A few moons ago, Lynn and I had a short exchange on the comments box of her Five Minute Pao post in her blog To Short Term Memories. It was actually the related posts Chive Pao and Chive Boxes that made me mention my search for the herb.

I had long wanted to cook Sabo Balatung (mung bean, munggo or monggo soup) the way I remember it from childhood. This is a dish which is practically the same in the whole country, with regional or provincial nuances. In Manila and most Tagalog provinces I’ve been to, it is known as ginisang munggo (sautéed monggo), a very thick bean stew. To most Kapampangans, it’s a thick creamy soup.

Another difference I notice is how we mainly use kusé or garlic chives (Allium tuberosum - regular chives are Allium schoenoprasum) for the greens while in Manila they use kamaluñgge (Tag. malunggay - Moringa oleifera) or tender leaves of bitter gourd - we do too but not as often as chives. We also don’t use tomatoes. The soup is traditionally served with broiled tuyo or dried salted fish. To polish it off nicely, we also season the soup with a splash of vinegar and a dash of black pepper.

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Perhaps I’ve come close to solving the puzzle why we call sitaw (also spelled sitao in Tagalog, câmangyáng in Kapampangan, utong in Ilocano, Badiriya in Lebanese Arabic and die Fisolen in Austrian German) stringbeans while to many parts of the English-speaking world, they’re yard-long beans. I came across a paper from the American colonial period where they were most probably writing the English translations for our native vegetables and what did they call sitaw but “long stringbeans” (trust the Americans to leave us confused, hehehe!). Perhaps through time the adjective was dropped and so we are now left with just “stringbeans”. Now I’d like to pinch my own ears because I forgot to write down the source of the paper and have no idea where I read it. Pardon my negligence this time.

In any case, here is another recipe which makes use of these beans. I was a bit hesitant to post this recipe as it is quite common, most probably found in all Filipino food websites. However, I am a bit amused at requests for me to post a Kapampangan pinakbet recipe. What recipe? Pinakbet is unmistakably Ilocano. The way it is properly cooked, according to my mom and aunties who lived in Baguio, is by stewing without oil until the vegetables have dried up and shrivelled. But since requests persist and I promised Renee on Shiokadelicious! sometime back, I will post how Kapampangans cook it, which I’m certain would make hardcore Ilocanos cringe.
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Is My Blog Burning? is the brainchild of Alberto at Il Forno and it has really caught on as bloggers the world over eagerly await and prepare for the monthly event. Today would be the eleventh edition and we anticipate the sharing of recipes around the theme ‘beans’. Cathy at my little kitchen is hosting it this time. I should also mention that this is the first time I’m taking part in the events though I’ve been listed in the IMBB portal since November of last year.

When Cathy announced this month’s theme, I was both relieved that I didn’t lack for kinds of beans and recipes yet worried that I may not be able to decide from among the choices. There is a whole wide world of beans and a line in the Tagalog folk song ‘Bahay Kubo’ (My Nipa Hut) enumerates the most common Philippine species – sigarilyas… sitaw, bataw, patani, munggo… (winged beans … the ones in the picture above, hyacinth beans, civet or lima beans, mung beans). In fact, on the PC at that very moment I had pictures of at least two recipes with sitaw as an ingredient. Which one would it be?
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