Bell Pepper, My Favorite Vegetable

“Sili” in Filipino or chili in Mexican or Spanish is an herb or vegetables that Filipinos associate with one having a “hot” taste. The “siling labuyo” or bird’s eye chili pepper is very hot and leaves a momentary burning sensation in the mouth with just a bite of a single and small ripened fruit. It is used as ingredient of local dishes to make them pungent and spicy.  One variety of the capsicum family that I like most is the bell pepper.

The bell pepper is distinct from other pepper variety since it does not have a hot taste which is common to other peppers. It is also the largest of all the peppers. The reason for this is that bell pepper does not produce the chemical capsaicin that gives the other pepper variety a burning taste when people bite or chew it. Rather than hot its taste is somehow sweet and its flesh and skin is tender. For me, it’s one of the most delicious vegetables that I have eaten.

The bell pepper is botanically a fruit since it grows out of a flower and contains seeds, but culinarily it is used and consumed as a vegetable. In the local market, the bell pepper comes in three different colors- red, yellow and green, with the red as the most delicious of all.

For culinary purpose, the bell pepper is used as toppings of pizza. It is also used in combination with other vegetables to make stews or addition to meats such as beef and pork. Bell pepper is also ideal as one of components of green or vegetable salad. I like it as salad because of its pleasant taste and soft texture. I prepare it slightly boiled rather than raw to prevent bacteria contamination with mayonnaise or commercially sold green salad dressings to add flavor. Sometimes I simply dip it in vinegar with salt.

The bell-shaped fruit or vegetable is rich in Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Vitamin B6, riboflavin, folate, Vitamin E and fiber making it an ideal food for one who wants a balanced diet for a good health.

In the local market, bell pepper is one of the most expensive vegetables making it not budget friendly vegetable either for personal or commercial consumption.

 

Kaffir Lime (Suwa)

kaffir lime is a shrub that belongs to the citrus family. It is called suwa in Northern Mindanao, Philippines. The plant can grow up to about 4 meters tall and is easily distinguishable from other citrus plants because of its distinctive “double leaf” look of leaves. Like some citrus shrubs, it has no trunk in the base but stems and branches that have sharp spines.

Suwa has leaves with pleasant limy aroma and small white flowers. Its fruit is excessively sour even when fully ripe. It is ovate in shape with thick skin. Inside it is pulpy juice-containing segments. Because of its sourness, suwa is not commonly consumed by people as a table fruit but as ingredient and flavor for dish especially kinilaw, the Filipino version of the Mexican ceviche. Cebuano speaking people of Northern Mindanao such as those in Cagayan de Oro are fond of eating kinilaw, a fresh fish-based dish. Kinilaw is not complete without the indigenous ingredients of suwa, tabon-tabon, siling labuyo (bird’s eye chili pepper), tuba (coconut bud sap) and vinegar. Other ingredients can be optional depending on the taste or likings of the one who prepares it as well as those who consume it. A squeeze of suwa juice is also best to flavor a Filipino condiment called bago-ong which is made from a brine fermented fish.  

Because of its limited applications, suwa is not grown in commercial scale, but are just mostly grown in the backyard where it can be a decorative or fruit bearing shrub. A single plant of the ever-fruitful Suwa can provide the house owner enough fruits for his needs all year round.

The Philippine Wild Chili Pepper (Siling Labuyo)

Often mistaken for bird’s eye chili pepper, the cultivar siling labuyo is a species of capsicum fructescens in the capsicum genus. The name “siling labuyo” in Filipino means wild chili although at present this plant is widely cultivated because of its culinary importance in some Philippine dishes. The frail looking but fast growing plant probably got its name because it usually grows wildly almost anywhere in soil near a house.

Siling labuyo is a small plant that grows only at about a meter in height and has acuminate leaves and small star shaped white flowers. Its tiny and slightly tapered fruit is about 2-2.5 cm in length and turns red when ripe. The plant’s peculiarity is that the fruits are usually on the stalks upside down unlike any other fruits.

The “wild” chili was once listed as the hottest chili pepper in the Guinness Book of World Records. But now, it is only ranked in the middle in the list of hottest chilis in the Scoville Heat Scale. The heat of siling labuyo is measured in the range of 50,000-100,000 which is below that of the bird’s eye chili pepper at 100,000-225,000 range. The hottest chili in the Scoville list is the Carolina Reaper which is measured in the range of 1,600,000-2,200,000 heat units.

A bite of the tiny chili will cause intense burning feeling and irritation. However, it is its hotness that makes this chili a highly sought after food commodity. For some people, the hotter it is the better. The native chili is an indispensable ingredient in some of the cuisines of Maranao, Visayan and Bicolano tribes. In the Visayas and Mindanao regions, a raw fish dish called “kinilaw” is not complete without siling labuyo in it. Siling labuyo is also used to spice up canned or bottled sardines and commercially sold vinegar. It is also added in a condiment or dip for broiled pork or fish and roasted meat for a spicy hot meal. Moreover, Siling labuyo leaves are great for a stewed chicken dish called “tinola.”

“Boodle fight” is a kind of informal dinner in the Philippines that originated from the military. It is a sort of a buffet style meal where diners by the table partake on foods with their bare hands. This type of informally serving foods has found its way outside the military, so that some civilians adapted it in gatherings where foods are served. In a military “boodle fight” foods such as boiled rice, canned sardines, fried dried fish, broiled pork and pancit are laid on the table without utensils. Handful of Siling labuyo is deliberately inserted in the cooked rice. During the meal those who have the misfortune of putting and chewing the chili in his mouth would suddenly feel the burning sensation caused by the chili. However, such discomfort is only temporary since it will be gone after a few seconds, and then the partaker’s urge to eat returns to normal.

Aside from its culinary uses siling labuyo is also used in herbal medicine. Consuming it stimulates mucous flow from sinus cavity clearing nasal congestion, and because of it, the chili is used to treat cough and stuffed nose during cold and fever.  It is also said to lower cholesterol and fight inflammation. Crushed fruits are used to help clean wound to avoid infection. Mixed with oil and massaged on joints affected by gout and rheumatism, they help ease pain and inflammation.

Sutukil: Grilled, Stewed Seafood and Fish Salad

Sutukil is the acronym for sugba, tula and kilaw, theSouthern and Central Philippines’ native words regarding the ways on which fish and other seafood are cooked or prepared. Sugba means to grill, tula means to stew and kilaw means to eat a raw food. Sutukil  is a local slang and rhymes with “shoot to kill”.  The person who coined that word might have done so as to put amusing effect on it.                                                 

The Philippines is an archipelago and most of its population centers are located along the shore. For this reason seafood is one of the main diets of the locals. And most of the seafood or sutukil restaurants are located along the shore or by the sea. The open-air style construction of a building makes the refreshing sea air and the scenes at the sea an ideal ambiance while dining on these dishes.                                                                 

The simplest way in the region to cook or prepare the seafood is to stew, to grill or to make it a salad. Sutukil is three dishes but it does not always follow that that the three of them are cooked or served for one meal.  In most cases a restaurant patron may order just one of them together with other non-seafood dishes or drink as additions.

In Mactan, Cebu, fresh raw fish and other seafood are displayed right in the eatery for a customer to order his desired dishes. He may buy a big fish so that it is prepared into three dishes. He may have the lower portion grilled, the mid portion made as kinilaw and the head portion stewed.                                                                                                                                           

Some people prefer seafood to meat because they think that it contains less bad cholesterol and it is therefore healthier. Grilled fish is one of the favorites in a seafood restaurant. Some customers like the jaw of the tuna or the belly of broadbill swordfish. Others go for grilled squids and other seafood.

tinola

Tinola is a truly indigenous dish of Southern Philippines. Its simplicity of preparation makes it a dish for common people. The fish is boiled along with other ingredients such as tomatoes, ginger, bell pepper, bulb onion, green leafy onion, and green leafy vegetables such as cabbage or as an alternative Chinese pichay or the most available lowly but highly nutritious malunggay or horse radish. The tinola is seasoned with salt and and vitsen.  Fish is usually the primary ingredient of the tinola but sometimes it is substituted with shrimp, and seashell or a combination of fish and other seafood maybe prepared.

kinilaw

The kinilaw or fish salad is the Filipino version of the Latin American dish cevichi. It is also somewhat similar to the Japanese sashimi in a sense that the fish is not cooked and is served cold. Most marine fish will do for the dish as long as it is fresh. They include tuna, broadbill sword fish, the seer fish or the tanigue, milkfish, sardines and even squid and shrimp.

In the vizayas region people prepare the kinilaw with coconut milk.  But such practice is unusual in Cagayan de Oro where people usually prepare the dish with the fish soaked in tuba or coconut toddy and coconut vinegar. In addition the tabon-tabon and the suwa or the native lime are added. The trees of those fruits only grow in the region and this make the taste of the dish distinct from that in the other regions of the Philippines. Other ingredients include bulb onion, green leafy onion, minced ginger, cucumber and extract of native lime juice. It is then seasoned with vitsen and salt. The taste is made hot by adding crushed bird’s eye chili pepper which is called siling labuyo by the locals.                                                                                                                                                                 

Because kinilaw is eaten raw only the freshest of the fish will do as an ingredient and that utmost sanitary procedures must be observed in its preparation to avoid food poisoning. The dish is usually served with rice or on other occasion such as in picnic it is complemented with a boiled green plantain, a type of cooking banana called saba.

Related topics:

The Delectable Lechon
Plantain (Saba), the Delightful Cooking Banana
Tuba, a Coconut Toddy Drink