Pampered in Candida’s kitchen

One Sunday morning, after wolfing down a big bowl of champorado with coconut milk that went perfectly well with fried tuyo, I told my mother I would write a cookbook about the magic she performs in the kitchen. She laughed back at me arguing that nobody would be interested about the simple dishes she prepares in our humble kitchen in Gulod.

Besides, she said, the dishes she makes are the same food that can be found in every kitchen in our neighborhood. But being a fan of my mother — her persona and her cooking — I further toyed the idea with her.

I already have a title in mind for the book: “Pampered in Candida’s kitchen.” I egged her for her reaction but she left me daydreaming at the terrace of our home. With the narra tree in our garden as my witness in this pursuit, I envisioned the book. And I imagined the flavors and labor of love my mother had poured over in the kitchen just so her loved ones would eat delicious meals at home.

My mother’s ginisang puso ng saging with peeled prawns and vermicelli is a simple dish made in heaven. It goes well with inihaw na tilapia bursting with tomatoes and onions from head to belly.

Her ginisang ampalaya with egg is simple yet tasty. The bitter gourd is not bitter at all when it is cooked. Maybe because of the ritual she performs in the kitchen. She cannot be bothered when she slices the ampalaya. She does not talk. She believes that if she talks, the ampalaya she cuts into thin slices will become bitter. Deep inside her, she says a prayer “for the ampalaya to cooperate to become sweet and not bitter.” It works. But methinks her secret is in the basin of water with salt — that’s where she puts the thinly sliced vegetable to wash away the natural bitter taste of the gourd.

She does not use MSG in her cooking. She does not delegate cooking to the help because, for her, if it concerns the nourishment of her loved ones, she has to do it herself. At 72, her kitchen wizardry is something to reckon with.

In the market, she chooses the meat well. Her beef morcon is a labor of love — from marinating the beef for hours to stuffing it with slices of carrots, bell peppers, liver, pickled vegetables to binding a string around each morcon. She cooks it on slow fire. Count three to four hours and she will serve it with a smile. She will stand at the end of the dining table as her children and grandchildren partake of her morcon. When she hears us gushing over her kitchen creation with glee, that’s the time she sits down. The seal of approval is seen on our happy faces. She feels joyful when she knows she is reassured that she feeds us well with good food.

In our many years of want in the past, my parents, because they were farmers, made sure that they would only serve us the best rice. So, we grew up eating sinandomeng, C-4 among other good-quality rice. We experienced eating labay-tubig (piping hot rice doused with water and sprinkled with salt) or labay-kape (rice in coffee) and never complained about it. As my mother would always say, “Iba na kapag masarap ang kanin.”

Niluyahang manok

My mother’s niluyahang dumalaga, also called tinola, is always a treat. Dumalaga is a chicken that has only started laying eggs. Its meat is tender, juicier, tastier. To this day, we have a few dumalagas grazing in our backyard. My mother does not cook niluyahang manok on a whim. Free-range chicken pecks on anything and everything it finds on the ground — and my mother is not okay with that. She requires that the chicken be caged first for two days so it can be fed with morsels and palay. She cooks her niluyahang dumalaga with green papaya and talbos ng sili from our backyard. We salivate when we smell the glorious union of sauteed garlic, onion and ginger emanating the kitchen. We hear the pan sizzling when finally she throws in the meat. It’s like we hear a cacophony in the kitchen, a concert of ingredients under the baton of our mother’s love. We just have to wait for an hour before the piping hot tinola is served.

Her batchoy Tagalog is made of the freshest ingredients: spareribs, liver and pig’s blood. She sautés ginger, garlic, onion — in that order — then plunges the meat in the pan. To season it, she adds the right amount of patis. There’s so much love when she cooks. She hums along with her transistor radio when No Other Love by Jo Stafford strings through the air. She gets giddy reminiscing the past as she lowers the fire. When the meat is tender, she unceremoniously throws in slivers of liver. The right amount of water is poured onto the pan and when it simmers, the blood is next. She waits for it to boil. And just before she turns off the stove, she sprinkles the dish with kintsay.  Batchoy Tagalog is served.

Her sinigang na baboy or baka sa sampalok or sinigang na bangus sa bayabas knows no shortcuts because she uses the real fruits. So, when tamarind or guava is not in season, you will not find any sinigang dish on our dining table. We are spoiled in my mother’s kitchen.

Even her sinuam na tahong on a rainy day is a labor and flavor of love. She mixes it with malunggay or sili leaves. And she serves it with kaputat (a viand that goes with the main dish), which is crispy fried dalagang bukid.

Bulanglang

A favorite of mine is a very simple dish called bulanglang. It is composed of paayap (a variety of string beans), gabi, patola, luya, kamatis and okra. If my mother is up for an extra flavor, she garnishes it with hibe (dried shrimps). Her bulanglang is stark in simplicity because the ingredients are just boiled in hugas-bigas yet it is so sumptuous. Best to eat when you have clogged nose as the broth helps clear the sinuses.

My mother’s pinangat na alumahan or galunggong (though I rarely eat the latter) is another simple dish that spells riot in the dining table. The fresh kamyas lends the sour and tangy flavors. And how beautiful to look at the dish in the pan because it is topped with whole tomatoes. The tomatoes become the sawsawan. Yes, we won’t be Pinoys if we don’t like the sawsawan.

Even her ginataang biya or sinalab na ayungin is a come-on dish for her children to hurry back home. The ginataang biya she cooks with ample coconut milk, so it gives off that sweet, silky taste. About the sinalab, she simply grills the plump silvery fish, then dunk them in a bowl filled with water. Ayungin is sweet when it is fresh. The sinalab goes well with a dipping sauce of patis, calamansi and sili. Talu-talo na!

Her versions of pesang dalag and nilagang dalag are distinctly the same in preparation but different in ingredients. The pesang dalag is boiled with upo, ginger and pamintang buo. The nilagang dalag is boiled with cabbage, petchay, ginger and kamote. My mother is partial to kamote over potatoes. Again, there’s a dipping sauce of bagoong na isda sprinkled with calamansi. My mother always calls it kalamundeng instead of calamansi.

When she cooks paksiw na pata, expect a major fair and fare. The market is her fair; the pig knuckles, the fare she will prepare. She chooses the pata the way a jeweler inspects a diamond. No kidding. It is her philosophy that for her family to fully enjoy her cooking, she should choose the best ingredients for them. So, she does not get the hind legs because they are the most drenched part of the pig’s body. Go figure. She gets the front legs, smells them, scrutinizes them. If the meat passes her standard, she buys it and asks the vendor to chop it. She knows, just by looking at the meat, if the pata came from a batang baboy or matandang baboy.  Of course, she tells me on some occasions I join her in the market, there are some telltale signs in the foot or the hoof or the hock of the pig that will disclose the age of the animal. I still don’t get it.

After her purchase, she goes around the market to get the ingredients for her paksiw na pata: tahure, laurel leaves, dried bulaklak ng saging, black peppercorn, garlic, onion. When she gets home, she goes straight to the kitchen, washes the pata three to four times until the stains of blood are washed away. She puts the meat in a boiler with water and vinegar, peeled onion bulbs, cloves and cloves of unpeeled garlic, peppercorn — and a spoon. The spoon, I have yet to verify its scientific authenticity, is to soften the meat faster when it boils.

When she wants the dish with a tad of smoky flavor, she cooks her paksiw na pata using firewood. She always has a huge stack of firewood stored in the kamalig. She boils the meat for about two hours in slow fire and then she performs magic in the kitchen as she mashes the tahure, the last ingredient that will join my mother’s sumptuous potion. 

The flavors of her paksiw na pata burst in the mouth and our teeth do not have to wrestle with the meat because it melts in the mouth. Even the litid (tendon) is so tender and gooey.

Just by writing this, I get hungry. The writing of the cookbook can probably wait. For now, I’m rushing to go home and be pampered again in Candida’s kitchen.

(For your new beginnings, e-mail me at bumbaki@yahoo.com. I’m also on Twitter @bum_tenorio and Instagram @bumtenorio. Have a blessed Sunday!)