A big thank you to Adam, a Marketmanila reader and commenter, who in a recent post on Thai food, asked if I had tried a thai style “wing-bean salad” and this reminded me of several versions of sigadilyas salad that I have been MEANING to try for the past few years… I just never got around to it and suddenly everything seemed to line up and point towards a sigadilyas experiment… to stunning results! I was at the markets this morning and noticed some really fresh looking burgundy colored sigadilyas or winged beans…

I bought the burgundy ones for say PHP30 for a small bunch, and a few stalls later, spotted some incredibly fresh looking light green sigadilyas, and got those for just PHP15 for a small bunch. I thought the two colors would add visual interest to a salad. I have written about sigarilyas before, here, in case you were curious…

Back at home, I searched out David Thompson’s tome on Thai food and located the recipe I had glanced at several times in the past, but never got around to trying. A very simple thai style salad for which I was missing several ingredients, so I decided to somewhat wing it with the winged beans instead… :) The beans I got were incredibly fresh, so the tips of the “wings” were nice, but otherwise they tend to blacken and Mr. Thompson suggest trimming them if that is the case. I sliced the sigadilyas into roughly 1/8th inch slices then quickly blanched them in boiling water (maybe 45 seconds or so) and shocked them in ice water to stop the cooking and help the beans retain their vibrant color. I stuck them in a salad spinner to remove excess moisture, then place them in a bowl and tossed them along with some shredded chicken (leftovers) which was in lieu of the suggested sliced pork and shrimp, and some homemade shredded and toasted coconut. Next, I made a dressing with lots of dayap juice, patis, a little sambal (chili paste) and palm or dark brown sugar. Dress your salad and toss gently…

…then add a couple of tablespoons of coconut cream and toss before serving. This was SUPERB. The texture, flavor and color was a surprisingly easy to make but delicious salad. Perfect with fried dishes, or if you had enough meat in it, a meal all by itself! The blending of coconut cream with the dayap or lime was really refreshing… and the still slightly crunchy texture of the winged beans made this extremely appealing. And a bonus? It costs very little to make, perhaps PHP60-80 for the portion in the photo up top, and it easily fed three people. I made another batch for the crew, that I have to admit, despite the stuff we cook in our kitchens, are less adventurous than I am, and they wiped out their entire salad in no time at all… :)

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