We brought home some unripe batuan fruit from Bacolod, so I was eager to use it in a few recipes. The first experiment was with a KBL or Kadios Baboy at Langka, with the wonderful secret ingredient… batuan. This recipe was based on one from the cookbook “Namit Gid” that a reader, Maddie, sent me a couple of years ago. You will need a generous cup of kadios (I used the purple ones, freshly peeled) that is rinsed in water, then boiled in fresh water for roughly 10 minutes, drained and rinsed again. Meanwhile, boil a pot filled with 7.5 cups of water, then add about 1.5 cups of pork, in small cubes, and boil for some 15 minutes or so. Add the kadios back into this pork broth and cook until the kadios and pork are tender.
Add a half kilo of sliced unripe langka and continue to cook until the langka is done. The cookbook warns to make sure the langka is cooked before adding the next ingredient, batuan. I added around 6-7 medium sized batuans to the pot and let this simmer for several minutes until the taste permeates the broth and aroma in your kitchen is nice and fragrant. Add a tied up stalk of tanglad or lemongrass to the pot and sesaon with sea salt. Serve hot. This was FANTASTIC. And yes, it needs the batuan to really take it over the top. I have tried a few other kadios dishes in the past, but none of them were as incredibly simple and satisfying as this one. I even did a KBL before, but without batuan. This latest version was definitely a hit for me. Now if only I can get a reasonably reliable supply of batuan!
31 Responses
Yes,MM . kbl with batuan is simply the best.
Your photos look like an Italian anti pasta salad to me with the langka passing as rolled cold cut meat and the batuan looks like green olives to me looking at the pictures. The culinary mighty power of batuan makes everything palatable through the last bite.
i remember my ilonggo mom used pork pata in making KBL.
Is batuan like a tamarillo?
I keep hearing about kadyos and I’ve never tried it! It’s like an elusive thingamajing that is out of reach. Hay.
hi MM, I guess you have to plant batuan at your garden. I wonder if batuan is easy to grow? was there any special way to cultivate them. this should be one ingredients that should be part of our national dish to promote since it is indegenous to phil.
there can only be “but one” (batuan) souring ingredient for the perfect KBL.
This is my all time favorite dish!!! The picture is making very hungry. Wish I could have this right now plus ginisa na bagoong on the side.
Sister, batuan is totally different from tamarillo? Can’t think of any that is similar to batuan.
Namit! Love that soup.:-)I’m gonna get me a copy of that recipe book “Namit Gid”. I wonder if you can ask someone from Bacolod/Panay to send you a bunch of those via LBC? :-)
I do that when I need my fix of Piaya and biscocho :-)
Sister, best described as a sour mutant cousin of an immature mangosteen… :)
Looks so healthy.
A staple dish in our home. We also make another dish — langka, kadyos, pork slices, gata and sili. Yummy!
MM–you can make your unripe jackfruit a littel bigger–
Woohoo! Now you’ve got the perfect KBL!
Sheryl, yes you can order the “Namit Gid” cookbook and have it sent to you. I’ll email you the contact person and her email address so you can order directly from Bacolod.
Thanks Marketman for the batuan tip, I know there was something wrong in the kadios I made but could not identify the missing link, hehehe.
What about par-boiling the jackfruit before adding to the dish?
Hi Maddie, thanks! Please email me at gabriellez21{at}yahoo.com.
Thanks gid!
Mr. MM, I tried cooking KBL here in Mnaila minus the kadios but it doesn’t taste as good as the one soured with kadios. I used instant sinigang mix, and the sourness is not as good as the kadios…
I made mine extra hot as my hubby, a pure Bicolano loves chili-flavored dishes so almost all my cookings has sili as main ingredient.
Pata ng baboy is the best for KBL, btw.
Hi maddie! can i also have the email adddress for the namit guid cookbook? i’m going home to bacolod for a vacation on the 3rd week of april and i hope i can get it by then. thanks!
Hi Vina. In Bacolod, you can purchase a copy of the “Namit Gid” cookbook at Pendy’s along Mandalagan, the other side of Lacson Street, highway that leads to the north.
A friend of mine checked out “batuan” and here’s what he found: Garcinia morella is a species of tree in the Clusiaceae family. In Tamil it is called ireevalsinni (இரேவறà¯à®šà®¿à®©à¯à®©à®¿) and on the Philippines it is known as batuan.
Hello again Sheryl/everyone. MM, I hope you don’t mind if I do a little shameless plugging here. The “Namit Gid” cookbook is going to be available within the week in Manila at the JT Manukan Grille branches located at Sgt. Esguerra St. (in between ABS-CBN and GMA-7), Gilmore cor. Valencia St. (near Greenhills), and Malugay St. Makati. Very limited supply only although if stocks ran out, we can replenish. All proceeds of this cookbook go to the charitable causes of our highschool batch in Bacolod, mainly medical missions of our school’s foundation as well as as our alumni association. Thank you MM.
:) you’d have to add the batuan in the end with the tanglad then? i like my langka a little bit chunkier/bigger, better if you use a pressure cooker, less time to cook. i need to get me some batuan back home!
Hello MM, another version is to saute garlic, onions and lots of tomatoes in oil,when cooked, add the tanglad bundle then add the pork slices (with fat or you can use pork hocks)until its half cooked then add all these to the boiling tender kadyos. In NY since we dont have the batuan I use a packet of the Knorr sinigang mix, lastly add the sliced langka (Canned -wash and drain first) season with salt and pepper. Serve HOT!
What timing! I’ve been looking for a kadios recipe for my friend because it reminds him of his childhood. Thanks for posting this, MM. :)
Coming from an ilonggo, i can go on and on…talking about KADIOS and while doing that i have to stop for a few and wipe my drool. I grew up eating and loving the KBL. I remember we always have the soup the day after each fiesta or handa-an. You know why? The next day, when the visitors are gone, the pig legs that where sat aside from the feast/handa and where grilled and left hanging on top of the pugon(wood burning stove)becomes the center of the attention. It is very important that the legs where grilled just medium well or maybe rare–just enough to have grill marks and let it hang for a day. I dont know why but it helps the meat taste better. Then we throw in the tomatoes, onion, water, KADIOS, LANGKA and BABOY together. The souring agent is batuan or “LABOGâ€(i can also talk forever about this too) and some patis to taste. Stop–i have wipe my drool.
I live so far away now that it’s hard for me to find all this ingredients especially the LABOG–wala talaga dito. i can find KADIUS in some Filipino Stores. Also, i have to go to a Spanish or Asian store for the certain cut of pork legs. and for the souring agent BATUAN, is no where in sight too. So..tadah!!!—Sinigang mix ang substitute. I go a mile or 20 for my KBL. Call me crazy but i do. CrazyIlonggo.
I just got home from a short trip in Iloilo… I bought a cup of kadios and a handful of batuan… and for dinner tonight, I am going to cook KBL, following the recipe you just posted. Thanks a lot! Asking permission for me to copy your recipe (with a link back, of course) in my food blog when I post my own version of KBL.
my fave ilonggo delicacy!
Kadios was always part of my childhood. Now, every opportunity I get to travel to Iloilo or Bacolod- I never fail to ask if it is Kadios season. Last Wed, I went to Iloilo on a business trip. The venue of our meeting was in Jaro and I happen to ask our local contact if Kadios was available. Immediately after our meeting on our way back to the airport, we made a quick stop to the market and found ladies taking the beans out of the pods- we were in a hurry and decided to buy them unpeeled together with batuan. When I got home, we took out the beans form the pods and froze them together with the batuan. My Ilonggo mother was the one who did this practice- when the kadios was in season, she would buy a lot and freeze until ready to cook and it made no difference. I use sliced pork pata as my mother would cook it. Now I am off to the market to look for unripe lanka….
hi… ask lng po ako sana kng anong English name ng labog? kasi im doing a study on souring agents and im having a difficult time looking for it.. thanks po..