Watching The Big Picture with Kal Penn on NGC the other day, this tidbit caught my attention: in South Korea, there is a tax for wasting food. Simply put, the more food you throw away, the more you pay. It’s a scheme worthy of Kim Henares. Come to think of it, if we have something like that here, the rich will probably end up paying a higher tax for garbage than on their declared income. That’s until they find a way to dump waste straight into the sea behind government’s back.
Okay, I admit it: I’m guilty of buying more food and produce than I intend to consume in, say, a week’s time. There’s a head of purple lettuce that has been sitting in our ref for like a month now, and the only reason I bought it was because I know it’s a hardy vegetable. Not so the paliya (bitter gourd) and tawong (eggplant); I see them at the weekend market and buy a couple of each, then end up forgetting about them. Then there’s the various bread and snacks that my father buys and never finishes; when Scooby our black Labrador died, they promptly piled up.
I arrived home after five days from Cebu to find week-old green cabbage, carrots, French beans, dehydrated spring onion, mushy cucumbers, and several kilos of potatoes. Potatoes? “That would be your father,” the help said, “and there’s a lot of mangsi (herring) in the freezer as well.”
The fish come with their own story. Meanwhile, I needed to use up those vegetables, fast. For lunch I took inspiration from beef and ampalaya with black beans, but with pork (tenderloin) and French beans instead. It was okay, but otherwise not worth sharing here. I reserve my enthusiasm for this:
Is that sari-sari, you ask? Well, that was the idea. I started off by sautéing some sliced onion, followed by sliced garlic, quartered tomato, and strips of red and green bell peppers. Then the potato sticks, which cooked for an initial 4 minutes, at which point they were joined by the carrot sticks. They cooked for another 6 minutes and then I stirred in the French beans. After a minute I added about ¾ cup of chicken broth, a tablespoon each of kecap manis, soy sauce, and sweet chili sauce, and a teaspoon of hoisin sauce (it’s great with vegetable, or didn’t you know?). When the liquid came to a boil, in went the sliced cabbage, then I covered the skillet and waited until the cabbage was wilted but still crunchy. To finish, some dried chili flakes and a drizzle of sesame oil. Oh, and a squeeze of lemon, too.
I love sari-sari, and this was a wonderful variation of the dish. It was also a good way to clear the refrigerator, even if the spring onion and cucumbers were beyond saving. I must note that I immersed the vegetables in ice-cold water to firm them back up. I used to add baking soda to the water to bring out the color of vegetables, but have since stopped doing so upon noticing they turned soggy in no time at all (short answer: baking soda is an alkaline and speeds up cooking; acid like vinegar, on the other hand, slows it down). That’s more waste right there. You don’t have to hate Kim Henares (or be Korean) to know that.
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