Passport & Plate - Beauty and the Bas'uy
Philippines | Wednesday, March 12, 2014 | 5 photos
Ingredients
Ingredients:
½ kg pork, sliced into small portions
½ cup pig blood (has to be specifically asked for from the butcher/meat vendor)
½ kg pork liver
One whole garlic, chopped
Two halves of onion - one half chopped, one half sliced into rings for garnish (garnish optional)
One small ginger, sliced
Two green jalapeño pepper, sliced in half (optional, if you want this dish to be hot)
Spring onion, finely chopped
Chinese cabbage (you may wish to chop off the stalk)
One bell pepper, cut in thin longitudinal slices
Vinegar, one teaspoon (immediately mix in with the blood before boiling)
Salt, one spoonful
Cooking oil, small amount just enough to wet the surface of the pan
Soy sauce, three spoonfuls
Water, five cups
How to prepare this recipeBas’uy, a native dish with roots probably originating from central Philippines, is a tasty pork broth with a flavor made exotic with pig liver and blood.
Procedure:
Step 1
1.) Bring 5 cups of water to a boil in a soup/sauce pan
2.) Add the liver and meat
3.) Let simmer on medium fire until tender
4.) Set aside
Step 2
1.) Heat oil in a different pan, sauté garlic and onion until light brown
2.) Pour the meat broth, set fire to medium
3.) Add ginger, soy sauce, bell pepper, and jalapeño
4.) Add salt to taste
5.) Let simmer for five minutes
6.) Pour blood with vinegar mixture, let it sit until it forms into small meat-like globs
7.) Add Chinese cabbage leaves
8.) Let simmer for five to ten minutes more
Step 3
1.) Serve in a deep bowl. Sprinkle spring onion on top. Best served straight and hot from the pan.
2.) Best enjoyed on cold weather.
The story behind this recipeA home.
For some, it means the physical shelter they spend most of their time in, while others perceive it as something not seen but felt instead. I believe that I belong to the latter group, and having come from a home far from ideal, I used to think of a home that did not include thoughts of love, comfort, and happiness–three things that should have helped me distinguish what a proper home is from a mere dwelling. For a long time, I had thought that the world’s default color was grey–that everything was painfully drab by nature–until the day when my Grandpa Francis made me see otherwise.
The dish he cooked for me on an incredibly bad day after my parents fought was one I had never seen before. It wasn’t pleasing to the eyes; it had floating brownish globs that were a little too unsettling to see, like shredded earthen moss picked from a tree root. I was wrong in judging it so quickly, however, and by the time I finished my third bowl, I felt like the whole world was alright once more.
Since then, my idea of what a home should be took a turn for the better. My grandfather was able to make me understand something that stayed with me for the rest of my life. He said that not everything that looked ugly served a purpose that was only ugly as well, just like that Bas’uy I ate. Even though my childhood had not been spectacular, it did not dictate that my adult life would end up just the same. Because of that native dish, my eyes were opened to the fact that life’s greatest gifts sometimes come in unsightly packaging, and that because of this, we sometimes fail to use those gifts to our advantage. I used to think that the brokenness in my family only put me through fire, not knowing that I was in the process of being forged into fine steel.
I never knew that a simple, exotic dish would enlighten me in such a way, but it did. Because of it, I now understand that while a home could never be perfect, it would still be the one place you would always want to go to.
