It always amazes me how incredibly substandard or undistinguised the green salad choices are at most restaurants in Manila. In the past year, only one salad stood out, a very nicely executed salad with sprightly greens, asparagus, a perfectly poached egg, a slice of prosciutto all dressed just right that I enjoyed one lunch at Sala Restaurant in Makati. It was exactly what I look for in a salad, but understandably, at 1/3rd of the portion that I would have preferred to consume! Otherwise, I find that salads here are often made of pedestrian greens with ingredients or dressings which are either too sweet or cloying. In the 1970’s and 80’s, the acceptable excuse for weak western style salad choices was the near absence of decent varieties of lettuce. In those days romaine/cos was simply unheard of here in the Philippines, let alone the more exotic types of lettuce we now think is so common. It was probably the reason the famous Cesar (Ceasar) Salad at Mario’s Restaurant (so famous for that table side show of making dressing in a wooden salad bowl) was made with iceberg lettuce (arrgh!) which probably screwed up an entire generation or two of pinoys who now think that’s how a Cesare/Cesar (Ceasar) salad should be made… (The inventor was Italian by birth, hence Cesare, moved to Mexico, hence Cesar and the name totally screwed up by the Americans to make it Caesar, as in Julius who would never have made a raw egg dressing in his time I don’t think.) :) I loved that salad at Mario’s, by the way, and still order it sometimes for nostalgic reasons, the same way I sometimes gorge myself shamelessly on Pinoy-style party spaghetti!
Anyway, that was a lengthy introduction to this impromptu salad I put together for lunch yesterday. I thought I had enough ingredients for a salade nicoise, but realized I was missing a few key things like olives and good tomatoes, so I improvised instead. The greens were a mixture of crispy chopped romaine, the wild arugula and small beetroot greens (the last two purchased from Kitchen Herbs Farm (KHF), post here). On top of that, I added some boiled and chilled small or new potatoes, blanched and chilled haricots verts or small green beans (also from KHF), native tomatoes, quarters of boiled eggs, some Century “light” canned tuna and a mustard vinaigrette dressing. It looks huge on the serving platter, but I managed to eat 3/4 of this salad! So much for trying to eat healthier; it may have been technically good for me, but I ate enough to power a cow for a couple of hours… :) The beet greens and arugula added really nice flavor hits to the salad. The romaine provided the refreshing crunch. The eggs and tuna the sources of protein and the new potatoes the carbohydrates. Yum. If salads are THIS easy to make at home, why don’t I seem to be able to find them in restaurants. Are pinoys just seriously uninterested in salads, so the restaurants don’t really sell any? What do you think? Oh, and all of these ingredients are locally sourced, much of it within an hour or so of Manila, with the exception of the canned tuna which is probably from General Santos City…
58 Responses
Wow! Ka lami ani MM!
Delicious salad, i could eat the whole serving. Maybe because its hard to find good greens at the local / regular wet market. If you find a good romaine, there are times that the price is skyrocket!
That salad looks wickedly good to eat!
I share your sentiment MM. I always wonder why most restaurants use iceberg instead of romaine lettuce. I also wonder all the time why it is so difficult to find a decent salad in restaurants.
There’s a similar dislike towards raw vegetables and salads here in China. I have to go to the Western restaurants for one and most of the time it’s iceberg iceberg iceberg. I found an Italian restaurant that served a bowl of arugula and tomatoes recently and was thrilled, I didn’t care how much it cost. My dinner companion had a similar salad with buffalo mozzarella added in and it cost over P500, just for the dang salad!
I’m going to have to grow my own salad vittles to avoid the cost at the restaurants.
i think that most pinoys are uninterested in salads because it’s perceived that salads aren’t that filling. and most pinoys don’t earn that much so i think they’d rather spend that little they earn on something that’s filling (like rice meals) rather than on something that is, yes, nutritious but light on the stomach.
well a salad can fill up for some time after the meal but the full feeling doesn’t last as long as a protein+rice meal. most pinoys, i think would rather eat heavy rice meals thrice a day rather than several light meals throughout the day.
Hi, Marketman! Maybe one of the reasons why salads are lousy in Philippine restaurants is that they are expensive (some are priced the same as main courses). The expensiveness translates to the salad being sold less and as such, the vegetables in the inventory tend to suffer much. Diners also feel they get more value in choosing an extra main course as opposed to getting a salad, Filipinos being voracious meat eaters. Salads should be priced reasonably……..
MM have you gotten vegetables in the stalls of AANI and Console Farms at AANI FTI? Very well reasonably priced. Plus I will trust their farming methods :) The variety may not be extensive but quality and pricing is worth the walk to the other side to where the AANI office is. Console Farms is on that side too.
mm–
i agree with you regarding salad choices in manila. the standard offering seems to be paltry bits of iceberg, cheese and pink plastic ham with a really crappy french dressing (i.e. mayo with ketchup). it annoys me that restaurant offerings cost a lot vs. what they actually deliver when it doesn’t cost much to make a decent salad in the first place…
i also think pinoys tend to favor unhealthy meal choices. when i eat out with officemates and we are order family-style, i’m usually the only voice that asks for salad or even vegetables.
yes, i remember when “green salad” meant shaking a bottle of kraft thousand island dressing over a pile of iceberg lettuce!
in the 80s, wendy’s and its salad bar came in, and that was when pinoys discovered that cheese cubes and beets and garbanzo beans could be part of a salad. you could pile as much stuff as you could fit on that one plate that they gave you, and sure enough, there were long lines by the salad bar, and everyone had his/her own ingenious engineering method to build as high a salad as was possible on that plate. i’ve seen major salad tower malfunctions, i tell you!
and that’s how some people got a mish-mash of gelatin and potato salad, olives and lettuce and croutons, etc. etc…all in one plate, all drenched in the three or four different dressings on offer (“sabay-sabay para sulit!) it was a funny sight, but i think that’s how many pinoys (manilans at least) got their first exposure to lettuce. prior to that, most pinoys only knew lettuce by the single curly leaf perched on one end of the fresh lumpia.
so it’s a wonderful thing to discover that not all dressings have to be sweet and creamy, that the different types of vinegars have different taste highlights, and that salads can have a multitude of flavors, textures and colors. and that they can be the meals by themselves.
that looks mouth watering! 10 yrs ago, i don’t like to eat fresh salads. the leafy greens used was wilted and looked unappealing. but now, with the abundance of fresh greens, i eat salad whenever i can. :)
What “pedestrian greens” are you talking about? On one Pinoy cooking channel, they had the whole half hour on salads, and the host/chef was focusing on the local greens of Phils. Also, he did mention that romaine is much more expensive than iceberg and so most restaurant use it. I agree with what he is saying for it is same here, although the romaine is much packed with nutrients like other greener veggies. You are right though for being disappointed when restaurants tagged the salad as Caesars and then uses iceberg.
On my trip to Quezon province,I wanted to make taco salad, unfortunately cannot find iceberg, nor romaine lettuce, so I ended up using Baguio cabbage, sliced thin. Its ok, but just not the same.
lettuce and the like are a bit expensive for ordinary folks but i’ve eaten really good salads made of pako, kangkong, singkamas, ubod, ampalaya which are more accessible price wise and easy to find in local wet markets.
This huge salad could not have cost much more than PHP120-130, and could easily have served 4. That’s an average cost of PHP30 per serving. Not even counting restaurants, this should be relatively reasonably priced for home consumption. And I ask the question in the context of folks already eating out at restaurants and who can afford a restaurant meal… This kind of salad should be on menus at say PHP90-120 for a single serving, as opposed to say a kalabasa or cream of squash soup at about the same amount. The reason restaurants are more likely to offer the soup is that it can be stored frozen and simply zapped when the client orders it. While salads have spoilage if unsold… So it isn’t purely cost issues, I guess…
Yum! Have you tried San Marino tuna fillet in water? It’s good. I find that it’s less malansa compared to century tuna. How did you make the mustard vinaigrette? Kindly include brands you used . Thanks :)
I thought you were referring to Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc reastaurant.
Yeah, that is rather delicious looking. Somebody mentioned Wendy’s salad, I remember in the old days folks would go to the salad bar and almost fill up the whole tray. There is an art to that packing, using the greens as the holder and hold the rest of the salad to a mound.
Does anybody remember the salad bar at the German restaurant on Makati Ave., I think it is Wienerwald or is it the Szwarsweilder (sp)?
But then again, hindi naman part ng eating habits ang green salad, more of ensalada like ensalang talong or pipino.
Thanks MM for sharing. Have you ever thought of having a lechonan sa North America?
Hi MM –
I love salads too, that’s why seeing this post really piqued my interest. I wonder though how you made the yolks in the boiled eggs so yellow! It’s amazing. I learned a trick from Rachael Ray where she said to heat water until it boils, place eggs in the boiling water for 5 minutes, take off fire and then leave for another 5 minutes. Eggs come out great, without the overcooked grey color but the yolks never come out that way. Care to share your secret? :) Thanks so much and will definitely try making this salad soon!
potatoes are not healthy!! :)
bumbleBee, use organic eggs, start them in cool water and bring them to a boil, then after 30 seconds to 60 seconds of boiling, turn heat off. Leave eggs in for say another 3 minutes and remove and let cool a bit before peeling. Dropping cool eggs into boiling water has a tendency to result in the egg shells cracking. Overcooking eggs results in the green/grey tinge at the edge of the yolk. I don’t have my “egg” reference book with me right now, and can’t explain all the science, but it has something to do with the albumen if I recall correctly. marilene, we don’t even have Manila in the plans, what more North America with some of the most stringent requirements for environmental, hygiene and other compliance issues! :) Jayjayv, some grey poupon dijon mustard into a small bowl say 1-2 teaspoons. Some red wine vinegar, salt and pepper. Mix with a small whisk or a fork. Then gradually add olive oil equivalent to 2x the volume of vinegar and whisk. Pour over greens and toss gently. Serve immediately. Do not OVERDRESS a salad… :)
Awesome! Thanks MM! :)
majority of filipinos do not eat vegetable. so the appreciation of a good salad is not there.
unless you are talking about macaroni salad.. ;)
i grew up from a household whose Papa is the cook ;) and being a soldier who served the military 13 years, he had gathered some survival skills! and that was feeding his family with all sorts of veggie salad – string beans, eggplants, alugbati, dabong (labong), saluyot (imagine this is ur salad!), puso ng saging, etc. etc. all local veggies…and the basic spices that he would add are sibuyas (red onion), kamatis and ginger, toyo and suka =) this is very provincial MM, but I’m one of the few Pinoys who would prefer veggie over meat – and should be part of my daily diet :)
i’m seeing an alugbati-looking veggie in ur salad, but maybe it’s not =)
Those who grew up in the provinces even up to now eat vegetables daily, with only a small amount of meat or fat. Usually it is fish or sometimes chicken for protein. However, these vegetables are in cooked form, rather than in raw or salad form.
It was only when I lived in the US when I learned to like vegetables in salad form.
Plus, the choice of salad greens even in Manila can be very limited. Hence, only a select few learn to eat salads, as illustrated.
We do have ensalada. Ampalaya. Pako. Kamote tops. Pepino.
Pinoys seem to be very sauce-oriented. Hence their versions of pasta are dripping with sauce. For salads their dressing almost drown the greens.
I don’t order salads in restos just because I know i can have more servings of it when I do it by myself at home. And I have a specific yen for the saltiness or tanginess of the dressing which I find lasking or too much in restos. And of course, I still have to pay for service charge etcetera…so I go for more hefty food. Yet, when I dine with a vegetarian friend, then we look for a resto that serves salads. But those are exceptions.
Hi MM. Salad Nicoise (and varients of) always very popular in this household. Actually mainly popular with me to be honest! It always seems relatively easy to find a range of ingredients for a salad. I am also a firm believer that a side dish of new or new-ish potatoes and (guilty pleasure number 1) mayonnaise go perfectly with a salad. By the way, your Thai take on salad Nicoise continues to be an absolute favourite. I thoroughly recommend this to anyone who has not tried it. Am with you and others on this – hard to find a good salad when dining out and generally they are done better at home.
If one is able to do it, there is nothing like harvesting your own salad greens from your own garden, even in container pots.
A chemist cousin will never eat raw salad greens because of the “cooties”. He says you don’t know the hands that harvested them and what happens between the farm and the grocery shelves or the purveyor.
yupyupz! just like mbw, i’d rather make my own salad because i get “bitin” when i order them at resto’s!
So that was the secret of vinaigrette!!! i usually try to use 1 cup oil for every 1/3 cup of vinegar! will try to use less oil this time (1 part vinegar and 2 parts oil as i was able to get from MM’s dressing for this salad) because my dressing keeps on separating after a very short time.
thanks again for the tips MM! :)
MM because I lack the cooking skills you it is hard for me to imagine that I can duplicate your salad without precise measurements. Nevertheless, ang sarap tingnan. Siguro ang sarap din.
I am so pleasantly surprised at the variety and availability of produce and specialty foods in the Philippines these days. And organic and sustainable growing? Unheard of twenty odd years ago when I left Manila. Now that’s progress!
Millet…just want to THANK YOU for sharing your canned sardine recipe a while back using pressure cooker. I made 2 cases of canned salmon using pressure canner/cooker…adjusted the recipe though and it tasted just like the portuguese style-olive oil only with lots of basil, red peppers, garlic, chorizo, hot peppers, carrot coins, seasoning. I am down to my last 2 bottles! I don’t thnk I will ever buy the store bought ones….now have to wait till next year for the next salmon run
A salad post!
The lack of good salads (and fruit!) in almost all of our restaurants is what has forced me to make my own at home.
Salads get short shrift in restos because of the unhappy combination of: unpredictable demand of salad from customers, relatively high prices of vegetables, and the short shelf life that fresh vegetables have. Any restaurant that would deign to offer good portioned salads for its customers may soon have large piles of expensive and rotting produce.
That said, these are the places that serve decent salad portions of which I enjoy:
1. Capriciossa (Connecticut and Greenbelt)
2. Piquant (RCBC)
3. CPK (the salad is so pricey though)
4. Philippines Travel Cafe (G5)
Making your own at home is still better :D
bettyq, nice to know that! salmon? my gulay, i’m jealous! did the bones get soft, too? yeah, that basic recipe is very flexible, you can do a lot of variations. a little lemon peel and some dill would be great too, or you can vary the type of peppers that you use. or you could make it adobo-style just for variety – some vinegar, soysauce and lots of garlic and peppercorns.
a bigger THANK YOU to you, bettyq, for all the recipes and tips you’ve shared here…i have done many of them successfully. like MM, you should be thinking about putting up a cookbook, too!
Fabian, I agree!!! CPK salads are great!
For salads, I find that simple is best. Carbonell olive oil with balsamic vinegar is always the easiest way to go. I saw that Carbonell now has sherry vinegar. Does anyone know what that can be used for?
..and bettyq, your salmon would be great in a salad!
I’m a Century Tuna fan…but only the Hot and Spicy and Flakes in Oil variants. For the San Marino brand, I only like Tuna Paella.
When lazy, I just go for Salad Time greens. Washing greens thrice, then using the salad spinner, then washing the salad spinner…that’s why I’m usually lazy to buy loose greens.
—-“which probably screwed up an entire generation or two of pinoys who now think that’s how a Cesar (Ceasar) salad should be made…”
Agree! Haha! Food and memory are so powerful that it makes one pine, crave for that old, familiar taste. I am guilty of indulging in oily calamares fritos only because it reminds me of “old school” Spanish restaurants in Manila or country club fare.
Long time no see, MM, but I have updated my Marketmanila readings. I missed a lot!
The salad in this post is quite a treat. I am not a greed salad fan but I will eat any green salad mix with relish or any mix with ruccola because I like its taste.
….that is why I am down to 2 bottles, Millet. I top my saladswith it. Yes, thebonesdid get soft exactly like the canned ones. I processed the jars for 1 1/2 hours. Hey, Millet….do this for DULONG! If I haveaccessto fresh dulong, I will do this….cover with olive oil, lots of garlic, bay leaf, ground pepper, some shallots, a littleserrano pepper, koshersalt …then pressure cook…I bet it will turn to DULONG Pate, no?
this salad looks gorgeous! I can not boil eggs like that…i’ll try the tips suggested. @ betty q/Millet: would you mind sharing that recipe for the canned sardine/salmon? it sounds fabulous as a salad topper! thanks!
Shane…Millet’s recipe is in archives…A Fishy Trail. What I did though is use sockeye salmon and chinook. For 2 sockeyes, prepare 12-500 ml.canning jars…wide mouth. Then remove head and tail of gutted sockeye. Cut in chunks removing the tinik (backbone) but not the spine. It will get soft in presuure cooker. You can leave the fins too.Now clean under cold running water making sure there is n trace of blood along the spine. Now, for every jar, I put about 3 large peeled garlic cloves, a few peppercorns, 1 bay leaf, about 2 to 3 basil leaves, strips of red pepper, a thin slice of chorizo de bilbao, some carrot coins, half a serrano pepper…then packed the salmon cchunks in there and added about 1 tsp. of kosher salt. Then filled the jar with olive oil leaving about 1 inch headspace….tap it on the counter or stuck a clean chopstick in the jar and swirled? to remove the air. Clean the rim and put snap lid (prepared according to package). and then the lid secured tightly….as tight as you can. Process in pressure cooker or canner. …1 1/2 hours when you see the steam.
Do this Shane on the next sockeye or chinook run next year and I guarantee you that you will never buy store bought canned salmon. I prefer the finished product though using chinook (spring) salmon. Next time, as Iwill vary the flavours like Millet suggested…Lemon-Pepper and Dill or Thai one using lemongrass…
Dear MM,
Got your e-mail about the turkey recipe. Looked it up and printed it out. Auntie, who will actually cook the bird, will have final veto power over the chosen recipe. Will let you know how it turns out if we do cook it using the Gourmet recipe. Thank you very much for your reply.
Don’t know if you and your family celebrate it when in the Philippines, but I wish you a happy Thanksgiving! There are always things to be grateful for.
God bless!
Sandy
Yeah, I agree with most comments above:
1.Salad greens variety are expensive,perishable and not readily available especially in the provinces
2. Filipinos indeed favor ensaladas of more hearty veggies in contrast with the western green leafy ones but we are learning fast because of globalization—what with many OFW’s—our palate is evolving
3.Re: common use of iceberg lettuce- because it is readily available and less perishable than the thin leaf ones
4. Most Filipinos are indeed partial to creamy dressings than vinaigrette
Anyway,here are some helpful tips I’ve learned(from readings) to extend the shelf life of salad greens:
1.Buy the freshest greens and when you get home wrapped each bunch in absorbent paper towels and put in your vegetable crisper
2.when you are ready to eat your greens, wash gently in cool water and then to rehydrate limp ones leave them in a bowl of ice water for a few minutes and it will be crisper again
3.I find the salad spinner very useful as it dries my greens excellently so my salad is not soggy and my dressing is not diluted
4.And at the end of the day and you find greens in your crisper unsuitable for a salad, zap it in a blender with good broth and a few aromatics, add to roux(butter and flour),add cream, and voila…..a creamy lettuce soup!Please just dont use the bitter ones! :)
Hi, Betty Q/Millet. Would just like to ask…what do you mean when you said process in pressure cooker? Should the jars be fully submerged in water? Sorry, I’m just starting to learn how to cook and this sounds easy. Thanks…=)
I was given a stash of organic lollorosa, romaine and arugula leaves yesterday which I improvised into a chicken inasal lettuce wrap dinner with worcestershire and sesame oil dressing. There was grilled bukaw-bukaw (a pink colored fish with bulging eyes and firm white flesh) so it also went inside the wraps. Stuff, wrap, dip and munch.
lee, did they come from the organic farm in Silay? yum.
When rehydrating limp, wilted leaves, don’t use ice cold water. In some cases the extreme cold can exacerbate the problem, just use tap water and make sure whole leaves are submerged, not just the stalks. 30 minutes in the water and it will be reasonbly crisp and fresh-looking again (not quite as good as the really fresh ones, but much better than eating wilted leaves). Even badly wilted leaves can be revived this way, but if they are bruised to start with, I’m afraid that doesn’t go away.
Happy and blessed Thanksgiving, MM and family and to the Market Manila family!
Hello Marketman. from another organic farm in Concepcion, Talisay.
Mudra…I have a 22 qt. pressure canner that can process or fit 12-500 ml. jars or 24 -250 jars. If what you have can fit only 6 to 7 250 ml. jars single layer, then bout 3 inches of cool water is enough. Howver, since my pressure canner/cooker can hold up to 12 500 ml. jars, DOUBLE layer, my water comes up to about halfway up the second layer of jars.
Are you going to use salmon? If you can find chinook or spring salmon or what they call tyee…use that. I much prefer the texture of the finished product. Remember to start timimg it once the thing starts to jiggle and there is a stedy flow of steam. If oyu are using pressure canner, gauge needed 10 pounds of pressure. But it can also be done in a pressure cooker. Millet uses a presuure cooker and so does my brother.
If it is for immediate consumpton, you need not process it in jars. Processing in jars is for long term storage. Millet just dumps everything in the pressure cooker.
betty q, thank you so much!
Happy Thanksgiving MM :)
Being an American expat in PH one of the many things I miss is being able to buy or find the right ingredients to make a decent salad (or a “Big Salad” to quote the Seinfeld show). Your blog for for me is a love hate relationship as in I hate that I can never seem to eat as well as you do here in PH ;-) Keep it up though!
in an article in the guardian written by cookbook writer fuschia dunlop, some chinese chefs visiting america complained of eating too much salad and “uncooked” food. apparently, culturally they found salads a bit “barbaric.” hehe. will check out the weekend markets this week and throw myself a version of this salad. yum!
MM, in case you didnt know, there is a regular supply of biodynamically farmed lollorosa, arugula and bay romaine in makati CBD area with one of my sustainably-farmed flowers supplier. Let me know if you need any! They fly it in from their farms twice a week.
I find salads from CPK really good.
Marketman, won’t you come to my event tomorrow: https://atasteofsanjuan.blogspot.com/2010/11/reyes-barbecue-blogger-event.html
I have heard that the most beautiful petite figured pretty, gorgeous ladies in the world are the French. I have been an assistant cook for almost 5 years in Saudi Arabia for the French employer, a decorator contractor for all the royal palaces in the Kingdom, and I have found out that they always have salad “a l’heure du dejeuner”, at lunch time. And I’m sure that’s what made their men and women look very healthy, fit, sexy and romantic. And when they happen to be in the Philippines for rest and recreational purposes they lost for certain their appetite and feel depressed in finding there is no salad on the table and think about shortening their stay and leaving for good.