Market Manila

I was intrigued several months back when I read about curacha in Joey’s blog, 80breakfasts, here. And she prepared it with Alavar sauce, here. So when someone asked me just weeks ago if I had tried curacha in Batangas, I gave them a befuddled look as I thought the funky crabs were a Zamboanga thing (at least in the Philippines), and they have an Australian relative in the spanner crab that apparently crawls forwards and backwards rather than sideways like other crabs (according to that link provided)… So imagine my surprise when during my first visit to the Nasugbu market during Holy Week, it seemed the market had a MOTHER-LOAD of curacha! Spectacular looking beasts, if you ask me. Somewhat pre-historic in shape and demeanor and already orange in color, even when fresh out of the sea! The sceptic in me asked the first vendor with a pile of curacha if a frozen container-load of the crabs was sent up from Zamboanga, and they looked rather insulted by my query… But when one of my sukis held up one of her curachas, and it was still moving, and hence ALIVE, I was convinced these must be local (though a tinge of doubt set in later since Australia exports a phenomenal amount of this “lower-priced” creatures to Asia, and some crabs can stay alive for quite some time… So apparently there is curacha off the coast of Batangas somewhere (does it really matter how far off the coast?), and last week there were hundreds and hundreds of them in all sizes for sale. I bought one big one just to check it out, but I regret not buying a whole lot more…

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This is another comfort food for me. We had this at home as a kid. My mom didn’t make it as often as chicken or pork afritada, but I did like Beef Mechado. Actually, more than eating it at home, it was always my default viand at lunch when I worked at a bank on Ayala Avenue right after college. It was almost always on the cafeteria menu and I just loved to soak my rice with the sauce. I gather it isn’t on cafeteria menus as often these days, beef having become somewhat pricey, but it was a mainstay in my days. So it surprised me a bit when I realized I hadn’t eaten this dish in years, and decided to make some at home. Oddly, I have never cooked it myself. So this is an attempt to recreate a Beef Mechado that has the taste I prefer, with no apologies if it strays from an authentic recipe, if one does exist. The way I view this dish, it was an island adaption of a more common Western beef stew, probably replacing the wine with vinegar, and adding in a splash of soy sauce to complete the local version…

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The day after we arrived at the beach, I got up at around 5 a.m., and with the rest of the household still fast asleep, decided to make a starter and dough for some Pan de Sal. I used the recipe which originally came from the Aboitiz Family Cookbook, which I posted earlier, here. It is a simple recipe, with a couple of odd “shortcuts” or ingredients like eggs and boiling water. I only had really nice organic eggs with incredibly orange yolks so the addition of 2 eggs made this version a little more yellow or “buttery-looking” than usual.

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I always thought that longganisa was the Filipino name for sausages styled after the Spanish chorizos. Sound the buzzer. Not true. Longganisa, the word, is a local name for sausages, most probably derived from longaniza, which is Spanish for a pork sausage that is typically rather long and skinny. Chorizos are generally shorter and pudgier. But naked, they both look similar…hahaha. Sorry, I couldn’t resist that. A longaniza can be enjoyed either fresh or cured/dried/smoked until quite hard. In the Philippines, we tend to use the two terms longganisa and chorizo interchangeably, and they refer to all types of pork (sometimes chicken and other ingredients) based sausages, with the spices and flavors varying from region to region. I have always wanted to attempt to make my own longganisa and last week I finally did… to reasonably good results. I figured it was hard enough that I was attempting to make the sausage filling from scratch, without any prior knowledge whatsoever, that I decided to forego the pig intestines to form whole sausages and went for the “naked” version instead. I did a previous post on Vigan longganisa and longganisa burps, and in the comments portion of the first entry, one reader provided her recipe and my sister also provided encouragement with the revelation (to me) that my grandmother used to make longanizas from scratch and smoke them high above the bread pugons in her bakery. I also have Michael Ruhlmann & Brian Polcyn’s brilliant book Charcuterie on my bookshelves so I figured that would guide me along. But what really provided the final push for this experiment, was this fabulous post from Burnt Lumpia that I came across while trying to look up some information on longganisa. I STRONGLY recommend that you read the post on Burnt Lumpia for detailed instructions on how to make this Pinoy favorite… my descriptions will be a lot less precise and detailed, though my results were very good value for the minimal time invested in making the naked longganisa…

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Now doesn’t that title sound incredulous? That many calories is the equivalent of a single human being gaining roughly 140 pounds in five days! Mobilizing for our recent trip to the beach seemed a bit more challenging than usual. We had a relatively simple menu planned, but for some reason, it required the logistics of a military battle… We thought it would be nice to have the families of our crew out for the long holiday and the total head count numbered 18-20, which also included ourselves and our guests. That meant putting out roughly 300 meals (not including meriendas and snacks) and THAT is a whole LOT of food! Despite trying to buy roughly 30-50% of our main ingredients in the local markets, we still had to bring several coolers and milk crates of food and I regret not taking a photograph of our provisions, it was a shocking mini-mountain worth of stuff!

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We are at the sea shore at the moment, but I have left this post for readers who are still dropping by, despite the holidays in the Philippines. I thought it would be a good idea to feature previous posts that included crabs as an ingredient, and I was shocked to find I had nearly 30(!) posts with crabs as the main ingredient or subject of the post. With at least 20% of this blog’s readers being relative newbies (say less than 3-4 months), I hope some of you will look back into the archives that have nearly 1,600 entries in the past 3.25 years… but here is a rundown of crab related entries to date:

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When I was very young, we used to head up to Baguio during Holy Week and I distinctly recall our car getting stuck in the middle of a group of hundreds of penitents on the road, whipping themselves with sharp shells and several who were dragging crosses before being crucified for several hours. I think a bit of blood or bloodied sweat even splattered on the window of the car. And to this day, that fairly traumatic experience is burned into my memory banks… While it may have been a bit shocking to experience this in my single digits, I certainly recognize the incredible importance of the next few days for many Catholics. But instead of the real life re-enactments, I thought it might be more visually appealing to photograph this crucifixion that I inherited from my grandmother… Done in ivory, it is a beautiful piece of art, with some incredible detailing when viewed up close.

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Consider me a member… I am a huge rice eater. When traveling abroad, I can barely go a week without a rice fix, and risotto barely qualifies. If there was a profession I could have been in a previous life, it would be a truck or household driver, and my lunch plate would be described by my amo or fellow bus stop diners as having “driver rice…” :) And I mean that in the nicest way. So when Mon Eugenio of Myron’s mentioned that there was this restaurant at the Paseo de Santa Rosa in Laguna called the Kanin Club, you just knew I was going to check this one out. Set up by the same folks who own Cafe Breton, it is located just a few steps behind Cafe Breton at the Paseo de Santa Rosa mall. If you are headed to Tagaytay or Batangas using the Santa Rosa Road, you can’t miss this mall that also houses several outlet stores… The week after Mon mentioned the Kanin Club, I happened to be headed out to the beach with several of our family’s Cebu office crew that were in Manila for a summer trip. We decided to stop and have lunch at the Kanin Club, and with 11 people at the table, we ordered nearly as many dishes! I rarely do a post on a restaurant unless I have visited it several times, but I think we tried enough dishes on this one visit to equal 2-3 visits of 2-3 diners… the quick verdict? Very good value for money… but read on for some of the highs and the lows of our meal. With a name like Kanin Club, we had to order at least 4 kinds of rice, and the photo up top is a bowl of “Aligue Rice” - rice sauteed with crab roe/fat. Hmmm, things were looking pretty promising…

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