ROUSES_JulyAug2019_Magazine

no exception. From carts and stands to little holes-in-the-wall, he tried their soups; had their famed noodles; enjoyed lumpia, a kind of spring roll with vegetables; and relished a national delicacy called adobo — a dish of pork or chicken cooked in a vinegar and soy sauce marinade. Not everything agreed with him. “Are you holding onto your chair, brother?” he asks. “They’ve got these things called balut. I tried to eat it and I just couldn’t do it.” The dish is a boiled, 17-day-old, fermented duck egg. “It’s the embryo of a duck. It has little feet, it has a little beak, and it has the start of feathers. You crack it open, remove that little beak, and eat the whole thing. And it’s juicy, and who knows what you’re eating. And the smell was horrific. But it’s an excellent source of protein and it’s very inexpensive. You go to open air markets and there are mountains of these things for just pennies, and they eat them like they’re going out of style.” Chef Nino stayed mostly in a place called Vigan City, north of Manila, and visited Baguio, a town in the mountains. His host

family lived in a humble yet immaculately clean home, where he ate, he says, “the finest food in all the world.” He goes on: “They put on a spread. Fresh cut mangoes on the table. Bananas. Papaya. Coconuts. Brother, all these fresh fruits in the house. And the best noodles I ever had in my life. They make it out of rice or coconut or pasta, and flavor them different ways with fish sauce and other sauces.” Chef Nino says the natural crops of the Philippines guided the evolution of its cuisine. “It’s like any other civilization. These things grow where you are, and you figure out what to do with them.” Now that he is back home, he plans to introduce the cuisine of the Philippines to his cooking classes at Rouses Markets, with ambitious plans to teach a chicken adobo recipe that he learned, as well as lumpia, and a specialty called pineapple plank, which is meat cooked atop a slab of pineapple. “These are easy recipes — not that many ingredients — but [they] use methods of cooking we never thought about doing, and these amazing flavors are the result. And you can do them at home.”

“They put on a spread. Fresh cut mangoes on the table. Bananas. Papaya. Coconuts. Brother, all these fresh fruits in the house. And the best noodles I ever had in my life. They make it out of rice or coconut or pasta, and flavor them different ways with fish sauce and other sauces.” “They put on a spread. Fresh cut mang es on the table. Bananas. P p ya. Coconuts. Brother, all thes fresh fruits in the house. And the best noodles I ever had in y life. They make it out of rice or coconut or pasta, and flavor them different ways with fish sauce and other sauces.”

Mango Royale

Our bakery decorator Charlyn Bantiling Mercadel, a native of Valladolid Negros Occidental, Philippines, created this recipe for our magazine. Get the recipe at www.rouses.com. Chef Nino’s adult cooking classes and Chef Sally’s kid’s cooking classes are held at Rouses Markets across the Gulf Coast. Visit www.rouses.com for locations, dates and times. Our July theme is Asian Food.

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