Filipino Whole30 Eats: Kare Kare

This one I was really hesitant to try. If there is any Filipino dish that I would have thought was impossible to make Whole30 compliant while retaining its essential taste, it would have been kare kare. The signature component of kare kare is its thick, redolent peanut sauce; it’s what makes it kare kare – and of course peanuts are not allowed in Whole30. I’d seen one or two recipes online that used nuts or nut butters as substitutes, but I was sure they would never measure up to the kare kare that Filipinos know and love; I was sure their taste would simply be too bland, too different.

Also, kare kare’s usual accompaniment is bagoong, the ubiquitous, salty/shrimpy seasoning/condiment that is never far from Filipino tables. And I’ve never found any brand of bagoong that didn’t have offplan ingredients (such as soy oil, corn oil, sugar, or various preservatives). So I thought for sure that kare kare would just have to remain an offroad pleasure, never to be folded into the ever-growing menu of Whole30-compliant dishes.

But no harm in trying, right? Plus, I had some farmer’s market oxtails in the freezer that had been patiently waiting for me to build up the gumption to give this a try. So I finally did.

I think of all the Filipino Whole30 dishes I’ve tried, this actually hit the mark the closest. I leaned heavily on anchovies to 1) simulate the rich umami flavor of the peanut sauce (more than making up for the relative blandness of the almond base I used in place of peanuts), and 2) replace bagoong as the delivery system of concentrated bits of salty goodness. What I came up with was, if I may say, pretty damn good – a kare kare dish that was indubitably kare kare. Just like I’ve always known it.

Translations

Bagoong (Bah-goh-ohng): fermented shrimp or krill paste, a common condiment

Kare kare (Kah-reh kah-reh): a stew in thick peanut sauce, typically with oxtail, tripe, and a variety of vegetables

Patis (pah-tis): fish sauce

Puso ng saging (Poo-soh nahng sah-ging – first “g” in saging is a hard “g”): literally, “banana heart” – the blossom of the banana tree

Ingredients

• 3 lbs. oxtails
• 2 Chinese eggplants, cut diagonally into 2-inch chunks
• 1 bundle of Chinese string beans, cut into 3-inch slices (about 3-4 cups)
• 3-4 bok choy, trimmed and separated into leaves
• 1 onion, coarsely chopped
• 4-5 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/4 cup almond flour
• 1 cup almond butter
• 2 tablespoons anchovy paste
• 2 tablespoons annatto oil (see below)
• 2 tablespoons tapioca starch
• Salt and pepper
• 4 tablespoons ghee, divided
• 6-8 cups of water
• 1 can of anchovies, minced

For the annatto oil –

• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 1/2  tablespoons annatto seeds

Substitutions: tripe and puso ng saging (banana blossoms), are almost always included in kare kare; other kinds of meats, such as goat meat and pig legs, are sometimes used; there are seafood variations with prawns, squid, and mussels, as well as all-vegetable versions.

Instructions

1. To prepare the annatto oil: heat the extra virgin olive oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add the annatto seeds, stir occasionally until bubbles start to form. Let simmer for a few minutes, then turn off the heat and allow to cool. Strain out the annatto seeds and keep the oil.
2. Heat a large pot over medium high heat and add 2 tablespoons of ghee. Add the oxtails and cook them in the ghee, turning them to make sure they are browned on all sides. Add the onions and garlic, continuing to mix, until the onions are translucent and the garlic starts to brown.
3. Add enough water in the pot to cover the meat – about 6-8 cups. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat, cover the pot, and simmer gently for at least 3 hours.
4. Once the meat is fork tender and almost dropping off the bone, add the almond flour, almond butter, anchovy paste, and annatto oil. Slowly sprinkle in the tapioca starch, stirring continuously. Add salt and pepper to taste. Continue cooking and stirring until you have a thick, mustard-colored sauce.
5. Heat a large pan over medium heat and add the remaining 2 tablespoons of ghee. Sauté the eggplants for several minutes, then add the string beans. Continue to sauté until the eggplants and string beans soften and are nearly cooked. Add the bok choy leaves and sauté for a few more minutes until the bok choy starts to wilt.
6. Add the veggies into the pot with the oxtails and nut sauce. Stir to mix the stew thoroughly. Adjust the seasoning as necessary.
7. Serve hot with bowls of cauliflower rice and small sauce plates of minced anchovies on the side as added seasoning.

Makes 5-6 servings.

How this is Whole30

Almond flour and almond butter take the place of peanuts to form the sauce base. We avoid bagoong by using anchovy paste and minced anchovies instead.

• About Whole30

Filipino Whole30 Eats: Bola Bola

Still recovering from a cold, I seem to be in a soup kind of mood nowadays. (It’s also been the weather for it.) So I thought I’d try to make Whole30 compliant an old family dish: meatball soup. Versions of this go by a number of names: misua soup, almondigas, bola bola sopas. We just called it bola bola and slurped away.

Translations
Bola bola (Boh-lah boh-lah): meatballs, or any of several dishes featuring meatballs
Misua (Miss-wah): Chinese vermicelli
Sopas (Soh-pahs): soup

Ingredients

• 1 lb. ground pork
• 1 beaten egg
• 1/4 cup minced onions
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon tapioca starch
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 1 large cucumber, peeled, de-seeded, and cut into roughly 1-inch wide by 2-inch long pieces
• 2 cups cooked spaghetti squash

Instructions

1. Mix the ground pork, egg, onions, salt and pepper, and tapioca starch in a bowl. Pinch off and roll pieces of the meat mixture into balls. Size can be 1 to 2 inches, your call.
2. Bring the chicken stock to a boil in a large pot. Place the meatballs in the chicken stock, cover, lower the heat, and simmer for 25 minutes.
3. Add the cucumber pieces and spaghetti squash. Turn off the heat and let the pot sit for about five minutes, letting the residual heat soften the cucumber. Transfer the soup into bowls and serve hot.

Makes about 3 servings. Serve with coconut aminos (soy sauce substitute) in small bowls as seasoning.

How this is Whole30

I used tapioca starch instead of corn starch as the binder. More importantly, I took out the misua or Chinese vermicelli (made of wheat) from the recipe and replaced it with spaghetti squash.

• About Whole30

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.

• About Whole30

Filipino Whole30 Eats: Tapa

Usually served with fried eggs and garlic fried rice, tapa is a mainstay of Filipino breakfasts. (It’s not to be confused with tapas, the general term for Spanish or Spanish-inspired appetizers or small dishes). Here’s a Whole30 version of this popular Filipino breakfast meat.

Translations
Tapa (Tah-pah): dried or cured strips of beef (sometimes other meats or even fish)

Ingredients

• 1 lb. beef sirloin, sliced into thin strips
• 3-5 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 cup puréed Asian pear (1 small pear)
• 1/2 cup coconut aminos (soy sauce substitute)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Instructions

1. Prepare your marinade by mixing the coconut aminos, puréed pear, minced garlic, and salt and pepper in a small bowl. Place the beef strips in a ziploc bag or other container and pour the marinade over them. Massage or mix the meat to make sure all the pieces are coated. Refrigerate for 1-2 days.
2. Pour 2 cups of water into a large frying pan. Bring to a boil. Add 2 tablespoons of coconut oil.
3. Put the marinated beef into the pan. Let it simmer until all the water has evaporated. Stir often once you’re down to the crackling oil to avoid burning the meat. Once the beef strips start to brown, you’re done!

Makes about 3 servings. Obviously, rice is out for Whole30, but do have them with eggs plus veggie side dishes. Atchara is a typical partner for tapa (or any Filipino breakfast dish, really).

How this is Whole30

The Asian pear puree substitutes for the sugar that is typical of tapa recipes. Coconut aminos takes the place of the usual soy sauce.

• About Whole30

Filipino Whole30 Eats: Embotido

Haven’t done one of these in a while, but I’m currently on another Whole30, so I thought this would be a good time to post another recipe. Embotido is a classic Filipino holiday season dish (I made a batch for a family get-together this past Christmas), but you can enjoy it any time of the year.

Translations
Embotido (Ehm-boh-tee-doh): Filipino meatloaf dish, usually made from ground pork

Ingredients

• 1 lb. ground pork
• 1 oz. chopped prosciutto
• 2 small eggs, beaten
• 2 tablespoons raisins
• 1/2 small onion, chopped fine
• 1 small apple, chopped fine
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 1/2 tablespoons dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon coconut aminos (soy sauce substitute)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

For the gravy:

• 1/2 cup chicken stock
• 1 tablespoon tapioca starch

Substitutions: I’ve used other sausage-type meats, such as chopped chicken apple sausage or Andouille sausages as extenders instead of prosciutto. You can also work in other veggies such chopped carrots and diced bell peppers, as well as slices of hard-boiled egg, into the mixture.

Instructions

1. Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. Mix all ingredients (except those for the gravy) in a large bowl. Mix thoroughly but do not overwork the meat.
2. Divide the meat mixture into two. Place one portion on a 12 x 12 inch square of aluminum foil. Roll the meat like you would a burrito. Cinch the ends to make sure the meat is sealed in the aluminum tube. Place the tube on a roasting pan or a wire rack with a baking sheet under it.
3. Do the same with the remaining half of the meat mixture. Place the pan in the oven and bake for 1 hour.
4. Remove from oven. Let sit for about 20 minutes, then unwrap from the foil. Be sure to save the drippings!
5. Optional: To make for a crispy exterior and for added flavor, you can fry the rolls in ghee to brown all sides. So good!
6. Cut into slices and serve.

Making the gravy:

1. While the embotido is sitting, pour the drippings into a small sauce pan. Add the chicken stock and tapioca starch. Cook on low-medium heat while continuously stirring, until the gravy is a thick consistency.

Makes about 4 servings. These freeze well, so I tend to double the portions and stock up. Or triple them and bring the extras to family gatherings where they disappear in an instant.

How this is Whole30

There may be as many variations of embotido as there are Filipino cooks, but most of them include non-Whole30 ingredients such as bread crumbs, corn starch, cheese, catsup, pickle relish, sauces and seasonings, and minced processed meats such as ham, hotdogs, Vienna sausage, and chorizo. This recipe avoids all those and uses all compliant ingredients and substitutes, such as chopped apple for pickle relish, tomato paste for catsup, coconut aminos for soy sauce or Worcestershire sauce, and prosciutto for noncompliant processed meats.

• About Whole30

Filipino Whole30 Eats: Fried Chicken

All good things, etc.

It’s been really fun tinkering with traditional Filipino recipes this past month to make them Whole30 compliant. And not just the recipes: as I wrote in a previous post, one of my goals was to try to figure out food combinations and strategies to create meals wherein rice is not the sun and everything else just revolves around it. As this food project draws to a close, let me just recap some of the alternatives we’ve explored:

You can use cauliflower rice as a substitute, as I did when I made beef kaldereta and mango tocino.

You can use sweet potatoes as the main starchy component, as I did with my bistek Tagalog; or you can use saging na saba (sweet plantains), as I did with my (so-called) Arroz a la cubana.

You can use noodle-less pancit to accompany your protein instead of rice. Regular pancit (with rice noodles) already substitutes for rice occasionally, but making it Whole30 using spaghetti squash allows you to make a much healthier swap.

You can make egg “rice,” as I did with my skinless longanisa. This is a particularly adaptable strategy for breakfast, since many of our breakfast dishes already combine various meats and fishes with eggs and rice. Just omit the rice and elevate the role of the eggs, and you still have a great meal combination. (I used a somewhat similar strategy with my tinapa egg scramble.)

You can make hefty salads from such dishes as pork adobo, instead of making them part of just another rice meal.

And I’m sure there are many, many more strategies and substitutions out there just waiting to be realized.

More than anything, I hope I’ve shown here that there are alternatives to our rice-centric meals that nevertheless hew close to our beloved dishes and traditions. So that even if not many Filipinos do a Whole30, at least it’s clear that we have the option of trying other meals – delicious and healthy meals – that do not always require rice.

And as for the non-Filipinos who may have visited these pages, please do consider trying some of these recipes. I think they’re pretty good, and you might just like them. Something different, you know.

Anyway, enough big picture stuff. Here’s a final recipe to close out this project: Filipino-style fried chicken.

Translations
Kalamansi (kah-lah-mahn-si): small, very tart citrus fruit
Patis (pah-tis): fish sauce

Ingredients

• 6 chicken pieces (wings, thighs, drumsticks)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons patis
• 1 tablespoon kalamansi juice
• a couple of pinches of ground black pepper

Substitutions: Try, try, try to get kalamansi juice (in frozen or concentrate form) from a Filipino or Asian grocery store. It will really give your chicken a sharper, tangier, authentically Filipino taste. But if you absolutely can’t find any, then go ahead and use the juice from half a lemon.

Instructions

1. Drizzle the patis and kalamansi juice onto the chicken and dust them with the ground pepper, turning the pieces over to make sure all sides are coated. Store in the fridge and let marinate for at least 2 hours and up to 6 hours.
2. Pre-heat your oven to 475 degrees. Heat up an oven-proof skillet in medium-high heat with a couple of tablespoons of cooking fat that can stand relatively high temperatures. I used ghee (clarified butter) for the buttery taste, but coconut oil is good, too. 
3. Place the chicken pieces skin down in the oil. Cook for 2-3 minutes.
4. Lower the heat to medium-low and continue to cook the chicken for 12-15 minutes, rotating the pan a quarter turn every 3-4 minutes to ensure even heat distribution and turning the chicken to cook all sides. You want the fat to render and the chicken skin to turn golden. (Be careful not to pull the skin off if it sticks to the pan. Use a spatula to gently scrape it off if this happens.)
5. Transfer the entire skillet into the oven and cook for another 10 minutes. Flip the chicken, then cook for another 5 minutes or so until the skin is crunchy brown and the chicken is cooked through.
6. Remove from the oven, transfer to a plate and let rest for about 5 minutes. Try not to munch on the skin before serving.

Makes 2 crispy/juicy servings of fried chicken deliciousness.

How this is Whole30
I made sure to get a pasture-raised, organic chicken for this, since I would be eating a lot of chicken skin (the toxins in factory-raised chicken are concentrated in the skin). I also skipped flouring the chicken, the way I used to in my pre-Paleo days.

• About Whole30

Filipino Whole30 Eats: Pork Barbecue

Last Sunday in the month-long series of Sunday lunches for my family! I went with barbecue today, always a favorite for social gatherings. There are any number of recipes and techniques for making Filipino-style barbecue; quite a few (including the one I learned from an aunt a few times removed who helped raise my sisters and me) rely on a marinade containing that uniquely Filipino condiment, banana sauce or banana catsup.

As I said in a previous post, the problem with banana sauce is that it’s laced with a number of non-Whole30 ingredients, including starch, sugar, preservatives, and dyes. To get around this – and anticipating I would be needing it for this dish – I prepared my own homemade banana sauce from saging na saba several days ago. That made getting everything ready for today’s lunch a relative cinch.

An aside: The veggie accompaniment to today’s barbecue was a Filipino-style Russian salad (that’s what we call it, anyway) – basically a potato salad (sweet potato, in this case) mixed with shredded chicken, cubed carrots, cubed beets, cubed apples, and raisins, all slathered in (homemade) mayo. I made a version of it during my Whole30 in April.

Translations
Saging (sah-ging – first “g” is a hard “g”): banana
Saging na saba (sah-ging nah sah-bah): sweet plantain, aka saba banana, also sometimes called cardaba banana

Ingredients

• 3 lbs. pork loin, cut into thin strips
• 6 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 cups + 1 cup banana sauce
• 1/2 cup coconut aminos (soy sauce substitute)
• 1/4 cup white vinegar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black peppercorn

Instructions

1. Place the pork loin strips in a storage container. In a small bowl, mix the garlic, 1 1/2 cups of banana sauce (keep the other cup in the fridge for later), coconut aminos, vinegar, salt, and black peppercorn. Pour this marinade over the pork and mix everything thoroughly to make sure all the pork pieces are coated. Seal the container and refrigerate at least overnight and up to 2 days.
2. Heat your grill to medium-high (I used an indoor grill set to 400 degrees). Skewer your pork with barbecue sticks and put them on the grill a batch at a time. (Tip: if you are using bamboo or wooden barbecue sticks, soak them in water for several hours beforehand to keep them from burning.) Turn each barbecue “kebab” over several times every few minutes, searing all sides, while basting the meat generously with the banana sauce you had put aside. 
3. Grill till the pork is charred in spots and the meat is cooked through. Then serve!

Makes about 18 sticks of pork barbecue.

How this is Whole30
As mentioned, by using homemade banana sauce, I avoided using the store-bought version that contains a number of prohibited ingredients. Also, that reliable standby, coconut aminos, stood in for the soy sauce normally included in the marinade.

• About Whole30

Filipino Whole30 Eats: Ensaladang Talbos ng Kamote (Quickie Veggie)

Just another simple dish to make sure you always have plenty of veggies with your meals. This one feels timeless to me: I can imagine families from almost any period in Philippine history sitting down by the glow of cooking fire, or candles, or gas lamp, or electric lights to a simple dinner of rice and fish and something like this.

Translations

Ensalada (ehn-sah-lah-dah): salad

Kamote (kah-moh-teh): sweet potato

Talbos ng kamote (tahl-boss nang kah-moh-teh): sweet potato tops or greens

Atchara (aht-chah-rah): green papaya and other veggies pickled in vinegar

Ingredients

• About 16 cups of talbos ng kamote, stems removed (about a big salad bowl’s worth)
• 1 Roma tomato, diced
• 1/2 of an onion, sliced
• 1 teaspoon minced ginger
• 3 tablespoons white vinegar
• 2 tablespoons Asian pear purée
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Substitution: You can use the pickled juice of homemade atchara in place of the vinegar and fruit purée)

Instructions

1. Blanch the talbos ng kamote: place the leaves in a pot of boiling water for about 30 seconds, then transfer immediately to a big bowl of ice water and keep there for 30 seconds. Then move to a colander and shake the water off.
2. Make the dressing: in a small bowl, mix the ginger, vinegar, fruit purée, salt, and pepper.
3. Transfer the blanched leaves into an empty bowl and add the tomato and onion. Pour the dressing over the vegetables. Toss the ingredients until the dressing coats all the veggies. Serve.

Makes about 2-3 servings. The sour-sweet taste of this salad makes it a good side dish for fried or grilled fish.

How this is Whole30

The fruit purée takes over for the sugar that is normally added to the dressing.

• About Whole30

Filipino Whole30 Eats: Slow Cooker Beef Kaldereta

So many of our dishes are slow-simmered, a legacy of a more leisurely-paced, time-abundant era. This Filipino version of stew – kaldereta – exemplifies this tradition of slow food. This dish usually takes several hours of semi-attentive cooking, with the cook checking on the steaming pot now and then, giving it a stir, testing the tenderness of the meat, adding ingredients in the proper sequence.

Modern life has certainly shortened our available time, but it has also provided us with new tools to help us keep the best part of at least some of our traditions. Which is my roundabout way of saying, man am I glad someone invented the slow cooker. It takes on the most time-consuming part of cooking dishes like this. I can put everything in the cooker in the morning and come home to dinner all ready for me. So things tend to balance out, in the end.

Translation
Kaldereta (kahl-deh-reh-tah): Filipino slow-cooked stew; goat meat is traditionally used, but beef, chicken, and pork versions are common as well; derived from the Spanish caldera, or cauldron.

Kaldereta with cauliflower rice

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lbs. beef, cubed
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 onion, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup boiled chicken liver, minced with a fork or blended into a paste in a food processor (you can also use liver spread at a pinch)
• 1 large yellow sweet potato, cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes
• 3 medium carrots, cubed
• 1 red bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 2/3 cup green olives
• 1 can (14 oz.) tomato sauce
• 14 oz. of water
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 3 bay leaves

Instructions

1. Heat your favorite cooking fat in a large pan in medium heat. Sauté the garlic and onions until the onion starts to soften.
2. Add the beef into the pan and sear the pieces on all sides. Do not cook through, just enough to brown them.
3. Place the beef, garlic, and onions in your slow cooker. Add the rest of the ingredients except the green olives. Mix everything thoroughly. Gently push all the solid ingredients down so they are submerged in the tomato sauce.
4. Set the slow cooker on low and set the timer to 8 hours.
5. If possible, at about the 7 hour mark, add the olives. If not, just add them when everything else is cooked.
6. Transfer to a serving bowl and serve.

Makes about 4-5 servings. This is good with cauliflower rice.

How this is Whole30
It took just a few changes from the usual kaldereta recipe to make this Whole30: potatoes were replaced with sweet potatoes, and green peas were omitted.

• About Whole30

Filipino Whole30 Eats: Banana Sauce

It takes a little effort, but you can find condiments that are Whole30 compliant and that cater to the Filipino taste palette and traditions. For example, you may have noticed that I’ve been using coconut aminos as a soy sauce substitute, since soy is a no-no for Whole30. I have to admit that I think coconut aminos actually falls short as a dipping sauce (too sweet for my taste buds trained to our deep, dark, salty soy sauces), but it’s perfectly decent as a marinade for the dishes I’ve been making, such adobo, tapa, tocino, and bistek, as long as you combine it with salt. Whatever you’re marinating becomes infused with the sauce’s umami flavor, and the sweetness becomes muted in the marinating process.

When it comes to patis (fish sauce), the go-to brand in the US Paleo community is Red Boat fish sauce from Vietnam. And I like it; it’s smooth and it packs a punch, and with just anchovies and sea salt as ingredients, it’s completely compliant. But I also wanted a more familiar, local brand that had the distinct earthy, gritty, fishy, patis taste that I grew up with. I had to reject brand after brand, since they contained disallowed or borderline ingredients (Rufina has benzoate of soda, Tiparos has added sugar), but I finally found one that passed Whole30’s standards: Lingayen’s Best, made of fish extract and salt and nothing else. No starches, no preservatives, no added sugar. It would have been nice if it had actually been made in the Philippines (it’s processed in Thailand), but such are the vagaries of the globalized world we live in. You can’t have everything.

Vinegar was easy, since nearly all vinegar is compliant (though it’s always good practice to double check the ingredients list to make sure nothing hinky has been added). I just went with probably the most well-known brand in the Philippines, Datu Puti. And maybe it’s just nostalgia, but it’s mouth-puckering sourness seems to me just perfect for any Filipino dish you can think of that requires vinegar.

There are lots of options for coconut milk, though again, you have to cast a keen eye for such disqualifying additives as carrageenan and sulfites, nasty stuff that can play havoc with your digestive system. (Ideally, the only ingredient that should be listed in your coconut milk is coconut milk and water.) More often than not, I go with Aroy-D, a brand from Thailand, because it’s usually the cheapest. But I do get some Filipino brands now and then when they go on sale.

L-R: Red Boat fish sauce, Lingayen's Best fish sauce, 

Datu Puti cane vinegar, Gold Pure kalamansi concentrate, 

Coconut Secret coconut aminos, Aroy-D coconut milk

As for kalamansi, the tart citrus fruit whose juice is the indispensable seasoning for such dishes as pancit and grilled fish, I can get this in frozen, concentrate form. Again, I just make sure that the only thing in it is kalamansi, and maybe water – and nothing else. You would be surprised by the things they sneak into the most innocuous of processed foods.

However, one condiment that is impossible to buy compliant is banana sauce, or banana catsup, that unique and beloved concoction from the Philippines that flavors our fried chicken, deep-fried spring rolls, barbecue, and a thousand other dishes. It doesn’t matter if the brand is Jufran or UFC or Del Monte or Papa, it will be loaded with starches, sugar, preservatives, and food coloring (did you think that tomato catsup red was it’s natural color?). This one you have to make yourself.

So I did, and here’s my recipe for it. As you can see, I didn’t bother trying to give it the familiar reddish color (which is artificial to begin with), not even with a natural coloring agent such as annatto. And it certainly won’t taste exactly like Jufran; it won’t be as sweet, for one thing, since I didn’t pour sugar into it. But I think it’s still a nice little sauce that can enhance your dishes or that you can use as part of a marinade.

Now, if I can only figure out how to get compliant bagoong (fermented shrimp paste).

Translations

Patis (pah-tis): fish sauce
Kalamansi (kah-lah-mahn-si): small, very tart citrus fruit 
Bagoong (bah-goh-ohng): fermented shrimp or fish paste, very salty
Saging (sah-ging – first “g” is a hard “g”): banana
Saging na saba (sah-ging nah sah-bah): sweet plantain, aka saba banana, also sometimes called cardaba banana

Ingredients

• 2 very ripe saging na saba, peeled and cut into chunks
• 3 cups of water
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped onions
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 2 oz. (by weight) raisins
• 1 teaspoon tomato paste

Instructions

1. Bring the water to a boil in a sauce pan. Add all the ingredients and mix well. Bring to a boil again, then lower the heat and let it simmer gently, uncovered, for about 45 minutes, stirring every now and then. Add more water if necessary; do not let it get thick and gooey.
2. Remove the pot from the heat. Using an immersion blender, blend everything together thoroughly until you end up with a smooth purée. Adjust the seasoning.
3. If the sauce is still thin, return it to the pot and let it simmer some more. The sauce is ready when it has the consistency of tomato soup. (Do not wait for it to get to a catsup-like consistency; it will continue to thicken even after you have removed it from the heat, and it will become unpourable if you cook it too long.)
4. Once it cools down, bottle it, refrigerate it, and take it out whenever you want to use it to season your food.

Makes about 18-20 oz. of sauce.

How this is Whole30
Doing it yourself makes sure you avoid the chemicals, sugar, and other not-so-good additives that come in bottled banana sauce.

• About Whole30

Filipino Whole30 Eats: Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Adobo

Another Sunday, another family lunch at my mother’s place. This time I made what is arguably the quintessential Filipino dish: pork adobo. No rundown of Filipino cuisine would be complete without it, so of course this food project has to have a Whole30 version.

Adobo has always tasted best when cooked slowly: simmering in a pot in low heat for a long time, letting the meat tenderize, allowing all the flavors to blend and infuse the meat. I decided to take this idea even further and go all out and make this batch the way some people do kalua pork: in a slow cooker for a really, really, really long time.

It came out great: fork tender and adobo juicy. My sister and I prepared some salad fixings, and my family had it as part of a main course salad dish.

My plate: pork adobo salad with lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, singkamas (jicama), and guacamole

Translations

Adobo (ah-doh-boh): various meat and vegetable dishes simmered or braised in vinegar, soy sauce, and garlic; the most popular versions are pork and chicken adobo

Singkamas (sing-kah-mahs): jicama

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 to 3 lb. pork shoulder roast (bone-in or boneless)
• 1/2 cup coconut aminos (soy sauce substitute)
• 1/3 cup white vinegar (for greatest authenticity, use cane vinegar)
• 6 cloves of garlic, minced or crushed
• 1 teaspoon black peppercorn
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 bay leaves

Instructions

1. Mix the coconut aminos, vinegar, garlic, peppercorn, and salt in a small bowl. Pour over the pork roast and marinate for at least 30 minutes, flipping the roast midway.
2. Put the pork in your slow cooker, pour the marinade in, and place the bay leaves on top of the pork.
3. Set your slow cooker to low and set your timer to 16 hours. (You heard right: 16 hours. So yes, planning ahead is a must for this dish.) 
4. Once done, discard the bay leaves and transfer the pork roast into a big bowl and shred it with two forks. Ladle some of the juices left in the slow cooker into the pork bowl a little at a time while mixing the shredded pieces. Continuously sample the pork until you have the flavor just the way you like it.
5. Feed your hungry self/family/friends.

Alternative cooking method: If you prefer to make adobo the conventional way, use cut up pork instead of a roast, put the pork and all the other ingredients plus a cup or two of water in a pot, and bring it to a boil. Then lower the heat and let simmer uncovered until the sauce is reduced. If you want, you can brown the pork in hot cooking fat first, or after it has been simmered. Shred the meat or not as you please.

Makes 5 or more servings. You can serve it in a salad the way we did, or as a main course protein, or with cauliflower rice, or with plantain nachos, or any number of other ways.

How this is Whole30

Coconut aminos subbed for noncompliant soy sauce. Coconut aminos is sweet compared to the soy sauce we normally use, which is on the salty side, so be sure to add some salt to make up the difference.

• About Whole30

Filipino Whole30 Eats: Tinapa and Talbos ng Kamote Egg Scramble

Eggs with tinapa (smoked fish) and talbos ng kamote (sweet potato greens),
ube (purple sweet potato), and a slice of mango on the side

One of my go-to breakfasts is a simple egg scramble from Stupid Easy Paleo’s Stephanie Gaudreau that she calls “Breakfast of Titans.” I love it. It’s so easy to make, and the combination of fluffy egg, salty smoked salmon, and power packed spinach just hits the spot for me when I wake up hungry and ready to eat the day. During my April Whole30, I kept coming back to it, switching from salmon to different kinds of sausage now and then, but sticking to the three-ingredient template. I’ve also tried replacing the spinach with other veggies, such as Swiss chard, arugula, and even beet greens, and those variations were good, too. So for this food project, it only seemed fitting to put a Filipino slant on the recipe and try it with some Filipino ingredients. 

In place of the salmon, I chose tinapa, a salty, smoked fish usually fried whole and typically served at breakfast with rice (of course). (Fair warning: this fish will cast a strong, pungent aroma – the way a few delicious things do.) As for the spinach substitute, I went with talbos ng kamote, a highly nutritious leafy vegetable trimmed from sweet potato plants that is ubiquitous in the Philippines. (One thing about us Filipinos: we use every part that we possibly can from our foods.)

Needless to say, I gobbled this up once I put it on my plate.

I’ve been trying to think of a Filipino version of “Breakfast of Titans,” but I don’t think we have a term analogous to “Titans” in our folklore or mythology. Something like “Almusal ng mga Lakan” (“Breakfast of the Noble Chiefs”) might be the closest I can get.

(Thanks to Stephanie, of course, for the original recipe.)

Translations

Almusal (ahl-mooh-sahl): breakfast

Kamote (kah-moh-teh): sweet potato

Lakan (lah-kahn): title of the supreme ruler of a chiefdom in pre-colonial Philippines

Talbos ng kamote (tahl-boss nang kah-moh-teh): sweet potato tops or greens

Tinapa (tee-nah-pah): smoked fished, usually scad or milkfish

Ube (ooh-beh): purple sweet potato

Ingredients

• 2 pieces of tinapa (scad, in this recipe)
• 3 large eggs
• a handful or two of talbos ng kamote (stems removed)

Instructions

1. Shred the tinapa into pieces, removing the head, tail, and bones. (I’m not going to lie to you; there are a lot of tiny bones – but they’re easy to remove.)
2. Heat a pan with your favorite cooking fat in medium heat. Sauté the tinapa pieces for a few minutes.
3. Crack your eggs and pour them directly into the pan. Mix everything with a spatula.
4. When the eggs are half-cooked, add the talbos ng kamote, a handful at a time. Keep stirring until the greens are wilted.
5. Plate your egg scramble and add a sweet potato  (or any other readily available veggies or fruits).

Makes 1 serving.

How this is Whole30
This dish was made from compliant ingredients, everything healthy and whole.

• About Whole30

Filipino Whole30 Eats: Stir-Fried Garlic and Ginger Bok Choy (Quickie Veggie)

Remember the rationale for these quickie veggies: to have easy recipes on hand that you can use to fill your plates with veggies, since Whole30ers eat lots of the green stuff (also the purple, red, orange, yellow, white...). It doesn’t get much easier than this.

Ingredients

• 2 bok choy or 4 baby bok choy
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon minced ginger
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Trim the butt ends and cut the stems into 1-inch wide pieces, all the way to the leaves. Keep the leaves (the green parts) whole.
2. Heat your pan with your favorite cooking fat in medium heat. When the fat starts shimmering, add the garlic and ginger and sauté until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
3. Add your bok choy and cook about 2-3 minutes, stirring often. 
4. Season to taste. (You can add a few sprinkles of fish sauce or coconut aminos, if you want, but it’s delicious without them.) The dish is ready when the leaves have started to wilt and the stems are tender-crisp.

Makes 2-3 servings

How this is Whole30

Actually, the recipe was Whole30 compliant as it was and didn’t need any alterations.

• About Whole30

Filipino Whole30 Eats: Arroz a la Cubana

The nomenclature for this one takes some twisty turns.

This recipe is based on a dish we call Arroz a la cubana (“Cuban-style” rice), except God knows if it really originated from Cuba, and anyway, our version is pretty distinct from the other dishes in the Spanish-speaking world also called by the same name. All the recipes have the eggs, rice, and plantains in common, sure, but ours has to have ground beef and everyone else’s has to be slathered in tomato sauce. They are different enough that ours is sometimes called “Filipino-style Arroz a la cubana,” which verges on the silly. We should have just called it a las filipinas and called it a day.

And then I go ahead and muck around with the recipe and remove the rice. (You could add cauliflower “rice,” as I myself have done before, but that’s still not rice.) So: a la cubana is a little off the mark, and now the arroz part doesn’t make sense, either – so what the heck do I call this?

Translations
Saging na saba (sah-ging nah sah-bah): sweet plantain, aka saba banana, also sometimes called cardaba banana

Ingredients

• 1 lb. ground beef
• 1 cup diced onions
• 1 cup diced yellow sweet potatoes
• 1 cup diced carrots
• 1 cup diced red bell pepper
• (you can also add 1 oz. raisins)
• 1 teaspoon tomato paste
• salt and pepper
• 3 ripe saging na saba, peeled and cut lengthwise into 1/2-inch thick slices
• coconut oil
• large eggs

Instructions

1. Brown the ground beef in a pot in medium heat. Keep stirring until cooked through.
2. Add the onions, sweet potatoes, carrots, bell pepper, raisins, and tomato paste. Mix well, lower the heat, close the lid, and let simmer, stirring every now and then. Cook until the root crops are tender. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
3. While the beef is simmering, fry the saging na saba slices in coconut oil until they are light brown on both sides. Then fry your eggs (1 or 2 eggs per person) sunny side up.
4. Arrange everything in your plates with the eggs lying atop the others. Break the egg yolk and let it bleed into the beef. Chow down.

Makes about 3 servings.

You can also make them into banana boats. What? You don’t play with your food?

How this is Whole30

No rice. Also, some noncompliant veggies that are typically part of this recipe – such as potatoes and green peas – were omitted. (Sweet potato, which is normally not included, took the place of the potatoes.)

• About Whole30

Filipino Whole30 Eats: Bistek Tagalog with Crispy Sweet Potatoes

Sunday lunch again with my family. This time I made an old favorite: bistek, a soy sauce-seasoned beef dish with onions and, in some recipes, fried potatoes. As with most Filipino dishes, this would also normally have been accompanied by mounds of rice. In this Whole30 version, sweet potatoes took the place of both the rice and potatoes as the starchy accompaniment. And, of course, no soy sauce was used.

Speaking of substitutions, you can also try other members of the onion family in place of the onions. My sister doesn’t like onions, so to accommodate her, I sautéed leeks as well as onions to go with the dish. (And actually, leeks are what I ate myself.) It worked very well, as I imagine scallions, shallots, onion bulbs, and chives also would.

Translations
Bistek (bis-teck): a beef dish, usually made from thinly sliced cuts of beef; the word is derived from the Spanish term “bistec,” which is in turn derived from the English “beef steak”
Bistek Tagalog (bis-teck tah-gah-lohg): “Bistek of the Tagalogs”; i.e., the Filipino version of bistec
Kalamansi (kah-lah-mahn-si): small, very tart citrus fruit

Bistek with sautéed leeks instead of onions

Ingredients

• 1 lb. lean beef (I used round steak), cut thinly into 1/8 inch-thick strips
• 1/3 cup coconut aminos (soy sauce substitute)
• 2 tablespoons kalamansi juice (or 3 tablespoons lemon juice) 
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 medium onion, sliced into rings
• 2 medium yellow sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced into 1/8 inch-thick disks
• coconut oil
• water

Instructions

1. Mix the coconut aminos, kalamansi juice, salt and pepper. Marinate the beef with this mixture in the fridge for at least 1 hour and up to overnight.
2. Heat a large pan with your favorite cooking fat in medium heat (I used olive oil). Sauté the onion rings until they start to soften. Remove and set aside. 
3. In the same pan, fry the beef until brown on all sides. Add 2 cups of water, bring to a boil, then let simmer uncovered for at least 30 minutes (mixing every so often), until the beef has been softened and the sauce reduced. Return the onions into the pan when the beef is just about ready. (Note: If you use a more tender cut of beef, such as sirloin, you don’t have to simmer your beef in water. I used a tougher cut and so needed to soften it.)
4. While the beef is simmering, prepare your sweet potatoes. Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a wire rack. Coat your sweet potato disks with melted coconut oil and place them on the baking sheet in a single layer. No need to season; the beef sauce will season them when you assemble your plates. Bake the sweet potatoes in your oven for about 25 minutes, flipping the disks halfway through. Keep a close eye on the disks to avoid burning them; they are ready when both sides start to brown.
5. When everything is ready, line your plates with sweet potato disks, then ladle the beef and onions on top or to the side of the sweet potatoes. Don’t forget to spoon some of the beef sauce over everything. 

Makes 2-3 servings. 

How this is Whole30
Coconut aminos was used instead of soy sauce in the marinade, and sweet potatoes instead of potatoes. The rice that normally goes this dish was omitted.

• About Whole30