Noodles and Rice

Lasang Pinoy #12: Distinctly Pinoy…. with a TWANG!!

by Stef on July 25th, 2006

Twang? Ces, I hope my twang is good enough for your theme….:D

Ces of Essences hosts this month’s Lasang Pinoy and what a theme! Perfect for the close to our first year of Lasang Pinoy — we’re on our Twelfth Edition!

My contribution this month is a current favorite here at home. I’ve named it talongganisa — it’s where talong and longganisa meet!

Talong is the Tagalog word for eggplant. And longganisa is our Filipino version of the Spanish/Mexican/Cuban sausage of the same name — or roughly the same name, as theirs are usually spelled with one “g” and a “z” (longaniza). My version is more sweet than spicy, and contains the simplest of flavorings — garlic being the most dominant.

Making sausages is a tedious but satisfying activity that I think every aspiring cook should try at least once. Sausages are such a pleasure to work on/with because there’s an endless array of taste combinations you can try! But though I love making sausages, often the demand for them exceeds the amount of energy and time I have to make them from scratch — many store-bought brands are satisfactory in terms of taste, but I’d really rather control what goes into my kids’ tummies.

My children, relentless beings that they are, have through the years learned to coax and prod and plead with me until I make them some. And I, through the years, have learned to indulge their craving often enough, but with a few modifications here and there so a) it’s easier on me, the cook, and b) it’s healthier for them. The talongganisa is the end result (or who knows, perhaps just another stop before the next adventure).

The traditional longganisa is made with ground/finely chopped meat (usually pork, with considerable fat in it — too little fat will give you a dry and unappetizing sausage, I learned this the hard way), stuffed into hog casings. Hog casings, thank goodness, are easy enough to find especially these days. A long time ago I had to hunt it down at the Italian butcher’s. Today it comes prepackaged in the grocer’s meat case. Well, those casings are the first to go if you want a longganisa in half the time. And skinless longganisa isn’t new, though I’ve met people who don’t consider it “real” longganisa. LOL. To each his own.

At any rate, this dish goes one step further and simply uses longganisa-flavored meat: no shaping, no stuffing. Strictly speaking, it’s not really longganisa anymore, is it? But do my kids care? Not one bit. All they want is that sweet-garlicky-peppery meat, mixed with their rice. And if I let them have it their way, that’s exactly how they’re going to eat it. For the longest time, I tried to get them to eat traditional accompaniments, like chopped tomatoes, chopped tomatoes with onions, and/or with garlic, grilled veggies, achara, etc., etc. just to get them to have some VEGETABLES, for Pete’s sake!… alongside this dish. Heh-heh-heh. Until one day when I again had eggplants that I meant to cook as a side dish, but I was out of time. So I chopped up the eggplant and cooked it together with the pork. Nothing original there really either. One of my favorite easy-to-cook dishes is this Szechwanese stir-fry of eggplant and pork, except the seasonings are different.

How to make talongganisa?

Combine ground pork, garlic, a bit of vinegar, fresh grindings of black pepper, a bit of soy sauce (optional), salt, and chopped eggplant. Paprika/pimenton, sweet or hot, your choice, if you like (I used a Spanish hot pimenton). I’m not providing measurements because it’s one of those dishes you can continually adjust to your taste. Let the ground pork and eggplant cook 15 minutes or so, stir-frying over medium heat. (If you’re concerned about fat content, use ground turkey instead of ground pork, or pre-cook the pork in the seasonings along with some water. The fat will render and you can then degrease it before you add the eggplant. But as I’ve said before, it’s one of those dishes where you do need fat, otherwise you end up with this dry crumbly mixture that’s no fun to eat.) When the ground pork and eggplant mixture is mostly done, add your choice of sweetener. Some people use brown sugar, honey, dark brown sugar, even molasses. I’ve actually used sorghum one time when I ran out of traditional sweeteners. Use Sucanat or muscovado if you’d rather have the unprocessed, unrefined stuff. Remember that sugar is sugar is sugar though:). After the sweetener is added in, give it a few more stirs to incorporate and caramelize a bit. But burnt sugar is icky, so don’t go there (been there, done that).

You can serve this mixture atop mounds of white rice. The requisite accompaniment would be a fried egg, sunny side up. My preference is an egg cooked over easy, and a mixture of chopped tomatoes-onion-garlic-jalapeno pepper-couple drops fish sauce-cilantro on the side.

When to eat this? Oh, any time really. It’s awesome for breakfast of course. But on a dark day when storms are brewing, this is especially welcome — breakfast, lunch, snack or dinner. Yum yum.

Thank you very much, Ces, for hosting LP12. I’ll try to post another entry for this one if I have time. Such a fun theme!

Related Stories

Lasang Pinoy 18 is On!!
Lasang Pinoy 1st Anniversary: Definitive Pinoy, The Round-Up
Lasang Pinoy #10: Food Memories from your Childhood
Lasang Pinoy 1st Anniversary: Definitive Pinoy!
Learning about Culture over a Bowl of…. Offal?

POSTED IN: Beef, Lamb, Pork, Breakfast, Filipino