While nilaga (literally: “boiled”) doesn’t have a single stone in it, except perhaps by accident, it is also easily made with ingredients that are on hand. It’s practically a no-fail soup. The amounts of all the ingredients can be modified to taste and availability.

This is the way I make this simple Filipino dish:

Nilaga

Ingredients:

meat (pork or beef; choose cuts with some fat to give the dish a good flavor), cut into serving pieces
1/2 to 1 small onion, sliced
10 whole peppercorns
1 teaspoon salt
starchy vegetables (potatoes, carrots, sweetpotatoes, corn on the cob, or yam) cut into large cubes
green vegetables (green beans, asparagus, or broccoli)
leafy vegetables (bokchoy, pechay, napa cabbage, cabbage, or chinese cabbage), cut into serving pieces
2 green onions, chopped

Choose 1 meat, 1 or 2 starchy vegetables, 1 green vegetable, and 1 leafy vegetable in whatever proportion you want.

1. Put water in a pot, enough to cover the meat and vegetables, and then some. Add the onion, salt, and peppercorns. Boil until the meat is tender.

2. Add the starchy vegetables and allow the soup to reboil. Cook until the vegetables can just be pierced with a fork.

3. Add the green vegetable, the leafy vegetables and the green onions. Cook until vegetables are tender but still crisp. Adjust the taste by adding salt.

4. Serve hot with steamed rice.

In my home, this is comfort food. The hot soup is great at the end of the day. And it’s a great way to get several servings of vegetables, which are my favorite part of this dish.

Added tip: To make the dish even better, mash a couple of pieces of potato or sweetpotato once they are cooked. It flavors the broth really well.

image from personal collection ©2008 Maricar

Post from: Filipina Soul

So here’s the original recipe:

Putong Puti (Rice Muffins)

2 cups rice flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups coconut milk
1 teaspoon anise seeds
1 cup grated coconut

Sift first four ingredients together. In a mixing bowl, add coconut milk to sifted ingredients and blend well to make a smooth mixture. Add anise seeds. Mix and blend thoroughly and fill greased muffin pans 2/3 full. Cook in a steamer for 30 minutes. Test for doneness. Muffins are done when toothpick or cake tester inserted in center comes out clean. Serve topped with grated coconut. Serves 4.

I didn’t have anise seed or grated coconut handy, so I just omitted those. Oh, and my muffin pans won’t fit in my steamer. So after I filled the pans, I placed them in a baking pan with about an inch of water, covered them lightly with foil, and baked at 400C for almost an hour. I had some batter left over, so I put that in a ceramic bowl and steamed it for 40 minutes total. The photo above is the steamed puto, and those that were baked are below:

They taste the same (obviously, haha). Next time, I’ll use less sugar because this turned out sweeter that I’d like. The steamed puto is fluffier, with the mounded top beautifully split in the center. I should tell you that the bowl I used for the steamed version is about 5 inches across, so that’s one humongous puto.

This is a really easy recipe to try. If you have a steamer, use that, even if you have to make the puto in ramekin bowls. But if not, and you just want to satisfy a craving, baking in the oven would suffice. A simple variation to this would be to top them with a piece of cheese or salted egg.

For other puto variations, check out my post listing some puto recipes from around the web.

affiliate link

images from personal collection © 2008 M. Macalincag

Post from: Filipina Soul