Filipino Whole30 Eats: Bulalo

Back in my college years, I would often go with friends on scuba diving trips to Anilao in the province of Batangas, a few hours drive from Metro Manila. On the way home after a weekend or several days or a week on the beach, we would usually stop at one of the many hole-in-the-wall restaurants in Batangas to have a cheap (since we would be broke by this time) and hearty (since we would be ravenous after all the diving) meal of bulalo, one of the culinary specialties of the region. The perfectly satisfying capper to our days in the beach.

It’s unfortunate that bulalo gets a bad rap nowadays among Filipinos as a high fat, high cholesterol food. Like a lot of other people, we, too, have bought into the fat=bad myth. In truth, bulalo is a very healthy Filipino dish, one that fits really well with Whole30 principles. It’s largely compliant to begin with, it fits perfectly into the Whole30 template (protein, good fats, lots of veggies), and with bone marrow dissolved right into the broth, you’ve got that bone marrow mojo working for you. (Some of the marrow will remain in the bone, ready for the scooping with your handy bulalo spoon).

Bulalo is especially good on cold, rainy, dreary days; it’s our version of comfort food. It’s been a wet, stormy weekend here in the Bay Area, so the timing was perfect to make a pot of bulalo for my family’s Sunday get-together lunch.

Translations
Bulalo (Boo-lah-loh): literally, bone marrow. Also, a soup or stew with beef shanks and various veggies.
Patis (pah-tis): fish sauce
Saging na saba (sah-ging nah sah-bah): sweet plantain, aka saba banana, also sometimes called cardaba banana

Ingredients

• 4 beef shanks (about 3 1/3 lbs.)
• 1 medium onion, peeled and quartered
• 3 baby bok choy
• 1 small cabbage, quartered
• 3 medium carrots, cut into 1-inch chunks
• 3 large potatoes, peeled and halved
• 2 green onions, cut in 1/4-inch slices
• 3-5 garlic cloves
• 1/4 cup patis
• 1 tablespoon black peppercorn
• 2-3 bay leaves
• 2 tablespoons ghee or other cooking fat
• 9-10 cups of water

Substitutions: You can use napa cabbage in place of/in addition to the bok choy and cabbage. Some recipes also include saging na saba in the stew. And one of these days, I’m going to try this with Brussels sprouts or purple cabbage, just for variety.

Instructions

1. Pour the water into a large pot and bring to a boil. Heat the ghee in a large frying pan. Sear the beef shanks, about 1 minute on each side.
2. Place the beef shanks in the boiling water, along with the onion, garlic, black peppercorn, bay leaves, and patis. Cover and lower the heat. Simmer for 2-3 hours. (You want to cook it long enough for the beef to become really tender, but not so long that all the marrow dissolves into the broth.)
3. Raise the heat and bring the pot to boiling again. Add the carrots and potatoes and cook for about 10 minutes, or until the root veggies are cooked but not mushy.
4. Add the bok choy, cabbage, and green onions. Turn off the heat and let the residual heat wilt these veggies. Adjust the seasoning if necessary.
5. Transfer to a large serving bowl and serve immediately.

Makes about 6 servings. Have small bowls of patis on hand for additional seasoning.

How this is Whole30

As I said, bulalo is fairly compliant to begin with. I just made sure the beef shanks were from pastured, grass-fed cows, since it is a fatty cut (marrow is mostly fat) and you want to steer clear of the toxins that accumulate in the fat of factory animals. I omitted the corn that other recipes include. And of course the heaping mound of rice that normally accompanies this soup should be banished from the table.

Also, a cooking note: a lot of other recipes call for a double boiling method (boil the beef once, then remove from the water and finish cooking in new water), or else they say to skim the “scum” that floats up as you cook, the object being to remove as much of the fat and “impurities” as you can, to end up with a nice, clear broth. I find this silly; you want to keep all that good stuff in, including the fat, not throw them out.

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