HAVE you tried “sinigang na bagnet”?
Bagnet is the sitsarong liempo of the Ilocos region. No, wait, I do not mean “sinigang na sitsaron”! But some definitions first.
Sitsaron is a Philippine delicacy of brittle and delicious choice pork liempo, that part of the pig carcass that its skin, fat and rib bones cross path. Liempo, by the way, is of Chinese origin meaning pork belly. (In Nueva Ecija we have the “inantala” – literally, delayed – but its real culinary meaning is half-done. But let me reserve that in a separate story).
Sinigang is generally soured soup of meat, fish or shrimp mixed with vegetables – tomato, taro (gabi) the “binutones” (button-sized), radish (labanos) and green pepper (siling panigang,the green elongated species).
What made me come out with sinigang na bagnet? The other day, I watched (and made my mouth water) a television show that showcased Ilocano dishes. So there was bagnet – sitsaron. When I ran to Aling Nieves, my favourite meat vendor in Cabanatuan market, she promised to reserve me some of the bagnet, which she did not quite understand at first so I had to use my wordsmithmanship explaining and describing skill. I would prepare bagnet in time of the arrival of my daughter Charm from a brief visit in Macau.
That night, however, she requested for crispy pata, to which I readily obliged by running to the nearest restaurant in the city that serves the best crispy pata.
This morning, March 11, 2012, I remembered I had a commitment with Aling Nieves about the reserved “bagnet”, which I should make good. I was at a dilemma: we just ate crispy pata and we would againbe feasting on a cholesterol-rich bagnet or sitsaron. Imagine how would the toxins collide and blcok the easy-flowing blood in us! So I ended up chopping the sliced bagnet to sinigang-sized, prepared the vegetables and started boiling the fresh tamarind alongside the chopped “bagnet (liempo).
Sometimes, it pays to think funny, do funny things, and act like a serious old man.
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