Luto ni Nanay 1: PINAKBET
[ Ilocano Vegetable Stew in Anchovy Paste ]
Saturday, 13 May 2006 | By Mike | Category: Asian, Glorious Food, Pinoy Food, Veggies
After a month of settling down [and eating out!] in Manila, it was time to head back to Santiago City, my birthplace and hometown in Isabela province, some 300-odd kilometers north of Manila.
Here, eating out has not been a family custom. Growing up as a kid, I still remember that all meals would be home-cooked by my mother, father or grandmother whenever possible. Takeaways from the then-popular restaurants serving “a la home-cooked” dishes, would be an alternative on certain occasions, i.e. when there was no one else at home to cook or simply, when there was not a thing to be cooked!
This homecoming was going to be fun! And as always, Manong M [ my moniker at home — manong, which means elder or big brother in the Ilocano dialect ], would always be consulted on all meals to be cooked and served! Perfect timing too, I would say . . . I’d have things to write about in my blog!
Since I am still in a vacation mode, I ruled out cooking anything myself until I get the feel of it. So, I toyed with the idea of coming up with a series of my favourite native dishes as cooked by none other than my mother, and call the series “Luto ni Nanay” [ Mom’s Cooking ] . . .
For the first dish and entry, here’s my all-time favourite Pinakbet . . .
The Ilocos region, where several provinces share similar customs, language and food, has delicacies made up of rice and vegetables derived basically from the richness of their mountainous dry land. Most of their specialties are seasoned with fermented fish sauce.
The region is famous for its Pinakbet. Pinakbet is unmistakably an Ilocano dish. It is the signature dish of the northern Ilocos region, a dry harsh area where people have to make do with what they can grow on land. Pinakbet or pakbet is an Iloco word [ contracted from pinakebbet ] which means shrunken or shriveled.
The most basic vegetables are ampalaya or amorgozo [ bittergourd or bittermelon, round native ones preferred ], talong [ eggplant ], camatis [ tomatoes ], okra [ ladies’ fingers ], ginger and/or green chilies are optional. As the name denotes, the vegetables are stewed [ usually in a clay or earthen pot called banga or palayok ] without oil and cooked until almost dry, shrunken and shriveled. Mother says, the original Ilocano pinakbet uses only bagoong or bugguong [ anchovy paste ] which normally is of the monamon variety.
Other vegetables like squash, malunggay, patani or lima beans are also optional, dependent on what is readily available. The way this dish is prepared varies — some parts of Ilocos, which are closer to the sea, pinakbet is topped with grilled fish. Other parts would top it with bagnet [ dried pork belly ], another interesting dish - deep fried until skin turns crispy, usually with “kbl”kamatis, bagoong, lasuna when served solely.
Let us now take a closer look at my mother’s version . . . BTW, mother is an Ilocano, from Nueva Vizcaya province . . .
PINAKBET
Ingredients:
Above photo, clockwise from bottom left: native cherry tomatoes, camote [ sweet potato ], talong [ eggplant ], himbabau, patani [ lima beans ], okra [ ladies’ fingers ], ampalaya or amorgozo [ bittergourd ]. Not in the photo is the malunggay fruit and sitaw [ yard-long green beans or stringbeans ] which I forgot to include.
Those native cherry tomatoes are organically grown by my mother in her garden. She discovered this variety in my aunt’s place in nearby Quirino province. This particular tomato plant grows and crawls like a vine and produces bunches [ like grapes ] of tomatoes no bigger than 10 millimeters in diameter.
The himbabau [ top right corner of photo ], probably would be the most unusual vegetable in this dish. Now, I need to do some research on this . . . Can’t tell much at this point . . .
Method:
Arrange vegetables and the rest of the ingredients in a clay pot, in layers according to the following order from the bottom of the pot up . . .
First layer: sliced tomatoes, bagoong extract, ampalaya, eggplant, sweet potato, and patani.
Second layer: sitaw [ string beans ], okra [ ladies’ fingers ], malunggay, himbabau, and finally topped with crushed garlic.
Cover pot and cook until vegetables are done — dried up and shriveled. Do not stir vegetables during the cooking process. Instead, shake the pot slightly to toss or flip the vegetables. Apparently, this prevents the ampalaya from getting bitter.
Nanay’s [ mother’s ] version of pinakbet — tossed and ready to be served, with the himbabau and malunggay fruit . . .
Happy Mother’s Day!
halu!
wow a different take on pinakbet..i haven’t seen you cook it this way back in Brunei, ei?
Miss ko na pinakbet of my tita( ces’ mom”, she makes the best pinakbet among the salonga sisters.
i miss pinakbet! Its one of my favourite pinoy dishes
ah, pinakbet ilokano style…that’s exacly how my lola makes it too, it’s almost like dinengdeng. I miss those malunggay fruit!!!
Ah yes, pakbet cooked the original way - sarap! Very informative post - I never knew pakbet is the contraction of pinakebet, which means the same thing in Pangasinan.
That’s a pretty sosyal tomato your mom has growing in her backyard! Looks better than the imported ones I see in the grocery.
Lani has written about himbabao, and I have a post about it - we call it baeg in Pangasinan
http://bucaio.blogspot.com/2006/03/bag.html
i’m not so sure if i had himbabao (wala yata sa laguna) but i do remember having the malunggay fruit. oo gusto ko din yan. i love patani as well. my dad is ilocano…
ces, eh wala naman kasi tayo palayok sa bahay those days and no bagoong na isda . . .
chef kc and charles, pinakbet would always be the first dish on the list everytime i come home and would always be on almost everyday . . . i never get tired of it . . . i simply love this dish!charles, thanks for dropping by . . . do visit again . . .
jmom, yeah . . . i love those malunggay fruit too! i could only eat malunggay when i’m home in isabela . . .
kai, i just saw your post on himbabao . . . i was trying to do some research on this before posting the pinakbet entry but didn’t find any [or i just didn’t search well enough!] . . . i have a photo of the tree/shrub where it came from though . . .
now, i just wanna head back home to isabela and do some more experiments . . . tee hee!
Pinakbet is my favorite dish also when im going in Abra especially when there is a Bagnet on it.WOW!!!!and that himbabao we call it KARIMBUBET in Abra one of the Ilocanos favorite food during the season of himbabao.
In Ilocos Norte we call your “himbabau” as ALOKON
Hello. I was surfing for Filipino recipes when I saw your blog. Your pinakbet, to my knowledge at least, looks very Ilocano to me. This is how we prepare our pinakbet. Even your ampalaya is the right size, we use small ampalaya pcs. Sometimes we also have alokon, cheesecake got that right!
As for the cherry tomatoes, I remember we used to have them growing near the garage. I would peel off the skin and let my cousin Nadya eat them. She was around 2 years old then.
Btw I grew up in Bayombong Nueva Vizcaya.
:)
I have to ask my aunts if they know the Minas of NV.
twiki, thanks . . . indeed, it is good with bagnet!
cheesecake, yeah, now i remember we also call the himbabau - alokon . . .
fionski, thanks for dropping by! pinakbet back home is always cooked this way . . . my mother is actually from solano . . .
talagang masarap ang lutong pinakbet lalo na gawa sa pangasinanna may bagoong………………… wow hanep sarappppppppppppppppppp
kai, may medicinal uses ba ang baeg,im b.s chemistry,i need your help,nahihirapan po kc ako sa related literature ng baeg,ano po full nama ni ms lani?
[…] taste that the late food guru Doreen Fernandez identified as uniquely Ilocano); the ubiquitous (2) pinakbet (a medley of freshly harvested garden vegetables stewed in anchovy paste); the cholesterol-deadly […]
my father is from bolinao, pangasinan.when he cooks pinakbet, there’s definitely extra rice for everybody.my fave too.
[…] was previously posted as part of the Luto ni Nanay series. Click here to read the whole […]