sara-sara

sara-sara - /sará-sára/ Cebuano [Kidapawan City, Cotabato province] and Ilonggo beverage; dw Ilonggo sarà [strain]) [n.] roasted corn coffee \roasted rice coffee. 

A ground roasted corn or rice, brewed and served as coffee. The corn kernels (or corn grits) or husked rice are roasted until burnt and black then ground into powder. The powder is then brewed and the liquid is strained and served as a hot beverage, like coffee.

The "poor man's coffee." Sara-sara only tastes like coffee but does not smell like coffee, sans the caffeine sought by coffee lovers. I regret when I used my coffee maker in brewing the sara-sara. It took me long to clean the mess inside it and was pressed to urgently clean it. I should have used a sauce pan or cooking pot instead.

Sara-sara is not exactly a coffee, but a cheaper substitute to real ground coffee, or let me say it's the "poor man's coffee." It is served and taken like coffee in Central Visayas and some parts of mainland Mindanao. 

It has to be brewed in pots on the stove and not in an electric-operated coffee maker. Using a coffee maker will not work and will just end up as a big mess. The sara-sara powder, when mixed in hot water would become like a watery gruel or thin paste because it heavily consists of starch. It needs to be cleaned right away before the paste of sara-sara would stick stubbornly in there like a lump of soggy dough, or worse like dried glue.

Sara-sara does not smell like coffee, but a pleasant aroma of burnt corn or rice.

The hot beverage may taste like coffee but not exactly that of coffee and sans the caffeine sought by coffee lovers. 

I found this sara-sara made with corn being sold in the public market of Kidapawan City, Cotabato last April 25, 2018.

Sara-sara is of Ilonggo origin. Ilonggos used it to call their hot beverage of ground-roasted rice. Using rice is the original version of sara-sara hot drink, not corn. The rice version was used as an extender to tablea (cacao chocolate) when making sikuwate (hot cacao chocolate drink) and other hot beverages, including coffee and soya bean powder hot choco drink.

Sara-sara is from the Ilonggo word sára, a term used when straining or filtering liquid clean from its residue. Straining the drink is necessary so as to separate and keep sediments and other debris in the brew as you pour the hot drink into the cup. 

All photos by Edgie Polistico are copyrighted. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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chopsuey

A serving of chopsuey at the Dwino's Grill in OzamisCity, Misamis Occidental during one of my travels in the southern part of mainland.

 

chopsuey – /tsàp-soy/ (Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilonggo dish; dw Chin. tsa-sui [various pieces]) [n.] stir-fried vegetable.

These stir-fried vegetables can also be added to seafood and meat at will.

An assortment of cut vegetables is stir-fried and mixed with seafood (shrimp, squid, fish fillet, etc.) and sliced meat (pork or chicken).

The kind of vegetables conventionally used in making this dish are wide cuts of repolyo (cabbage), widely sliced carrots, sayote (mirliton pear), cauliflower, sliced bell pepper, and sometimes with sliced tomatoes and green pods of beans, such as sitsaro (snow peas), sitaw (string beans), or Baguio beans.

A serving tray of chopsuey one summer day of May 2012 while at the beach resort of AcuaVerde in Laiya Aplaya, SanJuan, Batangas.

Its thick white sauce is made with water (or broth) added with some gawgaw (tapioca powder) or corn starch that is pre-dissolved in lukewarm water then added and stirred in the dish and seasoned with patis (fish sauce) or oyster sauce.

This chopsuey seafood is of Sam's Fastfood & Bakeshop during my trip in May 2011 to Pagadian City of Zamboanga del  Sur also in the southern part of mainland Mindanao.

Occasionally, when available, chopsuey has young corncob, broccoli, mushroom, and coriander added to the ingredients.

This dish is a Chinese-American-influenced dish that is now commonly found in Pinoy eateries and gatherings.

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Continue to follow my blogs. You can also follow and learn more by joining us in our Facebook group. Have more bits and pieces about our kind of food, ingredients, and ways of cooking, dining, and knowing food culture across the 7,641 islands of the Philippines. I will search for more and continue to share my findings. It is my pleasure to rediscover the known and least known things or the unheard ones and put them here for everyone to find, learn, and treasure. 

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