Recipe #9: Bulalo - Welcome Rainy days!

And it's June! School starts! Since I am skipping school this year to attend to more pressing concerns, I will be dedicating June to food that reminds me of school.

To start the month off, we are having bulalo. Shame on me for failing, after tedious attempts, to remember, the eatery in Laong Laan were I really began to appreciate bulalo. I was in first year college. A friend of mine, Anthony, introduced me to this awesome bulalo karinderia. It was superb! For those of you who'd been to the UST area in the rainy season, you probably know how flooded it gets when it pours. And yes, despite the fact that we'd have to walk at least 300 meters from the boarding house to the karinderia, we'd do so, submerging our feet, just to warm our stomachs with this earthy beef marrow stew.

You'll Need:

• About half a kilo of beef shank. yup shank, with the bone marrow still intact.
• 10 peppercorns
• salt and pepper
• fish sauce
• onion chives
• 1 whole onion, halved
• water
• veggies - pechay (bok choy), cabbages. 
• Mama likes adding corn and camote. I love how these two add texture and sweetness to the stew. I would have used these two except that since it rained cats and dogs when I cooked this, I was not able to go to Paco Market for my supplies. I had to make do with what was available in SM supermarket.

How to:

• In a potful of water, cook the shank with the halved onion and a sprinkle of salt and pepper until it becomes tender. (Since I don't have a pressure cooker, it takes me an hour and a half to tenderize two shanks)

• once tender, add the fish sauce. adjust to taste.

• Mommy says that the secret to making bulalo taste like bulalo is the onion chives. Without it, you're just making nilaga, not bulalo. Add Chopped Chives. About two handfuls is fine for half a kilo of shanks

• add peppercorns
• If you have camote and corn, now's the time to add them in and cover pot until cooked.
• add your veggies last, and simmer on low heat for no more than two minutes.

Serve.

Kain na!

My brothers came home from school that day and almost drained the pot off it's broth. Who wouldn't kill for a hot tasty broth on a gloomy rainy day? We had fried matambaka to go with the soup, and of course the patis-mansi-sili sawsawan. Of that feast only little morsels of meat are left, which I will eat as left over lunch today.

Your hot cook,

Hahan

P.S.
Careful with the bone marrow sucking! watch your cholesterol! :D