World Class Chefs
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Ramilo (Ram) Villaluna
Ram is a budding chef from Iloilo City (Molo). He gained his training in Culinary Arts at the Center for Asian Culinary Studies under food guru Gene Gonzalez, Institute of Culinary Education (formerly Peter Kumpps) in New York. He took up bread making, and he studied food styling under Delores Custer of the Culinary Institute of America. It all started in Antique where his father owned a restaurant many Antiquenos learned to love. He continued the culinary legacy of his father and now, Ram owns a catering business, Cindy\'s Catering. Food is Ram\'s life, seriously speaking. I am short in saying that he is married to the food industry that, he spends most of his time teaching and mentoring at the Department of Culinary Arts at the University of San Agustin in Iloilo. If one cannot find him in the classroom, Ram will be on the road crisscrossing Iloilo and Antique having first hand in the management of his thriving businesses from both provinces. He also has a once-a-week TV show in GMA 7 \"Food Trip\". I met with Ram once before and he exudes perfectionism, the character that will beam him up to the limelight of culinary arts. At present time, Ram is extremely busy in Manila. I believe he is one of the finalists in The National Food Showdown 2010 sponsored by ABS-CBN. We wish you all the luck, Ram! Maybe, after this showdown, Ram will have the opportunity share favorite recipe here at ILONGGO LIVING.
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Posts Tagged ‘ampalaya’
Ilocano Favorite Dishes
Ilocano dishes has so many virtues that it is hard to know where to start listing them. Effortlessly, my chef will categorize Ilocano dishes into meat, particularly goat’s meat and, at the other end of the scale, vegetables. In between, one could fit in other food stuff such as bagoong and other sea foods. Just like other regions of the Philippines, Ilocanos has its own favorite dishes that appears to be their signature foods. The most popular ones are, pinakbet, dinengdeng and the pinapaitan. Lets dig it!
PINAPAITAN. In its truest form, pinapaitan is usually made of goat's meat, entrails and the papait or apro. For those who does not fancy goat's meat, my chef prepares this dish with regular beef in lieu of and, substitute papait (extracted intestinal juice) with apro or apdo (bile juice). Personally, I detest papait because of its strong fecal smell and prefer apro to give the dish its distinctive "pait" or bitter flavor. As one would notice, there are three distinct kinds of meat in it: the beef, tripe and goat's skin (dark). Ilocanos prepares them meticulously to mask the smell by adding onions, ginger and vinegar or lemon. Overall, I enjoy eating this Ilocano dish ONLY when prepared by my chef or her brother.
DINENGDENG. This is a very healthy Ilocano dish as it is made of mostly local vegetables. The sagpaw is usually grilled or fried fish and the soup base is made of bagoong.
PINAKBET. This dish is of Ilocano origin. As the dish became popular throughout the archipelago, each region prepares them differently. Again, personally speaking, I prefer my pinakbet Ilocano style. This unique dish stands out as purely vegetable dish concocted with bittermelon (ampalaya), string beans (sitaw), eggplant and okra.
Ampalaya All the Way
April 12, 2010
Ampalaya (bitter melon, bitter gourd or Balsam pear) is a favorite vegetable among Asians. Lately, this wrinkled fruit invaded the North American supermarkets and has steadily increased in popularity. First time consumers may raise their eyebrows as to what it is and how it is prepared. Basically, ampalaya has a bitter taste that make some people shy away from preparing it, even among the Asian community. The native ones, especially, has the most bitter flavor but, thank goodness, the ones they sell at the supermarkets are of milder variety. The bitterness of this favorite vegetable challenges some people’s taste buds and usually is, an acquired taste.
Now, for the first time user of this vegetable, one has to learn how to extract the bitterness out of the ampalaya. First, slice the fruit lengthwise into halves and scrape off the inner pit including the seeds with a spoon. Then slice thinly, perpendicularly or julienne-style, sprinkle salt and try mush it up with bare hands until it becomes watery. Finally, squeeze out the bitter juice and dump the fluid and the vegetable is ready for cooking. One might repeat the process if using the native variety to remove the bitterness further.Let’s go check them out.
These are the native variety, for the brave and pro in bitter taste. They are usually smaller in size, pear-shaped and tightly knitted wrinkles. This kind of ampalaya are usually available at your local Asian stores.
In comparison, the "North American" variety are huge, elongated with larger wrinkles. They are way less bitter than its native counterpart. Needless to say, this variety are available all year round at your favorite supermarkets and Asian stores alike.
The most favorite ampalaya dish is guinisang ampalaya con carne. A very popular dish in the Philippines. One has to sautee garlic, onions and tomatoes with either pork or shrimps or both. Then, optionally, one can add beaten egg at the final stage of cooking.
Another popular dish where one can add ampalaya is the pinakbet. The bitterness of ampalaya balances the other flavor of the dish.
The easiest way to prepare ampalaya is, the ensalada or salad type. Here, one can just simply add freshly sliced tomatoes, onions and drizzle it up with lemon. A very healthy way of preparing them. By the way, ampalaya is packed with nutrients such as vitamins and iron.
Pinakbet with Gata, Anyone?
March 01, 2010
I posted about PINAKBET a few months back, trying to compare the Ilocano-style against the Tagalog-style of preparing them. Lo and behold, during my recent trip to the Philippines, my sister-in-law in Iloilo prepared yet another style which I’m proud to label it as Ilonggo-style pinakbet. And who would have guessed that gata (coconut milk) may be added to a basic pinakbet and call it Ilonggo style? NOBODY! Incidentally, my friend Sachi Villareal of Namit ah! just posted an Ilonggo dish, Inubaran nga Manok with gata, as well! Can someone please tell me when did Ilonggo foods married to gata or coconut milk? I thought the Bicol region is known to be the most avid user of gata (and hot pepper) in almost all of their foods. Well, count Iloilo in, as well.
Here it is, the Ilonggo-style pinakbet! With coconut milk and it tasted so good.
The Ilocano-style of pinakbet, distinctively different from the rest and I love this style of.
Another Ilocano version of the pinakbet, with play of colors and veggies. The secret is: bagoong base soup with vinegar.
And of course, the popular Tagalog-style of pinakbet. With alamang as its soup base.
Pinakbet- Part 2
October 26, 2009
It seem like we can never have enough of the Ilocano dish, PINAKBET. Quite frankly, my chef prepares this dish regularly, more so when fresh vegetables are abundant this time of the year. Fresh harvest of vegetables from friends and relatives abounds this past few weeks. So, my chef decided to prepare pinakbet, Ilocano style. As I have mentioned in my previous entries, Tagalog style of pinakbet is a little bit different than the Ilocano style.
Pinakbet – Ilocano Style
September 22, 2009
Today is the first day of autumn or fall. To be precise, it arrived today at 5:18 this afternoon, so summer is over now officially! And I did not even wholesomely enjoyed it here in Canada, darn! To make it more convincing, just look around and one will see the telltale signs lurking … such as, temperature dropping to single digits at night, and speaking of nighttime, it’s growing longer compared to daytime. And if you’re not convinced yet, just drive around and you’ll see leaves of trees starts turning to different colors and hues. Don’t forget people starts to wear long-sleeves shirts, sweaters and light jackets. Cold weather totally beats me up. But, don’t get me wrong, I love the first part of fall, wherein, leaves changes its colors and then falls off to the ground.
Speaking of colors, a food in mind is pinakbet. One of my avid readers, Natie from Jersey, just reminded me about pinakbet and, for sure it’s one of my Ilocano favourite foods, as well! Ilocanos prepares their pinakbet differently from Tagalog. So I was told by my chef. Ilocanos do not use garlic nor alamang in their pinakbet and they don’t saute their spices. They just prepare it with bagoong, vinegar, water, eggplants, ampalaya, okra and onions. That’s it!
One of the basic veggies for pinakbet is ampalaya (bitter melon).
Eggplant is the second "must have" ingredient. Eggplants can go solo in pinakbet! Just plain eggplant pinakbet with oil added. Yummy!
Concoction of different veggies in bagoong and vinegar soup makes up pinakbet.
Voila! Pinakbet- Ilocano Style!
Dinengdeng Galore!
September 20, 2009
My first encounter with dinengdeng was in Baguio City in the late 70′s while attending Saint Louis University’s College of Medicine. Staying in a boarding house means cheap meals and endless replays or re-runs of food. Dinengdeng is one of them! Our landlord used to have a backyard full of sayote bush and, in the kitchen, a Caltex can full of bagoong. What a perfect match for dinengdeng! So, one can just imagine having (sayote, fruit or fronds) dinengdeng every other day, if not everyday for the next 4 to 5 years. At one point, after graduation, I promised myself not to allow my taste buds touch dinengdeng nor lay my eyes on it! Spoke too soon, I guess. I got married to an Ilocano maiden and I swallowed everything I said against dinendeng. Now, dinengdeng is one of my favourite Ilocano dishes. The reason being, my chef prepares it lavishly with variety of vegetables and sagpaws. That made a world of difference compared to what I used to have before! So, here are some variations of DINENGDENG one can make and enjoy eating. It’s almost like our laswa in Iloilo (without the bagoong, of course).
The most lavished of all the DINENGDENG, with two types of sagpaw (shrimps & grilled fish) and with fancy alucon (birch flowers).
Basically, the soup base is made of bagoong and the rest of the ingredients varies as to availability of different veggies. Here, my chef added patani, zucchini and alucon.
With fried tilapia as sagpaw and our favourite, alucon, oyster mushrooms & sigarillas.
A basic type of dinengdeng with no sagpaw but with zucchini, beans, patani and sweetpeas tops or fronds.
Dinengdeng can stand alone without sagpaw of any kind because of its bagoong-based soup. Here, my chef just added sweet corn, mushrooms, ampalaya and kalunay.
Here's the latest dinengdeng we had in Virginia, with grilled mackerel as sagpaw and eggplants and string beans.
East Meets West
July 28, 2009
As far as east is, there’s always a chance that it will meet west somehow. That’s true with foods, so to speak! As our food menu at home varies because of the kids, we try to marry our food culture with the western. That’s where fusion comes in handy. A little bit of this and a little bit of that in a certain dish, breaks traditional cooking. Innovation becomes the norm with most of our cooking here in Canada. Probably some of my regular readers noticed that for the past few posts. Okay, so tonight Ilocano dish rules as my chef cooked her favourite dish, the venerated denengdeng. One can practically use any local veggies for this bagoong-based soup. Just like our laswa in Iloilo. Since sweet corn, spinach, kalunay and mushrooms are in abundance here in southern Ontario right now, we try take advantage of them. For the kids they settled for roast beef with horseradish.
Denengdeng with ampalaya, sweet corn, oyster mushrooms and spinach.
This sumptuous dish is an Ilocano favourite.
Another version of denengdeng with kalunay leaf and sweet corn.
Kalunay are free growing green vegetable or can be cultivated as what my Ilocano friend does every late spring and early summer.
Roast beef with longanberry and horseradish.
Brown gravy for roast beef is a must aside from horseradish.
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