Right after Victor finished demonstrating how his version of dinuguan was cooked, I decided to make a slightly different version with the remaining half of the innards. I started much the same way Victor did, using pork lard, sauteeing garlic onions and chopped green chilies. However, I omitted the green onions and added a touch of minced ginger instead. So if you check this earlier post, the early steps are nearly identical.
However after reading several recipes and watching this dish being cooked, I decided to try making a pork broth with lots of lemongrass. This aromatic broth was heady with aroma and flavor. This was then used in the dinuguan. Once the aromatics had sweated, I added in the finely minced internal organs, and unlike Victor, I added about a cup or more of minced blanched pig’s liver. I then added some of my stock and let this simmer for a few minutes. Then we added a few tablespoons of kikkoman, some salt and some more vinegar, three bay leaves and freshly cracked black pepper. Once this had boiled down a few minutes, we added a cup and a half of blood, and stirred until cooked. Oops, I forgot to mention somewhere in between we threw in whole green chilies as well.
The final product was a bit watery “malasaw” as I added too much broth or didn’t let it cook down enough. However, it still tasted pretty good, albeit now with that noticeable addition of liver. The chilies were uncharacteristically mild and I was a bit disappointed that despite the chopped and whole chilies, the dish lacked kick. I also noticed that maybe we had scrimped on the blood, since I was concerned I would run out — the second version is on the right in the photo up top, Victor’s version on the left. Another half cup of blood would have thickened up the sauce nicely. But I think my invented pork and lemongrass broth was a positive thing for the overall dish.
We intentionally froze part of this portion and I brought it to Manila where it was heated up at home and it looked wonderful the second time around. Next up, a really pleasant result from another dinuguan experiment… :)
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our dinuguan also had a lemongrass base, too! and it really does take out the lansa out of the innards. it also makes for a more aromatic stew. yum!
MM, its definitely dinuguan with ginger in our household. it removes the “lansa” of the innards and of the pig’s blood. but instead of liver, we add “lapay”, i think it’s called pancreas in english. lapay tastes like liver but remains soft even after cooking. another version of dinuguan we do at home uses “batchoy” ingredients, that is: heart, isaw, tito, lapay and lomo.
Our dinugu-an gets plenty of lemongrass and ginger and the cut of the innards are a little bigger and of course we add the sili, too. My favorite part is what we call the prepilya.
Sometimes, langka is added as filler.
i love dinuguan myself, but i cannot cook it because i get turned off by
the blood. our dinuguan version looks really good, mm. when i feel like
eating dinuguan and puto, i buy from red ribbon.
ooops, i meant your dinuguan, not our dinuguan…
After watching a youtube video on cooking dinuguan, I now add upo to the dinuguan stew. Its a great filler and adds a nice sweetness plus the vegie addition somehow lessens my cholesterol guilt.
now, it smells really great!! YUM! i like biting into small bits of ginger..
chocolate meat! yum!
oh just as I said in the other post hehe
@millet: Wow! i never thought of it that way! that’s why the color looked so familiar! xp
we should really make a compendium of the dishes that tastes better once they are frozen and reheated no? wouldn’t exporting dinuguan or adobo sound cool? :)
Ahhh at 12am I feel like a vampire, desperately in need of a dinuguan!
Hi MM, Jun B, do you have any idea where to get fresh pig’s blood in Singapore?
When i was younger, my mom would make dinuguan with larger chunks of innards instead of mincing them, though a bit watery, it was perfectly seasoned/flavored paired with a plate of steaming rice… but she wouldn’t dare to cook it nowadays because she says “blood is life”… :(
I would, sometimes, sneak off to eat at Goldilocks (downside: hardly any innards), which had thicker versions with bits of pork fat, perfectly paired up with their puto… ahhh… :)
Hopefully there’s a way to mimic the taste and texture of pig’s blood in a faux-dinuguan so i won’t have to end up sneaking behind mom’s back all the time if i had dinuguan cravings. :(
millet, I tell my american friends “it’s chocolate soup”!! lol
tonceq I ‘ve tried canned chicken adobo I bought from the asian store (it wasn’t that good and it has a metallic after taste) so I think it is possible to do canned dinuguan.
Ummm, your version MM looks more like the kind of dinuguan I am used to seeing while Victor’s seems more well prepared…lol. Waiting for part 3.
@satomi…I thought calling dinuguan ‘chocolate soup’ or ‘chocolate meat’ was a ploy for parents to make their kids eat Filipino food.
In Ilocos, sukang Iloko and salt are immediately added to the fresh blood to have a thick consistency. The intestines are fried until crisp before adding the blood then simmered until almost dry.
i love dinuguan not because i came from roxas city, capiz, :-) would definitely try your best recipe when i get home to mandaluyong come august, yipeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyy, thanks mm.
Here at home, instead of using tanglad to take out the raw taste, we boil the innards with some vinegar and add fresh or dried kamias for contrast. :)
I don’t know if it’s a good or a bad thing when I check your posts this early in the morning, just when I am about to sleep. I can’t help but cook something to satisfy my cravings from looking at those pictures!
@millet – we too call dinuguan ‘chocolate meat.’
‘Finally found pigs’s blood at our local Asian store but still cannot make it due to gout attack!
different folks, different strokes.. I make my dinuguan slightly thicker so more blood. we also add some chopped coagulated blood to it. now am getting hungry…
Dinuguan is my favorite food as long as I can remember. My lola used to cook dinuduan using pork meat only, no innards, and with unripe papaya. Yum!
@ Jake, wet market doesn’t sell pig bloods anymore. There is only one Pig abattoir in Singapore where the live pig comes from riau, Indonesia. If you know a pig distributor you can probably request from them. Although the intestines are available at the wet market and what I do whenever there is someone coming from Philippines is to sneak in a cup ot two of boiled pigs blood :)
i love diniguan. the best one is prepared by the wife of my cousin in quezon. it’s the kind of dinuguan that you can eat even without rice or puto. i love dinuguan when there’s ‘taba’. yumyum
@junb -thanks for the info. i guess i have to wait for my next trip back home for my dinuguan craving.
I believe lapay is spleen. It is also used as an ingredient of lapaz bachoy and in making kilawing labanos, which my grandma used to pair with kare-kare. Our dinuguan always contains native vinegar and siling haba.
@ jake some of the shop at lucky plaza they do sell a dinuguan. What I’ll do is buy 2-3 servings ask them more soup then mix it at home with innards and season It according to my desire taste :)
I will definitely try this tomorrow!!! Salamat MM!!!
Like adobo, laing …dinuguan is good the next day reheated. always use native vinegar it tastes a lot better than the U.S. made vinegars.
We Bicolanos put coconut milk in our dinuguan. But first, we slightly scorched the coconut meat before extracting its milk. And viola, a creamy dinuguan!
lemongrass, interesting. yes i believe that would have really benefited the dish.as for the name, some say chocolate soup, my family calls it chocolate meat. it gets the kids to try it in the beginning and then they’re hooked!
Ahh! Dinuguan! One of the best Filipino dishes ever invented! Too bad most foreigners often look with aversion at this dish and miss out on a very beautiful and tasty dish.
Dinuguan is one of my favorite dishes….I eat mine with rice, banana, and a sprinkling of rock salt!
MM, does this mean you have gotten over your “hibe-hibe” over dinuguan?
I only ate my mom’s dinuguan because I knew what she put in it. It also did not “smell” like some of the ones at partys. Anyway, I had to cook this one time per my mom’s instructions and after having to mix the raw blood with some vinegar it just wasn’t the same for me anymore. Funny how we watch people who are foreign to this eat it with great pleasure until they find out what it is!! MM, I like your experiments with dishes…Throw Down with MM!
Sorry, off-topic sa dinuguan…
@Kakusina: How do you cook lapay in your own home? GF’s mother makes adobo sa lapay (basically adobo + slices of spleen) that is paired with steamed kamote leaves and bagoong alamang (blanched with a squeeze of kalamansi)… Do you like lapay? I personally don’t like its sandy texture, though it tastes like a mild cousin of liver.
Due to unavailability of fresh pig’s blood, I use Black Pudding instead for dinuguan. Taste very much the same, but not authentic. I think lemongrass, ginger, and filipino vinegar are essential ingredients.
it makes me crave for a great tasting dinuguan. the other day my mother-in-law gave us some but it wasn’t the dinuguan taste we want. my wife and i want dinuguan on the sour side. with fats as well. i would prefer it with more kick. i wonder, if i can cook dinuguan by myself. all i have to do is find a vendor of innards and pig’s blood that i can trust. can anyone give me some tips on how to buy innards? MM, did you use pork broth cubes for your broth?
Off-topic: Kasseopeia – the talbos ng kamote with kalamansi and bagoong seems good. i would try this one. i am used to having suka with bagoong for dipping when eating talbos. thanks.
In Penaranda, Nueva Ecija, we cooked dinuguan without vinegar, instead we use USBONG NG SAMPALOK; and we call it TINUMIS.