Month: December 2015

Sampalok/Tamarind

Tamarind -Sampalok – (Tamarindus indica) is a type of fruit that looks like a bean which is rightly so because it is in the family of Fabaceae or legumes.  It is sour when it is still green and when it is ripe it turns brown in color and the brown flesh inside is sweet and…

Lablab/Bataw

Lablab -Bataw – Parda – Hyacinth bean (Dolichos Lablab) is one of my favorite vegetables.  I like to cook it with pork and shrimp with “sotanghon” or cellophane noodles.  I don’t have it in my garden now but when I did, it grew like crazy.  It is a vine and needs trellis or fence to…

Ginger/Luya

Ginger – luya (Zingiber) is a root vegetable used as a spice.  It is a perennial plant and develop flowers but this ginger is different from the ornamental gingers that bears pink and red flowers. I like to have ginger in my garden for my cooking needs.  I even use the leaves for steaming fish…

Taro/gabi

Taro -gabi (Colocasia Esculenta) is the most widely cultivated among root vegetables.  It is the Hawaiian’s staple food and they call it “kalo”.  Taro or “kalo” has a more deep connection with the Hawaiians.  They preferred taro over sweet potato although taro required more time and labor to grow.  They cook the taro and pound…

Cassava/Kamoteng Kahoy

Cassava -Manihot Esculenta – is also called manioc, tapioca or Brazilian arrowroot. The Spanish call it “yucca”.  We call it “kamoteng kahoy” in the Philippines. It literally means sweet potato from a tree since cassava grows as a woody shrub  and the cassava forms as roots of the plant unlike the sweet potato that grows…

Star Apple/Kaimito

Star apple (Chrysophyllum cainito) is a fruit that is sweet and juicy but has that latex feel in your mouth.  I remember when I was young, our mouths will be dusty after eating this fruit because the dirt clings into this glue like substance that is in the skin of the fruits.   In the Philippines,…