A Filipino Soup that smells like a garden
Filipino food/Culture
This Winter, Rē is offering a mini Soup Series, where we are sharing some of our favorite soup recipes.... and a story to go with them Soup'n'Story Time! Soup means so many things. Warmth. Comfort. Hope. Left overs and freshness and community. Recovery from being sick or a meal for a potluck. The perfect food for regeneration! And it is so delicious!
Please do feel free to share with us one of yours!
This week, our community member Michael, who lives in the Philippines, is sharing a Filipino vegetable and fish soup recipe.
From Michael:
I have read articles, Reddit posts and watched videos across the internet saying that Filipino food is oily and fatty. Although there is a little bit of truth about it on the surface, Filipino cuisine is much more than that. Honestly, I don’t blame people, especially non-Filipinos, for having those kinds of ideas about Filipino dishes. Because whenever Filipino food influencers talk about our cuisine, they usually highlight “Fiesta food” like Lumpia (Spring roll), Adobo (Chicken or pork dish simmered in spices, vinegar, and soy sauce), and Lechon (Roasted pig). And don’t get me started with Jollibee (a popular fast food chain). I LOVE all the menus in Jollibee and they really are not just a fast food chain but they are part of the Filipino DNA. However, although they are good for the soul, they are not the healthiest if you eat them regularly.
But if you eat at a local Filipino household on an ordinary day, people would serve you food like Tinola (Chicken soup with green papaya) and Pinakbet (Stir fried vegetables with meat and shrimp paste). These are pre-colonial dishes that are incredibly healthy and savory. And if you are or someone you are visiting is from Visayas (the main middle island) or Mindanao (the Southern-most part, where I live), then for sure, you have already been served a bowl of Law-uy.
Law-uy, also known as Utan in central Luzon, or Dinengdeng in Ilocos region, is a vegetable soup with key ingredients like tomato, onion, ginger, lemon grass, crushed peppers, long chili, snake beans, squash, okra, loofa, moringa, jute leaf, pan-fried fish like tuna, milkfish, and tilapia and if you don’t like fish, you can substitute it with shrimp. You can skip the fish or shrimp but make sure to use fish sauce (Although I would HIGHLY encourage you to use fish or shrimp or a combination of both because why not). If you can’t find some of the ingredients in your local or Asian supermarket, it’s not a crime to skip them.
I eat this vegetable soup at least once every two weeks because, aside from the fact that it is one of the healthiest Filipino foods as it is rich in vitamins A, and C, high in fiber, and packed with minerals, it is also, and most importantly, delicious.
The aroma of Law-uy is what a vegetable garden smells if it’s served in a bowl.
Whenever I sip the hot soup of Law-uy, it’s a reminder of the simpler times in the small village I grew up in, which is 5 hours away from the city that I live in now. If we didn’t have the ingredients we were looking for, we could just ask our neighbors. As I’m writing this newsletter, I remember how we used to have a vegetable garden alongside our rice field, and when we were not helping in planting seeds, removing the weeds, harvesting, or feeding the ducks and chickens, me and my sister would play around or swim at the creek. I also like listening to my grandparents, who are farmers, talking and sharing stories during their coffee or lunch break after tirelessly working for hours. They would also constantly remind us “Pagtarong mog skwela para dili mo ma pareha namo” In English it says, “You should study hard so that you won’t be like us” Even though I was a child, I understood what they meant. Farmers, specifically farmers in the Philippines, are some of the smartest and most hardworking - and yet the most underappreciated and most underserved professions in the world.
To sum it up, I encourage you to try this dish. Maybe you have never heard of until now. It’s honestly one of the most overlooked Filipino foods. If you search top 10 Filipino foods on Google, for sure you wouldn’t find it there, heck I don’t it’s even in the top 100 Filipino foods. And to be frank, I don’t think there’s something in this dish that would make Gordon Ramsay or some fancy guy in The New York Times cry because of how amazing it is.
But if you’re looking for a soup that is easy to make, yet also light and rich and certainly good for your mind, body, and soul, Law-uy is certainly it.
Here’s my recipe:
Please note that we are not strict with the measurements. You can adjust them depending on your liking. (Filipinos don’t usually use traditional measuring tools to measure ingredients. We use our feelings.)
In a pot, combine 500 liters of water, 1 sliced red tomato, 1 sliced red onion, 1 sliced ginger, lemongrass, salt, pepper, 2 medium-sized fish pan-fried fish, fish sauce, and MSG seasoning (We use MSG in our household and it is very safe. You can skip adding MSG if you want, but it is recommended to savor the full experience).
Bring the water to a boil. Add large diced squash and sliced snake beans. Cover and cook for 2 minutes.
Add at least 5 okra (Cut them into 2 if they’re long), 1 eggplant, and 1 loofa, and cut them in pieces. Optionally, add 100 mg shrimp. If you want to add mushrooms, this is a good time to add it. Cover and cook for another 2 minutes.
Once the vegetables are softened, add moringa leaves, jute leaves, chili leaves, and spring onions.
Cook until all vegetables are tender.
Serve hot with steamed rice.
I would also like to thank Ashlei and Sara for allowing me to share this recipe and much appreciation to the Rē community for taking the time to read. Writing this brought so many memories and it made me appreciate the amazing work of Rē in promoting regenerative farming.
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