo - steps from the church, we found this place called Panaderia de Molo - another on my list. In my continued attempt to be a little like Drew Arellano, who’s the host of this travel show [that’s] super popular in the Philippines, you’re gonna hear a big more Taglish here.
Okay, so, we are in Panaderia de Molo, which is around the corner from Molo Church and Molo Mansion. Kumakain na kami ngayon ng pancit molo. Interestingly, molo is…kaya soya pancit molo, dahil eto yung original ‘parian’ or Chinese district ng Iloilo area. Ang sarap nung sabaw. Yung sabaw niya, iba siya dun sa La Paz Batchoy, obviously. Mas clear. Pero di ko alam kung bakit siya clear, di naman siya parang lasang herbs.
A: Ano siya, basically, bones…made with bones lang.
NA: Ang sarap.
A: It tastes like chicken noodle soup.
NA: Tikman mo yung soup na to. Iba siya. Mas gusto ko yung pork. May konting iba siya eh, no?
A: Di ba nga, pork broth is sweeter than chicken.
NA: Tapos yang pancit niya, yung noodles, gawa siya sa rice flour, pero yunga texture niya iba eh no? Medyo may kagat. Parang hindi siya boiled lang.
A: Pero mas makapal siya, compared sa normal rice flour.
NA: Oo no, yung wrapper. Tsaka parang may texture siya…
So what I basically said was the soup tasted much clearer than the batchoy we ate earlier. The broth itself was still pretty sweetish, you could taste the difference between the pork and the chicken stuffed dumplings. And the "pancit" itself - by that I mean, the dough that the wonton wrapper's made of - it’s got a little bit of a bite to it. As the shopkeeper listened into our conversation, she explained it's because they actually fry the raw wontons first, before freezing them. And from there, they get shipped to places like Manila and Cebu, or they're sold on site, and simply dropped into the soup, when people order them, and enjoy a bowl at the original Panaderia de Molo. I love how these dumplings look. They’re blistered from hot oil, chewy and hefty on their own. And definitely a meal in itself.
09:25 From Iloilo to Antique
NA: From Iloilo, I take off for the province of Antique, on board a bus that cost me about $2 for a one-way fare. It took me a little over four hours to get to the town of Tobias Fornier, on the southwest tip of Panay island. A previous mayor changed the town’s name from its original name - Dao - though everyone still calls it that, including the buses and jeepneys. And I mean, to me, that’s really what makes a place “that place”. Because changing something’s name doesn’t change its character, or its history.
On the bus, the driver on the bus was like a madman. And, just a bit of a travel story, that ride kinda felt like, I guess what you’d think of when you say “hold on for dear life”. Like, if I was a purely Western traveler, who’d never been to Asia…I would’ve been scared out of my wits. Just speeding through these hairpin turns around the side of a cliff. Like, with the ocean literally metres the road. On the flipside, I happen to love this shit, and really, in a weird way, I know that’s just how they do it, as tons of drivers have done this plenty times before. That doesn’t excuse dangerous driving, but I guess it just, sets the scene for what to expect if you travel like a local in certain parts of the Philippines.
11:00 Visiting Alpas Restaurant and Guesthouse
NA: I was headed to Alpas. Alpas is a restaurant and guesthouse in this little corner of Antique. A province I honestly didn’t know much about, other than it was named for the black ants, in Tagalog, called antique - hamtik, I later learned, in the local dialect called Kinaray-a.
11:25 Meet Ken and Kim
Alpas is run by Ken Cazenas and Kimberly Eng, a couple who met in San Francisco, California. Ken has worked in kitchens since he was 17, and worked his way up to being executive chef in restaurants from places like Beverley Hills, Hollywood, Los Angeles and Hong Kong. There, he and Kim lived for a year in 2016. Shortly after that, admittedly kinda burned out from a fast-paced life where “living” became a second distant to “working”. And they decided to move to Ken’s parents’ hometown in Dao.
I found myself attracted to the spirit behind Alpas - almost instantly - when I first came across them online, on Instagram. Ken and Kim’s belief in living sustainably, with zero waste where possible, to revive local culinary traditions, and genuinely work with people, local people, to bring about a deeper understanding of the reality of our food systems. As broken as it is, and in strong need of repair, especially in places like these in the Philippines. I don’t know, I guess, it just resonated, so well, and I knew I had to visit soon, and I knew I had to make it a stop in my western Visayas visit.
Alpas is along the main highway that follows the coastline of Antique. The property’s right by the beach, and I highly recommend staying overnight at the guesthouse. Beyond a very relaxing, you will be treated to a fantastic set of meals - from dinner, to breakfast and lunch the next day - made with ingredients sourced from the garden on site, or the local market.
I got off the bus on this rainy day, from that driver who was a madman, and walked up to this tall bamboo structure, with slanted roofs that looked impermeable to the unpredictable weather. Kim came out to greet me with an umbrella. I checked in at the desk, and then Kim led me out back towards my home for the night. This rustic hut, steps from the beach, with banana and coconut trees all around. I settled in, had a cigarette, then walked back up to the restaurant for a dinner that I had been looking forward to for months.
Here’s Kim.
14:00 Sulig and tisa
KE: So this is a salad of kulitis and kamote leaves, with cucumber, radish, tomato, onion. [There’s] a chilled spicy beef stomach. Third dish is a roasted kamote, with house-made mayo. Fourth is a grilled eggplant with fried garlic and peanuts. And the last is grilled sulig, with fermented cabbage. Dessert will be suman with coconut cream, candied tisa and banana.
NA: What’s sulig?
KE: Sulig is a fish.
NA: Okay. And tisa?
KE: Tisa is a starchy fruit. It resembles like a cross between a mango and a kamote, but when you taste it, it’s like an already boiled sweet kamote.
NA: I’ve definitely never had that before.
KE: It looks like, I don’t know if we have the whole version of it anymore, I think we’ve already processed it…but it looks like…I hope I didn’t delete it already….it looks like this.
NA: Oh wow. Almost looks like cacao fruit. Like the whole thing.
KE: And on the inside, it looks, like powdery. When you taste it, it’s like, already cooked kamote, but it’s super sweet. It’s so cool.
NA: That’s crazy.
15:30 "Only the goats eat it”
KE: And it came about because we were watching a YouTube video of, um, you know Mark Weins, the travel blogger?
NA: Yup.
KE: Yeah, so we was going to Peru. And he went to the market there, and he picked up this fruit. And we’ve always been, like, nagging the girls, our staff, asking if they have neighbours or family members, who like, grow these things, that are literally just falling and rotting on the ground, to let us know. Like, we’ll ask you to harvest it, or for someone to harvest it, collect it, and we’ll pay per kilo, at a reasonable price. And they didn’t mention it till they saw him pick it up at the Peru market, and they were like, oh, we have that here! And then we asked, why hasn’t anyone used it? They said, basically, it was so high now, so all the fruits fall to the ground.
NA: Oh, like the tree itself is pretty high.
KE: Yeah. So the fruits fall to the ground, and only the goats eat it. So, yeah.
NA: Sweet. Okay, so I get to try the candied tisa.
KE: It’s really, really interesting.
NA: The smell of that lemongrass is like, whew.
KE: Did you want another drink? We also have cocktails. We have a calamansi tanduay, and a butterfly pea with gin cocktail. Or buko banana shake.
NA: I did see the butterfly pea one…is that an actual pea, like a type of pea?
KE: No, it’s a flower. But they call it, like, there’s the blue ternate flower, also known as the butterfly pea flower. It’s this really beautiful, vibrant violet colour.
NA: I already had my eye on that. So yes.
KE: I’ll join you on that one.
17:15 Tonight's dinner menu: green salad, grilled fish, spicy beef stomach, roasted sweet potatoes, grilled eggplant, suman with coconut cream and bananas
NA: Everything on the table in front of me was served on a broad leaf that lined one of three types of tableware. Bowls that were made from dried coconut shells, hollowed out tubes of bamboo, and plates that made of woven rattan.
So my observations on everything so far…the grilled sulig is so delicious. The texture of the fish itself is a little bit milky. Very light on the fish flavour. Pairs so well with the fermented cabbage, like, sauerkraut style, no vinegar at all. But for some reason, it’s just so soft, and so tasty. I don’t know why. Next up we have the beef stomach, that has quite a bit of kick to it. It’s got quite a bit of bird’s eye chilli, and I’m guessing some radishes. Also with a little bit of acid. Very good. Then the salad - the salad is one of my favourite things. The leaves of the sweet potato are very tender. Kind of looks like sili leaves, but much smaller that what I would typically associate with sweet potato leaves. It’s got cucumbers, tomatoes. What kind of flower is this?
KE: Blue ternate, or butterfly pea.
NA: The butterfly pea. I’m just recording my tasting notes on everything. There’s also the fingering kamote and potatoes with aioli. The aioli is very good, nice balance of the acidity, with quite a bit of garlic. The grilled eggplants are also very soft. There’s - mmm - a lot of friend garlic on top of that. Very tasty. The rice is something they call purple rice. It’s a mix of red rice and SRI rice. Just digging into the dessert now. The tisa, which is the fruit…I’m trying to figure out what that tastes like. It does taste, like, sweet potato-ey.
KE: Yeah, you’re getting a hybrid of flavours, because there’s muscovado sugar added to that. And some toasted coconut flakes also.
NA: Then there’s bananas, the suman. So just to run through that again: I had a salad of amaranth, or kulitis, and sweet potato, or camote leaves, with cucumber, sliced radishes, tomatoes and onions. I had a starter of chilled spicy beef stomach - man, that was so good. There was some roasted camote with housemade aioli. And grilled eggplant with fried garlic and peanuts. There was this crisp-skinned, deliciously charred whole sulig - a silver-skinned fish found largely in southeast Asia up to Japan. And I had a drink that was made with gin and garnished with blue ternate leaves, also known as butterfly peas. And for dessert, there was suman, a rice cake, with coconut cream, candied tisa and bananas.
21:30 A feeling I chase
NA: Under this cavernous structure made entirely of bamboo, built by people from town, with this wood-fed hearth that anchors and powers the kitchen...I was just beyond myself. By this time, the power went out, and I could hear the rain start to trickle, just a little bit, beyond the doors. There were three little tea candles in cut-off bamboo ends in front of me. I just had a fantastic meal and I was feeling pretty great. I was feeling happy, and pretty content.
The next day, I woke up pretty early to skies that barely cleared up, and watched a couple of fishing boats - the motorized bancas that you see everywhere in the Philippines - offload their catch for the day. There wasn’t too much of it. For breakfast, I had stir-fried rice and vegetables with a cup of coffee.
22:45 Off to the market
NA: We were gonna head off to the market before my cooking lesson, and so Ken called a tricycle, and we hopped in and then made our way to the market in the main town. It wasn’t a very busy one, given there aren’t that many people here. But everyone knew him and said hello, in that way I miss so much about the Philippines. We walked around with baskets called “bayong” to collect fish - more sulig, since it was in season - a variety of vegetables, and then we stopped by the dry goods store to stock up on beer. Also an essential. This was my kind of morning.
I couldn’t help but feel, I guess, unsurprisingly, at home. While we were on our way back, sitting in a tricycle as it sped past rice paddies and the jagged coastline that was just by the side of the road. You know I love a good landscape, and the mountains, and the sea…it’s just stuff that made me feel like I was in exactly at the right place, at the right time.
24:00 What "Alpas" means
NA: Alpas, by the way, means “to break free”. As in, “naka-alpas ka”, meaning you’ve broken free from your regular routine, your daily life. And their philosophy, here, is really kind of that, in a nutshell. It’s breaking free from tradition, and breaking free from your view of things that can sometimes be kept in a box.
We got back, and it was time to get cooking. I mean, I did come for a cooking class, after all. Here’s Ken.
24:40 Our goal for today's market haul
KC: We’ll go over the ingredients really quick. We have the kamote leaves, that you saw at the market. Kangkong also, which you saw at the market. These will be for the salad. There’s sweet pepper, eggplant, cucumber, winged beans, okra, calamansi, sili, onion, ginger, garlic, and tomato. And the goal is to have minimal wastage. Meaning, if we’re gonna use just the leaves for the salad, then we can take the tender stems, [and] we can either add it or incorporate it into the salsa. Or we can cook it along with the stuffing. Right? So you kind of want to [think that] doing minimal wastage allows you to do things that you wouldn’t normally think about doing, you know. You kinda have to be resourceful and creative. Because I think a lot of waste comes from laziness, right? You’re not really exercising your brain, you’re kinda just like, whatever. Easy, throw it away, you know, be done with it.
NA: But then the kangkong stems especially, like, I remember my lola used to just make adobong kangkong. And that’s one of my favourite parts actually. The sauce would just go into it, but then it still has that crunch.
KC: Yeah, exactly.
NA: After we lay out the morning’s haul on the table, I ask Ken to give us a rundown of what’s happening.
26:20 Cooking school with Ken
NA: So we’re gonna make a salad?
KC: Yeah, a really nice salad, not just focused on leafy greens, but more on vegetables. So for example, like, winged beans, okra, eggplant, bell pepper, cucumber. So it’s gonna be like a really filling salad, not just leaves. And then I’m thinking of making a stuffing for the fish, and also some sort of like, salsa, for the fish. All in all, a nice hearty meal, but it shouldn’t feel heavy, because everything is mainly plant-based. And yeah, the fish we have is sulig. But once you’re ready, [with] the apron, towel, and then we’ll get started.
NA: Can I say, I just gotta give some big love here. All morning Ken’s got this wicked playlist going. Right now, we got Lil Troy’s “Wanna Be A Baller”, a sweet 90s throwback, with chickens crowing in yard. It’s honestly the best. I’m pretty certain there’s nowhere else on the internet you’re gonna hear this particular juxtaposition of cultures. Like, old school hiphop in the Philippine countryside with this guy who’s born in Saudi, and me, a Canadian transplant, learning how to make the most of the foods that grew around. So what’s the trick with preparing sulig, I ask?
28:10 Preparing sulig
KC: Salt will firm up the flesh, because it’s a very soft-fleshed fish. So that it can hold, or withstand, really nice roasting, without falling apart. It’s only been about an hour or so [since we salted] but it’s just very light. We’re gonna let it go a little bit longer. After, we can finish our vegetable prep. Then we’ll wash this, and cut open the cavity so that there’s more room for the stuffing.
NA: Do you normally roast it in like banana leaves, or like some other kind of leaf? Or does it go directly on the coals [over a grate]?
KC: I mean, I think it depends on what you really want. Like what you wanna do. I think roasting in a banana leaf is more a steaming/baking sort of thing. But what I want is the skin to get charred, you know.
NA. Nice and crisp.
KC: Yeah, exactly. I mean the banana leaf, it does impart a good flavour, but that’s not what we’re looking for today. I mean, there’s really no rules to cooking, it’s all really what you have in mind, and then your execution.
NA: Well that’s reassuring - and I say that without sarcasm. Because a lot of times, I find I just hesitate with trying stuff. But, I guess, how else will you learn? Now that we got the fish sorted out, it’s time to turn our eye to the salad, stuffing, and salsa.
29:40 Salad, stuffing and salsa
KC: So what I’m thinking is, maybe it’ll give a nice contrast to the salsa, if we just roast the stems in a pan, you know. And then we’ll chop it up and add it to the salsa. So the salsa’s not 100% raw and fresh, you’ll have a little bit of like, smokiness.
NA: Cool.
KC: Right. So the eggplant also, we will cut, and then we will toast [with] the bell pepper. I mean, you can basically utilize all these things, in those three elements, meaning the salad, the stuffing and the salsa.
NA: All from this basic set.
KC: Yeah, I mean, you can use this in all three, or that in all three. However you please, but then that’s up to you.
NA: I have a quick question about the winged beans - the sigarilyas, that’s what this is, right?
KC: Yes.
NA: I don’t have much experience with preparing it. Like, how would you normally make [them]? Like for the salad we’re gonna make today, how would we prepare it?
KC: I would just sear it, so it’s still crunchy. I mean, again, we want to create layers. Not just blanching everything, not just steaming everything, not just grilling everything. You want a mixture of raw, fresh, cooked, caramelized, to charred, what have you. But you want depth. And that’s what we’re gonna try to do with these vegetables.
NA: I’m ready.
KC: Alright.
31:20 The winged bean theory
NA: So I’m a little fixated on winged beans at this point. Because I see them so often in grocery stores, here in Toronto, where lots of people specifically from South Asia use winged beans in their everyday cooking. For me, though, I kind of just knew one way to prepare them, in a savoury stew for something like pinakbet. But what else is out there? I don’t really know much very about how to prepare it.
KC: I eat it raw. I eat it pickled. I eat it fermented, and grilled, you know. As long as you like a certain ingredient, you can prepare it any way you like. Here, it’s in soup.
NA: Adds some nice body to it, I guess, a little bit? It doesn’t have any slime inside it, right?
KC: No, it has a pretty resilient structure, you know. Sometime in the past, I read about it, it has a lot of health benefits, just has a lot of nutrients.
NA: And it happens to be very tasty. Even like, raw.
KC: Yeah.
NA: Kinda like green beans, taste wise. I kinda like the idea of charring these, to get that kinda smokiness on the outside.
KC: So I’ll go ahead and get that started, I’ll put this on the grill.
33:20 Breaking it down
KC: Let’s start by putting the salad ingredients in here. We’ll put the stuffing ingredients in here, and then we’ll put the rest here. So this is why I exercise this also, the thinking part of cooking. You have to compartmentalize what you have, you know what I mean. It’s like, this is the reason that you have, like, a vision for dish. And then after that, you understand the ingredients you have. Then after that, you break them down even further. Once you break them down into their categories, you can break them down even further in terms of cooking, and texture, and technique, and execution. Them you break them down further, in terms of seasoning and mouthfeel.
34:25 "How do you normally approach cooking?"
NA: Okay. I haven’t really thought of approaching it that way, but that makes sense.
KC: How do you normally approach cooking?
NA: Based on what my cravings are, at the moment.
KC: But like this, if you’re given something you’re not craving, but it’s more of like, resourcefulness-based. How would you approach that?
NA: Um, well, flavour, I guess. Like the kamote tops, after having them in the salad last night, I know 100% I want to eat them raw, in a salad. Because I really like them that way, they’re really good. So I definitely want these to go in the salad. Maybe the stuffing too, a little bit.
KC: You also have to consider, like, the size of the fish that you saw. You can’t overstuff it.
NA: Right, you gotta have a little bit of room in it. Yeah. So I continue to ponder on what to include in my stuffing for the fish, and, I guess naturally, this led to another line of thought - about rethinking my relationship with vegetables.
35:35 Rethinking my relationship with vegetables
NA: Because I think when you say, like, salad, and like most ensalada in Tagalog, like where my mind goes, what I immediately picture is more kind of like, a tomato and salted egg salad.
KC: Yeah.
NA: And that’s kind of what’s interesting for like, Filipino people who have grown up abroad too, is that like, for the most part, you don’t really think about vegetables in that way. Because in most Filipino dishes that you would cook at home, like in your sinigang or pinakbet, like the vegetables are always stewed.
KC: Or disguised.
36:30 The definition of a salad
NA: Yeah. They’re not featured as kind of like, the base ingredient. Which is obviously kind of a shame and a waste, but then maybe that’s just because people don’t think of them that way, as something that like, you can eat raw. Or like the definition of a salad I just, for most people, the salted egg and tomato. But there is a lot [more].
KC: But I think it’s just so bizarre for me, being in an agricultural nation, that vegetables seem to be…I mean, besides the fact that it’s not really part of the diet, it’s also expensive, which doesn’t make sense to me.
NA: I know.
KC: Like, poor countries eat plant-based, you know. It’s what’s there, it’s what’s available. Farmers eat what they grow. It’s just, I don’t know, something really deep, deep down, that fucked everybody over, in terms of the thinking.
NA: Well, like from a historical context, I guess it’s also just the idea that, like, if you have meat, then it’s kind of like a status symbol. But then the sad part is, that that has resulted in vegetables kind of being relegated as like, for lack of a better word, a poor man’s food. Even though it shouldn’t be.
KC: Maybe historically, but in terms of modern times…only the rich are actually vegans and vegetarians.
NA: Yeah.
KC: So what’s happening in this world?
38:20 Food deserts in the Philippines?
NA: What is happening indeed. The issue of vegetables being expensive is really a global one. Here in North America, lots of people talk about “food deserts” and it’s honestly pretty eye-opening to just read about it. A “food desert” is basically someplace - for example, like, blocks of apartment buildings in a big city, that are far away from public transport, far away from grocery stores and other shopping areas that are accessible. Places that sell fresh fruit and vegetables. And because, for example here, in Toronto, where winter can last for up to half a year, if you happen to be a single parent with school aged kids, who live in one of these place, a food desert…I mean, if you work two jobs and rely on a bus to get you everywhere, it’s just all that more difficult to include the things that you know you need to include in your diet, because it’s so much easier to just buy a frozen dinner at a convenience store.
In the Philippines, I guess, I kinda like to think that the parallel to this urban “food desert” is the fact that in the countryside - like in rural areas where many farming families live, places like Tobias Fornier, where I was - money tends to be spent on highly processed meats, like corned beef in a can. But how, exactly, has the Filipino palate come to rely on, and prefer, the intense saltiness of these food items? I mean, this opens up a whole other conversation about the everyday effects of colonialism, but to bring it back to now…that desire to consume foods of the land, that are such an intrinsic part of Filipino culture, in traditional ways…if there’s a way for us to reconnect that, or to at least, make that a much larger part of our lives [compared] to how it already is…I think that would be at least a step forward. How do we get back to yearning for, and choosing, to consume more vegetables, because we genuinely like them?
I’m gonna riff off a little bit on the salad you made last night. Cause I really liked the texture of the cucumber. So it has, like, a different kind of fresh crunch, along with the sweet potato leaves. And I do like the shallots in there as well. It doesn’t have that extra bite. Maybe for the salsa, let’s do a mix, and put some of the raw [kangkong] stems, chop it up finely for the salsa. And then, let’s try roasting these cause I’m curious…
KC: But these are, I mean, at a certain point they do get tough. But another thing that I encourage people to do in their house, if they’re not growing kangkong, or kamote leaves, if you’re not gonna eat the stems…all you have to do is stick them in water, and in a couple days they’ll start to root, you know. And then you just plant it directly in the ground. And it’s very low maintenance.
NA: Makes sense.
KC: But no one does it.
NA: Okay. Well I’ll stick some into the fish. I’ll put some shallots, and garlic, a little bit of calamansi juice. The winged beans, what do I do with that…actually, maybe I’ll put some of the chilis into the fish. The okra, I want to roast, I will put that in the salad…now, the sigarilyas, where would that go? With some ginger, in the stuffing.
43:00 Applying the bean theory
NA: I’m trying to think of where I want the sigarilyas to go.
KC: Well, you have four of them.
NA: I like them raw, actually. So I’ll save them for the salsa. Although maybe, I want to roast these too…
KC: But like you said to me earlier, about [how] you’re not so familiar with it…this is your chance to be able to prepare it in other ways, because you’re already gonna have it raw.
NA: I do like them raw, so I’ll keep two for the salsa. And then, since I want to include a bit of the charred element in the salad, I definitely want to roast the okra. I’ll try roasting that too, the sigarilyas. And then the eggplant and the pepper..
KC: They’re roasting now. Don’t forget about your kamote.
NA: Wonder if I should roast these ones too.
KC: But then, like, you’re going in the same direction with everything. You know what I’m saying?
NA: Oh, it’s really soft. Is this already cooked?
KC: It’s been blanched. Think outside of the box. Like what have you never had kamote in? If you always have it roasted, what other preparation have you never had it in before? That’s where we wanna think.
NA: It’d be really nice to kind of, like, slice it. Because of the purple, I really like the colour of it. Maybe that would be nice, thin slices to top the salad with.
KC: Boom.
NA: Let’s do that.
KC: So then, at this point, we’re gonna go ahead and start processing each tray, at a time, before we actually touch the fish. So I think for the salad ingredients, we will start cutting it and then we’ll put everything in here. And then your plan for the winged beans, and the okra, is to roast it?
NA: Yes.
KC: Okay, I’ll go ahead and roast these. This bowl is gonna be for your vinaigrette. But you can go ahead and start processing this, however size and shape you want.
NA: So Ken asks me what Filipino dish I actually make quite a bit at home, in Canada. And I said, as expected, I often make chicken adobo with coconut milk. We talked about stuff we’ve read about the origins of adobo as an indigenous cooking method, and how it was given a Spanish name that most closely resembled what the colonists knew in their language. Ken pulls out The Governor General’s Kitchen, by Felice Sta. Maria, from his little library, on a shelf behind us.
KC: Okay, so this recipe, it’s in Spanish, but it’s saying equal parts water to vinegar. Then you put onions, with parsley, garlic, salt and pepper. Parsley. So once upon a time, it grew here.
NA: And people actually included it in [their] cooking.
KC: Well, you know, capers actually grew here too. Because of the Spaniards. I think we’re losing our biodiversity. But it’s not even, like, plant life that’s lacking diversity - it’s everything, you know. And it’s so sad, we’re losing more and more plants. Just because no one’s utilizing them.
NA: I like the charred taste of this, so I’m putting a little bit of it in the stuffing.
KC: Yeah. Because that was my thought, at first. But I’m trying not to think so loud, so you don’t catch my thoughts, and [let it] interrupt yours.
48:05 Today's lunch: salad of roasted okra, peppers, eggplants, winged beans and sweet potatoes, kangkong-stuffed fish, cucumber and tomato salsa
NA: Okay, so my cooking class with Ken has just finished. And I am about to sit down and eat this incredible spread. I am so excited. I’ve spent the last hour prepping everything. We got some ingredients from the market this morning, when we went out for a quick walk. So yeah, I’m gonna give you a quick rundown of what we have.
Obviously there’s some rice, some red rice that they serve here. Moving onto the salad, we had sweet potato leaves, or kamote tops, some cucumbers, shallots. We also had some grilled okra, grilled sigarilyas, or winged beans. Grilled eggplants in there, because I really wanted some smoky elements and textures to the salad, thanks to Ken’s prodding and suggestions for that. On top of the salad, as a garnish, we also have some purple sweet potatoes, very much looks like ube, but it’s technically not, it is a sweet potato, just blanched, so it’s got quite a bit of heft to it. And beyond the purple sweet potatoes, there’s also two other kinds of sweet potatoes that were a lot starchier. And we kinda decided to make it a crumbly topping, because they were quite starchy. When I was cutting into it earlier, it kinda just like, fell apart. And so we decided to roast them, and that added an incredible dimension, in terms of texture to it. So now we’ve got that sort of, mmm, crunchy crumble on top.
For the salad, the dressing is also made of calamansi, and some coconut vinegar. Now, the coconut vinegar itself is flavoured with lemongrass and ginger. God, it’s so good. And the kicker is that we also added some extra-virgin coconut oil. And let me tell you, this coconut oil is like, the best I’ve ever had.
Moving onto the fish, we had sulig, which is the same kind of fish that I had last night, grilled over an open fire, for about three to four minutes each side. We did make a stuffing for the fish, that we sautéed beforehand. Again, using the same, sort of, market basket ingredients that started off with. So the stuffing in the fish has garlic, ginger, shallots, sautéed in a little bit of pork lard. Honestly, I don’t understand how such incredible aromas can come from something so simple. But when the quality is good, can’t complain about that. We sautéed the stuffing with kangkong stems, and kangkong leaves. Now that is something I would not have every thought of doing.
The flesh looks really tender, and very milky. Oh my god, that tastes so good. Okay, so beyond the fish, there’s also a salsa, that you see on the board. The salsa is made of chopped up cucumbers, tomatoes, a little bit of calamansi as well in there. And because I’m kind of in love with sigarilyas right now, we roasted them for the salad, but for the salsa I kept it raw. And the flavour and the texture of the raw sigarilyas is…it’s not bitter, which is what I like about it, and I guess what surprised me about it. It’s just nice and crunchy and crisp. It keeps that freshness of the salsa intact. Also tossed in some of the young, tender stems of the kamote tops, with the idea that nothing ever goes to waste. So yeah, I’m ready to dig in.
I’m gonna start with a little bit of the salad…god, that dressing is delicious. See honestly, if I could have this for lunch, every day, I would have no problem switching over. It would’t even be an issue, switching over to a plant-based diet. Now to try the fish…it’s crazy how much flavour the stuffing provides. Despite the fact that, I think sautéing the stuffing really does make the flavours a lot more immediate…because it doesn’t have a lot of time to seep into the fish, like we literally stuffed the fish right before it went on the grill. But you can definitely taste the aromatics that went into that. And the salad, along with that, so good. Alright, well, I’m gonna enjoy the rest of this, and probably dream about this lunch for a little while, until I come back here and get an opportunity to do it again.
WRAP-UP
My warmest thanks to Ken Cazenas, Kimberly Eng, and their lovely staff at Alpas Restaurant and Guesthouse in Tobias Fornier, Antique. Maraming, maraming salamat. You can find Alpas on Facebook, Instragram, Tripadvisor and their website, alpasph.com.
54:35 Uncovering culinary experiences in the Philippines
If you’ve listened this far, I really hope I’ve convinced you to visit and seek out experiences like these in the Philippines. Because there is a growing number of them, and I honestly just urge you. If you’re interested in visiting places for food, and their food culture, there’s so much of that to see in the Philippines. And especially if you’re a Filipino person…you kind of owe it to yourself to explore that. And that’s really what Exploring Filipino Kitchens is about.
Ken gave me so much food for thought during this visit. As someone who chooses to make the country that my parents worked so hard to leave, basically the place I want to visit every time I save up for two weeks of vacation…it’s rewarding, in more ways than I can count, and more ways than I can describe right now. Not just because your dollar goes a long way, but because as someone who has the opportunities and the financial resources to actually travel…I guess, in my continued quest, let’s call it, to understand more about what I can do as a person in the diaspora, if I’m the kind of person who’s interested in travelling anyway for those kinds of meaningful connections and very personal experiences when you’re out travelling the world, like, there’s so much of that in the Philippines. I highly urge you to go. Because the understanding that you’ll get of yourself, as you walk away from it, is something that’s very hard to measure. At least for myself. And of course, thank you to my good friend Anton. I love that we’re adulting, and we’re doing it right I think.
Our theme music for this episode is by David Szestay, segment music is by Eric and Magill, Blue Dot Sessions and Podington Bear.
Visit exploringfilipinokithchens.com for past episodes, and I’d really love if you shared this episode with someone else who’d enjoy it! Like I’ve said, recommendations are everything. Because, even if a small percentage of all the people who visit Iloilo City, made the short drive up to Antique, it would make a big difference, and you’d have an experience to share with the world.
Maraming salamat, and until next time - thank you for listening.