Pinakbet: How Bayambangueños cook their comfort food

It’s not enough that outsiders pronounce the name of the well-loved Pangasinense dish incorrectly: pi/nak/’bet instead of pi/nak/’bət. In Manila, in particular, they get it all wrong, too – by using pinakbet or pakbet to refer to what we routinely call here as bulanglang.

Here’s the lowdown on the specs to make a ginuwayn (genuine) pinakbet recipe:

Eggplants, the pale-colored, bulb-shaped variety (balbalosa)

Ampalaya (bitter melon/gourd), the dwarf, more potent variety

Tomatoes, whichever variety, but preferably the pumpkin-looking one (tres cantos)

Onion (preferably ‘shallot’) and garlic for sauteing

Ginger, crushed

Cayenne pepper (the long green sili/finger chili) – topped; optional

Bagnet/lechon kawali/roasted fish/pork with a generous portion of fat, boiled and set aside

Bagoong, the dark reddish-brown, salt-cured anchovy-based variety from Lingayen (bagoong/inasin a monamon)

Vegetable oil for sautéing (optional)

Ilocanos, in particular, prefer squeezing everything together inside a clay pot -- the harder ingredients first then the easy-cooking ones at the top, and then – using firewood, boil everything together until it turns into an almost amorphous blob of brown and black. That’s what they do to the unappetizing-looking (let’s be honest) dinengdeng, at least from the looks department. (Ilocanos do not care for appearances as much as essences.)

Some prefer sauteing the meat, onion, tomatoes, and the other vegetables first, then drowning the whole thing with water, but purists would do away with the sauteing. They prefer plain boiling until the broth is brought to near reduction -- this is where the term pakbet or pinakbet comes from: the original root word pinakebbet (Ilocano) or pinakubet (Pangasinan) means "shrunk" or "shriveled."

So the pot is brought to a boil until the shrunk or shriveled stage. Separately in a deep bowl, dilute 2 tablespoons of bagoong monamon (premium anchovy bagoong) with some of the boiling stock. Stir until the bagoong fish is reduced to its skeletal remains, then pour the diluted bagoong into the pot, taking care to strain any fish bones from falling into the mix. This step in called sagsagan or sinagsagan, with sagsag as the root word, referring to the use of bagoong as condiment.

Optional ingredients: Cubed camote (sweet potato, yellow variety, for use as salt buffer and to lend some sweetness), okra, saluyot, patani seeds (to lend a particular fragrance), segmented malunggay pods, and that legume with four “wings,” sigarilyas. Cabbage wedges also work nicely. Leftover adobo would be a good substitute for bagnet. If there is none, fresh pork cuts will do. Or pre-fried bangus.

Serve a bit overcooked. Of course you don't eat this without a gigantic mound of rice on the side, which is actually the main course. Pinakbet is heavenly with 'buro', but this part is not recommended for people with hypertension and kidney problems.

Lastly, kalabasa (squash) is a 'deal-breaker.' Once it is added, especially together with sitaw (string beans), the comfort food is no longer pinakbet but bulanglang.