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