Philippine Food Illustrated: pakdol

Pakdol - /pak-dol/ Waray [Eastern Leyte] soupy dish [n.] A soupy dish of stewed marrow-rich shank or hocks and knee of carabao.

Similar Dishes

bulalo of Batangueño and Tagalog
kansi of Ilonggo
pochero of Cebuano

Pakdol is a Waray soupy carabao dish of eastern Leyte. Originally made with a big cut of the carabao's upper leg (shank) or any cut portion of the upper leg down to the knee joints (hocks) and may also include a portion of the lower leg or any part of the limb in general.

Pakdol is often mistaken by diners, food writers, and bloggers that pakdol is a kind of nilagang baka when in fact it is of carabao (karabaw to the Warays).

When the carabao population dwindled and became restricted or limited in slaughterhouses, it was then that the shanks and knees of cows were used as substitutes. Pakdol's lesser version uses the pig's ham part complete with a portion of marrow-rich long bone and ball-joint of the pig's hip, stifle, elbow, or shoulder joints.

The big cut (slice) of this meat-bone part is stewed for 2 to 3 hours or until the meat and tendons around the bone are very tender but not letting the meat fall off from the bone.

A marrow-rich shank of carabao.

Pakdol is a soupy dish, comparably similar to the bulalo of Batangas only that the bulalo is originally of shanks and hocks or knees of a cow. Yes, Batangas bulalo is of cow, while pakdol is of carabao.

The broth of pakdol is basically seasoned only with salt and peppercorn, it may have a little amount of repolyo (cabbage), pechay (bok choy), and sitaw (string bean or yardlong bean). Optional add-ons are sibuyas pula (red onion), garlic, ginger, tanglad (lemon grass), tomatoes, and a souring fruit called aslum by Warays or the Garcinia binucao (batuan in Ilonggo).

As years went by, pakdol evolved or had fusion with other Philippine regional cuisines. There are those who would use similar incidental ingredients of Batangas bulalo dish, like adding corncob of yellow corn and/or ripe saging saba (plantain).

Occasionally, there are also those who would add gabi (taro) or white ube to thicken the soup slightly and add a savory creamy taste.

Pakdol is best taken when piping hot as the tallow (wax-like fats called sebo) would start to form and stick stubbornly on the surface and around the serving bowl when the broth is no longer warm.

The sebo (tallow) of carabao meat are starting to build up as tiny circles of floating wax when the broth cools down.

A serving of pakdol in Dahil Sa Iyo Fastfood, one of Tacloban City's oldest restaurants specializing this soupy dish until now.

Be wary that most restaurants and eateries in eastern Visayas are heavy users of vetsin (monosodium glutamate or MSG) as a seasoning in soupy dishes. It's OK if you got used to it. Otherwise, you better inquire if MSG was used in cooking before you ask for a serving if in case you are sensitive or not OK with vetsin. If the dish is yet to be prepared, ask the server or resto staff to tell the cook not to put MSG in your dish.

Dahil Sa Iyo Fastfood at 66 Real Street corner Burgos Street, Downtown, Tacloban City in Leyte province of Philippines.

The restaurant, Dahil Sa Iyo Fastfood, was named after the favorite song of Waray-Leyteño Imelda Romualdez Marcos, the wife of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos. The admiration of the resto owner to Mrs. Marcos led them to name this old-timer dining place after the First Lady's favorite song.

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