Dinuguan by Cielo Marte
Dinuguan is one of those Filipino dishes that “only my mother could make”. It’s the meal that takes me back home to busy Saturdays where we would spend the morning cleaning and reward ourselves in the afternoon with a big, steaming plate of rice and dinuguan. Waking up early just to sweep the floors and polish the furniture was worth it if we saw mama slicing up the peppers and grating the ginger. It’s the dish that my aunts and uncles would request my mother to make for every house party. It’s the dish no one dared to imitate because everyone knew they’d only be embarrassing themselves. After all, my mother has always cooked it to perfection. Im not even sure what made it so damn good. It could be the ingredients. Mama always hand-selected the peppers and ginger that would go to the soup. She had always been selective, if not combative, to the butcher just so she could get her desired portion of the pork and the many parts that come with it. “Always buy more meat than you think you’d need,” she advised. “ We’re Filipinos. There is no limit to the amount of meat we can scarf down”. The blood, however, is not as fresh as it would have been had we stayed in the Philippines. Here, pig’s blood was stored frozen in the dark freezers in the Asian supermarkets in Chinatown. As if scavenging for a bucket of pig’s blood wasn’t grim enough.
If it wasn’t the carefully selected ingredients, it could have been the way she prepared it. She was always careful to emulsify the pig’s blood in vinegar days before she would cook it, creating the perfect acidity to the soup base. Of all the dishes she has made, dinuguan is by far the most time consuming because it required her to prepare ahead of time and to keep a watchful eye when cooking just in case the blood is close to burning. She never minded, though. This was her specialty. Cheesy as it may sound, this dish was probably so good because it was made with love and through happy conversations. Always in the company of friends and family when she cooked, my mother prepared this dinuguan with a margarita in one hand and a wooden spatula in the other. Though she would cook small batches in some weekends, she would always make pots full of dinuguan when someone in the family had a birthday. Family and friends would always flock to reserve “leftovers” we did not yet have and stored extras in designated tupperwares so they could take some home.
As far as any Filipino dishes having any “fear factor”, Dinuguan may be the scariest. Roughly translated as a “dish made from blood”, it’s not exactly a crowd pleaser amongst my American friends. To those who have grown up with this specialty, it’s a black, steaming soup with hidden treasures of pork, intestines, and ginger. Draped over white rice, it glistens as a hearty meal that’s a mix of comfort and party food. I may or may not have tricked some of my American friends by telling them that this dish was called “chocolate meat”. “What’s in it?”, they’d ask, holding a bowl of dinuguan to their noses. “Just try it first”, I would always say as I pushed their bowls towards them, “you never know what you like until you try it”. They would always be pleased by that they ate, eating a bowl or two of the mystery meat and rice. At the last couple of spoonfuls, I’d always say something along the lines of “oh, by the way, that dish is made up of pork intestines and the soup is from a pig’s blood”. You could always spot the most adventurous ones from those who didn’t stare in disdain and slowly spat their mouthful of dinuguan back into their bowls.
Though I love to cook, and though my mother has attempted teaching me this recipe on more than one occasion, I have never really bothered to learn it. To me, it seemed like something only my mother could make. Anyone else (especially me), would not have done it justice. Regardless, mama always made it a point that it was not some top-secret family recipe. She has always had my aunts as helpers when making the dish and often had an audience to talk to when cooking. “My mother taught me this recipe and I’ve made it my own over the years. Maybe you should do the same and add an ingredient or two,” she would always say as I watched her stir the pot with her wooden spatula. Something tells me that it would be my biggest challenge yet.
If it wasn’t the carefully selected ingredients, it could have been the way she prepared it. She was always careful to emulsify the pig’s blood in vinegar days before she would cook it, creating the perfect acidity to the soup base. Of all the dishes she has made, dinuguan is by far the most time consuming because it required her to prepare ahead of time and to keep a watchful eye when cooking just in case the blood is close to burning. She never minded, though. This was her specialty. Cheesy as it may sound, this dish was probably so good because it was made with love and through happy conversations. Always in the company of friends and family when she cooked, my mother prepared this dinuguan with a margarita in one hand and a wooden spatula in the other. Though she would cook small batches in some weekends, she would always make pots full of dinuguan when someone in the family had a birthday. Family and friends would always flock to reserve “leftovers” we did not yet have and stored extras in designated tupperwares so they could take some home.
As far as any Filipino dishes having any “fear factor”, Dinuguan may be the scariest. Roughly translated as a “dish made from blood”, it’s not exactly a crowd pleaser amongst my American friends. To those who have grown up with this specialty, it’s a black, steaming soup with hidden treasures of pork, intestines, and ginger. Draped over white rice, it glistens as a hearty meal that’s a mix of comfort and party food. I may or may not have tricked some of my American friends by telling them that this dish was called “chocolate meat”. “What’s in it?”, they’d ask, holding a bowl of dinuguan to their noses. “Just try it first”, I would always say as I pushed their bowls towards them, “you never know what you like until you try it”. They would always be pleased by that they ate, eating a bowl or two of the mystery meat and rice. At the last couple of spoonfuls, I’d always say something along the lines of “oh, by the way, that dish is made up of pork intestines and the soup is from a pig’s blood”. You could always spot the most adventurous ones from those who didn’t stare in disdain and slowly spat their mouthful of dinuguan back into their bowls.
Though I love to cook, and though my mother has attempted teaching me this recipe on more than one occasion, I have never really bothered to learn it. To me, it seemed like something only my mother could make. Anyone else (especially me), would not have done it justice. Regardless, mama always made it a point that it was not some top-secret family recipe. She has always had my aunts as helpers when making the dish and often had an audience to talk to when cooking. “My mother taught me this recipe and I’ve made it my own over the years. Maybe you should do the same and add an ingredient or two,” she would always say as I watched her stir the pot with her wooden spatula. Something tells me that it would be my biggest challenge yet.
Ingredients:
Instructions
- 20 ounces of pigs blood (aptly located in the dark, scary freezer section of your local Asian market)
- 2 cups vinegar (but if you were my mom, you’d probably add another half cup)
- 2 tablespoons Vegetable oil
- 2 onions, peeled and diced
- 6 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
- 1 palm-sized ginger, julienned
- 2 cups water
- 4 finger chillies
- 2-3 bay leaves
- 2 spoons of sugar
- 2 spoons of fish sauce
- 2 pounds of pork belly, cut into ½ inch strips
- 1 pound of pork intestines
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- In a bowl, combine the pig’s blood and 1 cup vinegar. You’re going to want to do this overnight so you can let the blood and vinegar sit and defrost in the refrigerator together.
- In a separate pot, boil your intestines over some water until thoroughly tender (approximately 1-2 hours). When finished, drain and slice into little bite-sized pieces.
- When your blood and vinegar is ready, add some oil into a pot over medium heat.
- Add your onions and cook until slightly translucent. Then, add your garlic and ginger until all your ingredients are golden brown.
- Add your pork and cook until its lightly browned. Add fish sauce and sautee for 3 minutes.
- Add 1 cup vinegar and let simmer for about 10 minutes or until slightly reduced.
- Add water, pig’s blood, sliced intestines, and peppers and boil covered for 30 minutes, occasionally stirring the pot. This is very important so as to reduce any lumps that would be made from cooking the blood!
- Add sugar, bay leaves, salt, and pepper and stir.
- Let your pot boil for another 10 minutes or until the sauce has thickened.
- Serve over a hot bowl of rice and enjoy!
So, the average Joe might not be down to eat a bowl of intestines. If you wanted to be adventurous, however, you could also add other ingredients to the mix. This could vary from adding liver, sliced pig’s ears, kidneys, and tripe as a substitute or with your pork belly. The more, the merrier. When my mother learned this recipe from my grandmother, they improvised from whatever they had in the Philippines. Though pork belly was a standard dinuguan ingredient, it always varied between meats and parts depending on what they could afford at the time. As we migrated to the United States, the ingredients varied based on what we could and could not find in stores. It think for my aunts and uncles who have also migrated here, its become a reminder of the home they left to provide a better life for their children. It has become a staple dish to any gathering we have and stands as one of the many things my parents have preserved in our culture. One thing hasn’t changed, however. Mama’s dinuguan has always, and to this day, brought our family together.