Beware: Summer coolers with magic sugar

If you like buying halo-halo and other summer coolers from street vendors and shabby canteen then you need to take extra caution. The Department of Health (DOH) thru Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral warns the public with the used of “magic sugar” by several vendors as artificial sweetener due to high cane sugar prices. She said that this may cause a number of health risks because it contains sodium cyclamate. It is a substance banned in most countries since it is unfit for human consumption.

Bibingka & Puto Bumbong

Christmas is nearing and as early as now you can see Puto Bumbong and Bibingka being sold along the streets. These are the two favorites among Filipinos during Christmastime. If you gonna visit Philippines on September and onwards you will have a great chance to taste these two.

Ingredients for Bibingka includes rice flour, sugar, coconut cream, eggs, baking powder, grated cheese, butter, salted egg, fresh grated coconut and salt. Special Bibingka filled with more cheese and salted egg is being sold and really tasted great. I usually eat this during my visit in Manila.

Puto Bumbong is a purple-colored Filipino dessert made of sweet rice cooked in hollow bamboo tubes that are placed on a special steamer-cooker. When cooked, they are removed from the bamboo tubes, spread with butter and sprinkled with sugar and niyog (grated coconut). They are then wrapped in wilted banana leaves which keep them warm and moist until ready to be eaten. Like Bibingka, Puto Bumbong is inexorably linked with Simbang Gabi--the Catholic mass celebrated at dawn on the nine days preceding Christmas.

Pigar Pigar of Galvan, Dagupan

Through YM, hubby asked me to experiment a dish called Pigar Pigar famous in Dagupan City specifically on Galvan Street. During nighttime, vendors are proliferating in the streets selling different street food like Pigar-Pigar. He told me the ingredients and the procedures and if you are Shawarma eaters you might like this one too.

Ingredients:

• Beef strips
• Beef liver strips
  
• Broccolli, sliced
• Cauliflower, sliced
• Onions, sliced
• Cabbage, sliced
• Oil
• Salt and powdered pepper to taste

Cooking procedures:

Slice beef and beef liver into strips, marinate with salt and powdered pepper then deep fry in oil for 3 minutes. Add the remaining vegetables in the cooking pan and cook for 2 minutes together with the beef. Drain in a strainer then serve hot. Kalamansi-soy sauce or kalamansi-fish sauce plus chili can be mixed and added to the dish. Need to eat between 10-15 minutes after cooking.

There are other veggies being used as toppings for this dish like chicharo and baguio beans. Veggies toppings depend upon request.