Healthy Option From My Garden

Did I plant the seed of inspiration to start your own home garden?

Well, I do hope so because depending on what you planted, in a short time, you could be cooking up the following dish with produce from your garden! Meanwhile, you can start practicing by getting the ingredients for the following recipe from your local supermarket or wet market.

The recipe is for a vegetable stew-- so very Visayan. Although I think there is a Tagalog version of this but I can't seem to remember the name. Something about a thousand vegetables.

This dish is also very personal. The reason is that the vegetables used in the stew depends on the preference of the cook. So you may or may not add alugbati, okra, squash, string beans, or even gabi (yam). But the dish must have at all times Malunggay leaves-- no buts about it. To add flavour, you should have green onions, ginger and/or tanglad (lemon grass).

This vegetable stew pairs very well with fried fish. And if times are hard, a small dish of ginamos (fermented fish) or bagoong alamang (fermented shrimp) would do nicely.


Utan Binisaya



Basic Ingredients:
Leaves from 4 stalks of kamonggay (malunggay)
2 stalks of green onions (sibuyas dahonan;murang sibuyas), sliced into 2 inch length
1 stalk of tangad (lemon grass), tied in a bundle
1 thumb-size luy-a (ginger), quartered
salt to taste

Optional:
1 small tawong (talong), sliced into cubes
3 pieces string beans (batong; sitaw), sliced into 2 inch length
1 small sikqua (patola), peeled and sliced into cubes
Leaves from 1 bunch of alugbate
1/2 c cubed calbasa (squash)
1/2 c cubed gabi (yam)
2-3 pcs okra, sliced
1 sili espada (jalapeno)
Procedure:
Boil 3-4 cups of water. When the water is boiling, drop in the ginger and the tanglad. These are the ingredients that will flavor and add a lovely scent to your stew. Then add the vegetables in 3-5 minute intervals. Start with vegetables that take a while to cook (eggplant, string beans, squash, okra) and end with the malunggay. If you want some heat to the stew, add one sili espada. Season with some salt. The malunggay cooks quickly so you can kill the fire and just cover the pot for a few minutes. Be proud to serve such a healthy, nutritiously economical dish.