Philippine Food Illustrated: packed meal

Showing posts with label packed meal. Show all posts

December 22, 2010

pasong (rice in banana leaf)

Pasong from a food stall in Cotabato City.

pasong - /pá-song/ (Maguindanaon rice meal) [n.] conic rice. Steamed rice wrapped in banana leaf folded into a conic shape.

Plain ordinary rice is steamed into kanin. A ladle scoop of steamed rice is wrapped in banana leaf and folded into a conic shape. Before wrapping, the banana leaf wrapper can be made pliant by wilting. It is done by passing the leaf over the flame or hot ember.

This is how the Maguindanaos of Mindanao sold their cooked rice or packed them as baon (food brought along to work or travel).

The packaging is very environmentally friendly as it uses a banana leaf as a wrapper and not the non-biodegradable and health-hazard sheets of plastic cellophane or styrofoam. Not, unless you use a plastic bag to hold the pasong when buying it.

Related posts:

Pastil

Puso (sweetened rice)

puso (plain

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pastil

pastil – /pas-tíl/ (Maguindanaon packed meal) [n.] rice topped with sautéed shredded meat.

Similar dishes:

also spelled as pastel in Maguindanaon
patel or pater in Maranao
paster in Iranun

It is closely similar to the Tagalog binalot sa dahon except for the way how it is wrapped in banana leaf.

A scoop (about a cup) of steamed or boiled plain rice is placed on the center of a spread of banana leaf and topped with shreds or flakes of sautéed meat or fish called kagikit.

The cut of banana leaf is wilted first in fire or ember to soften and make it a pliant wrapper.

The scoop of cooked rice is then molded by folding the banana leaf. Before finally wrapping the rice, it is topped with kagikit (sautéed shredded meat) usually that of shredded meat of braised fish or chicken. Then the leaf is finally rolled around the topped rice. It is sealed by folding both ends similar to that of suman (Tagalog rice stick), only that the pastil is wider and flatter in shape than that of suman.

The special version of pastil has more meat, plus a hard-boiled chicken egg (shelled and cut into halves) as toppings, and the rice is mixed with a little amount of glutinous rice that would bind well the molded meal.

Pastil is considered the budget combo meal of our Muslim brothers in Mindanao.

In Manila, it is sold and readily available in the ubiquitous Halal restaurants and eateries near the Golden Mosque in the Quiapo district and in Maharlika Village in Taguig City.

Pastil is usually served and eaten by pouring some soy sauce right before eating and paired with hard-boiled chicken egg. It can also be eaten on the go by holding a piece of pastil and peeling it just like when you open a banana and eat it while standing, walking, or on a ride.

A Maguindanaon food stall vendor skillfully prepares pastil.

A mold of rice is topped with kagikit of sautéed shredded chicken meat from Cotabato City

A mold of rice is topped with kagikit of shredded fish adobo. This one is from Quiapo, Manila.

This mound of pastil is sold at a Halal eatery at the Welcome Rotunda in Isulan, Sultan Kudarat. Boiled eggs complement with the packed meal.

Mounds of pastil is a common sight at the many foodstands along Sinsuat Ave ext. cor Quezon Ave. in Cotabato City.

In Metro Manila, you can have pastil from the ubiquitous food stalls and eateries near the Golden Mosque in Quiapo, Manila. I bought a bag of my first pastil experience from this place.

In Metro Manila, you can also buy pastil in Maharlika Market and in talipapa and eateries nearby the Blue Mosque in the Maharlika Village in Taguig City.

You can eat pastil with bare hands, but make sure to wash your hands before eating to conform with the Muslim law on hygiene in dining Halal food. Here, I'm eating pastil with a pair of spoon and fork at home.

December 17, 2010

puso (plain rice)

puso – /pu-sô, pusò / Cebuano and Boholano staple [n.] palm-wrapped rice. Rice cooked in the heart-shaped or diamond-shaped woven coconut palm.

This puso is unsweetened and unflavored, starchy and bland, often taken as a pair to sud-an (main dish called viand by Filipinos, any dish paired with rice, bread, or other starch food) served and eaten similar to kan-on (steamed rice).

Other local names:

patupat in Capampangan
bugnoy in Ilonggo [Hiligaynon]
tamu in Tausug

The rice is cooked in a heart-shaped or diamond-shaped pouch of a woven coconut palm. The palm used in weaving the packaging pouch is the young and newly sprouting leaves of coconut, preferably those that are still whitish-yellow in color. It's the same kind of coconut palm used on Palm Sunday by the devotees of the Philippine Catholic churches.

The hanging puso at the Fishport in Danao City, Cebu

The tukog (midrib) is removed and the long strip of palm’s blade is skillfully woven into a diamond-shaped packaging, about the size of an adult human's fist, then half-filled with rice grains.

Weaving a ball of palm requires instruction from a skilled weaver and must be practiced well to perfect the shape, size, and tightness of woven strips.

Through a narrow opening between the overlaying strips, the palm ball is half-filled with bugas humay (hulled rice grains). It is important to keep some space inside to give the rice space to expand inside when cooked. To cook, the filled palm balls are placed in a cooking pot and then filled with water equivalent to the total measurement of all the rice grains used.

Cooking is simply done by boiling until all the water is absorbed. The absorption would cause the grains to expand and fill all the space inside the woven palm ball. When the rice is tender, puso is already cooked.

Puso at the Taboan in Inopacan, Leyte

To serve, puso is sliced into halves and the mold of cooked rice is taken out and eaten either by picking it by hand or cut it further into chunks and scooping the lumps with a spoon.

A basket of puso at the Public Market in Iligan City, North Cotabato

In eateries and barbecue stands in Visayas, puso is sold either hanging or laid on the counter of food stalls.

Visayan folks fondly called it pusô because they likened its shape to the red banana flower bud called by the same name as púsò in Cebuano, Boholano, and Waray.

Puso being sold at the Taboan (trading marketplace) in the Reclamation Area in Inopacan, Leyte

This Cebuano puso is unsweetened and unflavored, starchy and bland, often taken as paired with sud-an (ulam in Tagalog) like the usual steamed rice. It's unlike the Hiligaynon puso of Panay, Capiz which is sweetened with lots of latik sa nipa (nipa palm syrup). But both are called puso after the "pusò sa saging" ("púsò ng saging" in Tagalog) in reference to their shape and not because the banana flower bud is hanging. It was a mistake that puso rice is named after the "heart" known in Tagalog as puso. Notice the accent used in Cebuano and Hiligaynon (pusò/pósò) compared to Tagalog (púsò). In Visayas, a banana flower bud is commonly called pusò or pósò. While a “heart” in Cebuano and Ilonggo/Hiligaynon is called kasíng-kásing, not puso. Hiligaynons often used "tagiposóon" to refer to one's heart. Tagiposóon is derived from pósò (banana flower bud). Thus, tagiposoon would mean "the poso-like" organs of humans and animals.

Most writers, particularly those who are not from Visayas or Mindanao, would call puso "hanging rice" in their write-ups or articles when writing in English. But the truth is, puso is more often displayed and sold as being laid on the table or counter. When dining, puso is not also served hanging or to dangle on the table, but on the plate or tray. It so happened, that those being hung on display are most noticeable than those laid on the counter or table. "Hanging rice" is quite a misnomer for puso. It would better be called puso as "palm-wrapped rice," being rice cooked in woven coconut leaf.