Blogspot - Purple Magz

A bowl of boiled (half-cooked) ebun a barag presented during the sneak preview of MarQuee Mall's " Big Bite! The Northern Food Festival" in Angeles City last week ebun a barag - ( e-bun a ba-rág; Capampangan exotic food) [ n. ] monitor lizard’s egg . The egg of bayawak. itlog ng bayawak in Tagalo g itlog sa halo in Cebuano   itlog sa hawo or itlog sa haw in Boholano   illuk alivo in Itawis The pliant shell of the egg would shrunk after it is boiled (half-cooked) causing the surface to dent  The taste of ebun a barag is agreeable.  It reminisces the taste of masabaw na balut penoy . A friend, Kenny Ngo of  Life is Kulayful gestures with approval after trying ebun a barag   Another friend, Az Coladilla of Azrael's Merryland Blog , seems to be fascinated also by the  ebun a barag . A rare exotic delicacy of Pampanga. Its egg yolk is cream-colored and the egg-white is transparent.  The yolk is creamy-white and does not hold any shape. When s...

I got this freshly fried betute tugac during the sneak preview of MarQuee Mall's 'Big Bite' The Northern Food Festival in Angeles City, Pampanga in October 2013. etute tugac - ( ba-tú-tè tu-gák; Capampangan exotic dish) [n.] fried stuffed edible frog . a.k.a. batute or batute tugak in Capampangan   also spelled as betute tugak in Capampangan I found this skinned ricefield frog sold in the public market of  Cabanatuan City January last year. There are ingenious Capampangans and Novo Ecijanos who would tan the skin into leather and made into taxodermy-like coin purse with keychain holder A fried relleno -like skinned farm frog stuffed with minced frog meat or ground pork and finely chopped fresh herbs and spices. It is an exotic dish made of whole tugac (farm frog) caught from the river or rice paddies in Pampanga. When I came back to Cabanatuan City last June 2012, I brought home and cooked these skinned frogs. The frog is skinned and all its entrails are removed, fee...

Adobong sawa with chicharon balat ng sawa (python skin crackling) from Lamarang Steak & Seafood Restaurant in Cabanatuan City in Nueva Ecija province during one of my travels in central Luzon last summer of 2012 adobong sawa   - ( a-dó-bong sa-wá; Tagalog, Cebuano, Boholano, Bicolano, Ilocano, and Novo Ecijano exotic dish) [ n .] python adobo ; meat of python snake cooked adobo -style. Adobong sawa can be prepared as masarsa (saucy) or pinatuyo (dry) kind of adobo . I found this live sawa (python) on display at the entrance of Eagle Center in Malagos District, Davao City in April 2012 .    This python (actually there were several of them on display) at the Eagle Center in Malagos District, Davao City, is not for sale so you could take it home and cook into a delicacy. They are for the visiting tourists to experience how it feels to be hug by this constrictor reptile A serving of flaked adobong sawa from the Lamarang Steak & Seafood Restaurant in Cabanat...

This was when Compact Disc (CD) was still the popular file storage media. I found this CD-CD cracker from a stall in the Commercial Center of Tacloban City's downtown last summer of 2010. CD-CD   - ( si-di si-dì; Waray [eastern Leyte] biscuit) [ n. ] cracker biscuit shaped like a CD or DVD disc. At the end of baking, each piece is sprinkled with grains of brown or coarse white sugar that melted slightly and stuck on the surface of the CD-CD biscuit. Packs of CD-CD biscuits on display for sale in the Commercial Center, downtown of Tacloban City last summer 2010.  It can be eaten as is or paired with a cup of hot coffee, or a bottle of cold softdrink (soda) Before, when CD was not yet invented, this cracker was just a small-sized disc and used to be called galyeta by the Warays of eastern Leyte. Yeah, it was the size of mini-disc. And yeah, it already had its donut hole then. The bakers eventually enlarged the size to match and make it to look like the real CD in the 90'...

orange egg barbecue - ( o-rens eg bar-bek-kyu ; Ilocano [Cauayan City, Isabela] and Ibanag delicacy) [ n. ] hard boiled orange-colored eggs in barbecue stick (a.k.a. egg barbecue in Ilocano [Cauayan City, Isabela]) I found this  orange egg barbecue  on display and ready for grilling on a roadside food stall in Cauayan, Isabela while on food hunting one evening last March 2013 . The chicken eggs or duck eggs are hard-boiled, shelled, and then soaked and boiled briefly in achuete water. If achuete water is not available, what is used is water tinted with yellow-orange food coloring. When I passed by the public market of Alicia, Isabela I found these bags of bugok na itlog itik (rotten duck eggs). The eggs are already shelled, colored orange, hard boiled, and all ready for skewering into egg barbecue and grilling. Grilling the orange egg barbecue on a roadside food stall in Cauayan, Isabela while food hunting one evening last March 2013 The tinted eggs are then skewered in...

A harvest of not-so-matured sawa pods being sold in the public market of Super in Cotabato City during one of my brief stay in the city in November 2010   sawa  – ( sá-wà; Maguindanaon fruit/nut) [ n. ] lotus pod seed \ lotus seed . beno in Tagalog [Laguna Lake]    An indigenous fruit having seeds with nutty kernels and is eaten raw as snack. Lotus plants are very much abundant in Tamontaka river, Rio Grande Mindanao river, Matampay river, and the vast swampy areas of Liguasan marsh and Libungan marsh of Maguindanao and Cotabato regions in the southswestern part of mainland Mindanao.  The young pod of the fruit has a thick casing resembling like a halved cacao fruit or a cornocupia of protruding yellowgreen seeds. Or figure it out as a shower head. Two Maguindanaon women in Cotabato City picking bunch of not-so-matured  sawa pods for their kids The ovaloid young lotus seeds need to be pulled out, its shell cracked open like peanut and its nutty, tender ...

A serving of chopsuey at the Dwino's Grill in OzamisCity, Misamis Occidental during one of my travels in the southern part of mainland . hopsuey – ( tsàp-soy; Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilonggo dish; dw Chin. tsa-sui [various pieces] ) [n.] stir-fried vegetable \stir-fried vegetables with seafood and meat. An assortment of cut vegetables is stir-fried and mixed with seafood (shrimps, squid, fish fillet, etc.) and sliced meat (pork or chicken). The kind of vegetables conventionally used in making this dish are wide cuts of repolyo (cabbage), widely sliced carrots, sayote (mirliton pear), cauliflower, sliced bell pepper, and sometimes with sliced tomatoes and green pods of beans, such as sitsaro (snow peas), sitaw (string beans), or Baguio beans. A serving tray of chopsuey one summer day of May 2012 while at the beach resort of AcuaVerde in Laiya Aplaya, SanJuan, Batangas. Its thick white sauce is made with water (or broth) stirred with some gawgaw (tapioca powder) and seasoned with pa...