This is Visayan “comfort food†at its finest. The essence of this dish is burned into the memory banks of anyone who grew up in Cebu and the rest of the Visayas. As a kid, we used to visit our grandmother in Cebu and despite her being generous in every respect food wise, nearly every single meal served in her home included either a version of this utan (vegetable) dish or a soup with malunggay which has the same earthy taste, and I absolutely ABHORRED it at the time! But because we were showered with lechon, consilva (caramelized bananas), fruits, ice cream and broas (ladyfingers), you just had to grin and bear this soup/vegetable staple. Not to mention the gentle lecture on how nutritious it was and how brilliant our bodies would be if we consumed enough of it (she lived into her early 90’s)!
This dish was a fixture at her meals. It was used to “lubricate†the rice and to soften the contents of your plate into a near porridge-y mush. The dominant flavor was that of the malunggay leaves that is earthy and pungent. 
Worse, if you are obsessing about it, the texture of the leaves is somewhat slimy as well. Recently, I have spent a lot of time in Cebu and have learned to appreciate this simple yet surprisingly complex dish now that I have passed the age of 40… I decided to set out to cook the mother of all utan recipes, and with the help of our cook, Jane, present here the most chi-chi version you will probably ever read about… You see, utan is one of those dishes that every home has a version of and it is often highly dependent on what is in the larder, garden out back, or in the market. At its simplest, it is a broth flavored with dried or fresh fish, with some squash, beans, taro, and leafy green vegetables (malunggay essential).
For this utan experiment, I assembled the most number of ingredients I could get 
my hands on: kalabasa (squash), labong (bamboo shoots), gabi (taro), sitaw (yard long beans), okra, daing (dried fish), talong (eggplant), malunggay (horseradish tree leaves), green onions, alugbati (Malabar Nightshade), coconut milk and salt. The bamboo shoots were julienned and parboiled. Everything else was peeled or cleaned and cut into bite sized pieces. The malunggay was removed from their stems. To make, boil up some water and cook the squash until firm tender. Add the labong, gabi, sitaw, okra, and talong until just cooked. Add the dried fish, some rock salt and finally the malunggay, green onions and alugbati. Serve just a few minutes later piping hot. Cebuanos like to eat this with binlud or a mixture of ground corn and rice. Don’t leave the dried fish in there for too long or it will disintegrate.
It is hard to describe the flavor of this dish but once you have had the dish, you can’t forget it. Some find it too earthy, bitterish and unpalatable. I find the squash sweetens it up and the taro thickens the broth while the dried fish taste is very noticeable. 
The malunggay can overwhelm so temper the amount if you like. Overall, for something that takes just minutes to prepare, it has a deep complex hearty and satisfying taste. I suppose you could also add some long green chilli and that would be a nice. It seems to go best with some fried fish and rice. While many would consider this a “common” dish, I am intrigued by all of the terrific vegetables that goes into it and the resulting dish that is clearly one of the “good things†home cooking has to offer in the Visayas.
Many folks have this dish just as I described it above. Or with varying degrees of vegetables that make it a humble broth to a fancy upgraded version in the photographs 
here. However, another simple provincial version adds some fresh coconut milk at the end to thicken the dish and make it nearly an “all-in-one†robust dish photographed here. The thickened soup seems to blend the flavors better and the mouthfeel is also slightly different with the addition of the coconut milk. While I have really rather taken a liking to this utan concoction, you can imagine the faces my daughter will make if I ask her to eat a bowl of it… hmmm, maybe when she hits 40! Do any of you folks have interesting variations on this dish? I would be curious to hear about any versions you recall that are particularly delicious!
53 Responses
although our family is from manila, i grew up in davao, so i remember two things we would request our helpers to make when we were tired of my mom’s spanish cooking – utan, which is called law-oy in davao, and “odong” (thin noodles) sauteed with sardines. for the law-oy, i like to use whole tinapang tamban, or i boil the tinapa heads and mash and strain them before adding to the gulay…adds a smoky dimension to the broth. i also like ampalaya instead of labong.
MarketMan, is odong a purely visayan thing? i strongly suspect the name comes from the japanese udon – davao had a big japanese community and plantations before the war. mow it’s one of my kids’ favorite breakfast food on rainy days. i haven’t seen it anywhere in luzon.
glad you featured this very healthy native dish here. like what i wrote on your dried fish feature (with the maggots), we call it bas-oy or binas-oy. My mother would also do it with the coconut milk version, very filling and nourishing indeed.
i just had my lunch but looking at your pics, i could eat a plateful of that, with rice, of course.
Market Man, can you also feature the sayote some time? Isn’t that a vegetable that grows only in the Philippines? I may be wrong, somebody correct me, pls.
Lots of sayote in Mexico too, known as chayote, that’s where we got it from…it was actually believed to have been cultivated by the Aztecs! I am not sure where you are located but you should be able to get this in many different countries. In the U.S. it is called mirliton or also referred to elsewhere as custard marrow, christophine, etc. according to Alan Davidson’s book on vegetables… millet, you got me on the odong…I don’t think I have ever had that…bizarre…I am curious now!
Great job Marketman! I’m from Bago, Negros Occidental and laswa is how we call this back home. We have this daily in our fare back then. Very nutrituous and healthy. My Mom who hails from Bgo, is still hale and healthy at 81 from eating this utan! I applaud you for featuring this veggie dish!!!!
If you like bitter melon. You can put some. Saluyot leaves, don’t know the tagalog name and all other kinds of leafy vegetables you can put. Squash tendril would be great option.
mr market man, isn’t that LASWA? looks like it tho.
isn’t alugbate a beet? heheheh
daw ensakto si Lizzie sang ginhambal niya nga ang utan nga sabaw daw laswa sa Bacolod cuisine….
hmmm… have you tried KBL? (kadyos-baboy-langka) i think it’s visually unappealing but my mom swears by its taste….
hope you put more visayan cuisine…
oooooh! nothing like laswa and kbl!!! i will have the authentic one sooon! puli ko bacolod!!!! yey!
maddie: waahhh… maupod ko sa imo!!! :) patugon na lang ko piaya from Bailon’s and Dulce Gatas…. miss the place tho. Isn’t it curious that there’s no one here in Manila that specializes Bacolod pastries (or had tried transplanting it here.) Roli’s napoleones lang nakikita ko sa Megamall…. yumyum
i love binlud when it just been cooked with utan binisaya.. hay kalami ani!!
we try to do this here in Athens bisag wala kamunggay
basta naay okra dangug ug gamay lami na basta naay pritong isda.
This is very similar to the Ilocano dinengdeng..but the “sagpaw” is a grilled hito, or a part of it – not the shadow from a flashlight shone on the fish like the old joke – and fish bagoong to flavor it. And yes, like utan, the dinengdeng vegetables are totally dependent on the household and cook. I miss alugbati..can’t even think of a substitute for it.
Thanks for translating “alugbati” and “malunggay” Market Man! These “jungle” vegetables are simply impossible to find in the U.S. (even in NY!). But now that I know their English names, maybe I could find seeds and plant them this spring. Har. Speaking of Cebuano favorites, would you happen to have a killer ngo hiong recipe?
Julsitos,
Nahidlaw man gid ako sang laswa. Maluto ko sa Sabado sina kag KBL with batwan! Buenas man diri sa Boston kay mabakal mo tanan sa Chinatown, either in can or preska gid bala. Nahidlaw ako sa mga pagkaon sa Bacolod especially kalamay hati and inasal gid ya. Thank you, thank you Marketman for featuring laswa. Hope you will feature more Visayan recipes!
hello Mr.MM…the picture above looks so yummy…i remember my mother cook a similar food as yours but she uses aside from the dried fish, is the crabs or alimasag. The vegetables usually include the kalabasa, sitaw, okra, talong, talbos ng kamote and malunggay and then she will put sili and coconut milk and i love this dish especially when its a bit “hot” because of the sili…hmmmm, i am getting hungry now…
Like Mita said, without the gata this is like the Ilocano dinengdeng, where every conceivable hardy vegetable is mixed in. But I’ve had something like your utan, newly cooked over a woodfire in the public market of Siquijor, and it was fabulous. A real tummy-filler, and I raved about it for days, although my Cebuano companion said he’s had better utan in Cebu.
MM,am sure your bol-anon staff would know about odong..saute a can of sardines in plenty of garlic, onions and tomatoes, and then add water, and when the whole thing is boiling, add odong noodles. turn off heat when it boils again, serve hot. i don’t care much for it, but my kids love it with pan de sal. i told them it’s the bisaya version of italian pasta/bread soup. (or a tomatoey fideos soup, perhaps?)
Millet, how brilliant of you, yes they all know about it and do cook it. Apparently, the odong noodle is available in Cebu and the south but they haven’t found a source here. Without the right “odong” noodle they substitute this with either misua or sotanghon but they do prefer the “original” odong noodle. Geez, yet another thing I gotta try…but believe it or not I am not a HUGE fan of sardines…
marketman isnt it that in australia the chayote is called chokos? i also see it in oriental stores here in canada, not sure what its called here though.
thanks marketman for featuring a vegetable dish for the conscience of pork eaters like me. this utan dish or “laswa” as we call it here is the cheapest viand you can get from the local neighborhood carinderia at five pesos per serving.
Sa kay lizzie, maddie kag julsitos, kamusta lang da kag kabay pa nga mangin manamit ang pagluto nyo sang KBL. May batwan sa boston???? baskug ah!
Mr. Marketman… Are you familiar with “batwan”? It’s a small greenish to olive colored fruit used as souring ingredient here in Bacolod. I was told it comes from huge acacia and tamarind like trees. I’m really tempted to google it up but i really have a strong feeling that i would get this response: “Did you mean: batman”.
Mr. Marketman, pasensiya na po pero off-topic ito (i wasn’t able to resist): about the Batwan, is it the same fruit as the Garcinia cambogia? It looks the same tho. If it is, then we are sitting on top of an untapped source of anti-obesity meds. It’s hydroxycitric acid content can induce weight loss and loss of appetite daw. In Bohol daw according to Ponchit Ponce-Enrile, these an abundance of the fruit but the fruit is not used for cooking.
https://www.raysahelian.com/garcinia.html
https://www.seasite.niu.edu/TAGALog/Tagalog_Default_files/Philippine_Culture/Pagkaing%20Pilipino/philippine_fruits.htm
rina, yes I think you are correct that chokos is another name for sayote…it’s quite common and really easy to grow in warmer climates. lee, HELP! I was planning to zip by Bacolod for a two day eat fest with my family…trip 70% sure, have any recommendations what I should eat and where?
juls and lee, I have heard of batwan but I don’t know much about it…
MM, in Bacolod, try Roli’s napoleones (across La Salle), Virgie’s (for pasalubong like mango tartlets, cheese tarts, cinammon twist), Calea (for the cakes!), Bob’s (for the Sate Babe), Chicken House (on Lacson) and my uncle’s Cafe Uma (Negros showroom). Bacolod is all about food for me (and family too hehe)
Batwan is abundant in Samar where Im from. It’s shaped like a pumpkin, through very tiny (a bit bigger than kalamansi) and green and solid. In Samar, we make it into achara, or to sour fish tinola. We dont realy make sinigang in samar, more like a sour version of tinolang fish or shrimp, the batwan being the one making it sour (though not as strong as kalamansi, but tangy flavor). The atsara version is good too :)
Makatululo laway ang itsura sg laswa mo MM. i think all Ilonggos here who are far from home surely miss this dish. I am from Iloilo but now lives in Bacolod since I am now working here. Though I eat laswa oftentimes but I do miss my nanay’s cooking. I think your laswa lacks “tugabang” which makes the broth slimy. I don’t know what you call that in English or Tagalog. Laswa goes well with pinamalhan nga isda.
For those craving for batwan, I think ECJ Farms (Danding Cojuanco’s)has bottled batwan. Haven’t tried it though since I’m more of an eater than a cook. =)
Food like this makes me long for Bacolod where I grew up having this kind of food. My mom would make use of: papaya, tugabang (saluyot), string beans, eggplant, okra, alugbati… and if my memory serves me right, with tomatoes. Of course, the shrimp, otherwise guinamos. It is often served in our household with grilled or fried fish. Hidlaw na gid ako :)
Hi marketman. I used to have a lot of this utan when I was living in Iligan with my parents pre-college days. I’ve totally forgotten about this dish until I saw the picture and immediately remembered the taste in my mind. It used to make me very sad if I came home for lunch (after walking maybe a kilometre under the heat of the high sun) from my high school to sometimes find this utan and some fried fish as the viand for the day. Maybe it was the combination of being in the hot sun to immediately sitting down to some hot utan that didn’t work for me. :) great site you have here. Been reading your posts during breaks. Cheers!
Julsitos,
Batwan lang wala diri sa Boston. Pero siling ni Gladita may bottled na batwan made by ECJ Farm. I’ll tell my relatives to send me dayon gid. Nothing beats laswa sa akon gid ya!
Hello, mmmm the color of the vegetables so appetizing and the fish perfectly fried, MM, i tried to bring dehydrated Malunggay leaves and it works.
A lot of peeople here in the west of France including my husband do not eat much of green vege’s .. their staple food during the old times are potatoes and the buckwheat crèpes.
Thanks for sharing.
Bettina,
Could “batwan” possibly be a tomatillo?
Lizzie: Yup. ECJ should import batwan to Boston!
MM: You should not miss Calea for its cakes when you’re in Bacolod. There’s a resto within a garden behind the Negros Showroom which had good reviews from columnist Rina David. Pala-pala (Dampa-style) from last I’ve heard ’twas demolished; dunno kun san linipat. In Chicken House, you should try their spare ribs! For pasalubong, Sugarlandia’s & Totong’s are highly recommended. (It’s not as commercialized as Bong-bongs.) For the best gourmet Piaya, go to Bailon’s in Dawis (Downtown area) And for dulce gatas, you can pick one at Pendy’s.
I miss this dish so much (both with and without the gata)! I grew up in Mindanao, and could only come home for a short vacation during holiday breaks and strategically scheduled work leaves. But my father, knowing how much I love the dish, would prepare it together with the all familiar gentle sermon, “maayo nang utan sa inyoang lawas aron di mo pirmi magsakit. didto sa manila wa’y inani mao nang kaon gyud mo ug daghan…”
Another variation would be fresh shrimp and other seafood (such as sea grass, or shells) instead of bulad. It is not anything like the sinigang na hipon (I only learned to eat ” very sour” sinigang when I started living in Manila). My father does include tomatoes, but the end result has a nice, fresh, a a bit sweet taste to it because of the fresh vegetables and the shrimp.
In our household in Cebu where I grew up anything that includes malunggay ( kamunggay, we call it) is called utan. Almost always there is also gabi or ube in it, then agbate, sayote kangkong, string beans, green squash bell pepper ( though not at the same time). Sometimes even puso ng saging. It all depends what kind of meat goes in. Mostly it’s fish either fried, grilled or tinapa is used, never fresh. Fresh fish is cooked as tinola with tomatoes or young tamarind or guavas but not with malunggay. We do chicken, prawns and pork with our utan as I was not fond of buwad then. When chicken is used ginger is added to the mix.
Chayote as labeled is very common in NYC esp. in the stores that cater to Spanish people. it is usually sold as 4 for $1.
yes, chayote (US/mexico) = sayote (RP) = choko (Australia) = mirliton (American South, Georgia, N Carolina etc)
There is a similar dish to yours that i sort of invented and which i enjoy occasionally. It is sort of a shrimp, yellow squash and longbean curry with malunggay and coconut milk. i often add most of the veggies you mentioned above to it, and since i love chilli, i throw in about a dozen ‘siling pangsigang’ as well. aside from curry powder (sauteed with th asian trinity of onions,garlic,ginger) i add a teaspoon of Indian chilli powder (from Assad’s on UN ave) to further ante up the heat.
this is a meal in itself for me, you don’t even need the fried fish, just heaps of steaming white rice.
lots of places to eat at along lacson street. cafe uma’ is good, calea has coffee and cake, 21st restaurant has good batchoy though i haven’t been there since they renovated, Pendy’s for dulce gatas as what juls suggests, yeah chicken house for spareribs…
my more adventurous palate would lead to some cheap hole-in-the-wall places.. 25 pesos bicol express, killer soup at saning’s. but that’s just me, the carinderia king. yeah…
i am kapampangan but i appreciate that UTAN, Namit bay grabe manyaman talaga takman yu abe! Thanks Marketmanila more power!
my mom makes the Laguna version of this dish, which I meant to prepare this week except I’ve only got kalabasa, sitaw and talong — i’m all out of alugbati as it’s wintertime, but i plan to plant some more again this year. no okra:( unless i want to settle for frozen, which i don’t. i’m planning to have it with some fried dilis and sinangag — yum!!! this is very similar to a malaysian dish, but i forget the name. will comment again if i remember.
stefoodie, where do you get alugbati?
for your Bacolod trip MM, I’m not sure if its still there but when I lived in Bacolod I used to eat a lot in this place called Aboy’s Camalig, simple homecooked but really good meals. maybe the negrenses can let you know if its there still? if diwal is available, do try it. don’t forget to go to El Ideal in Silay City for their guapple pie, fresh lumpia and the old world biscochos
Hi again! The utan you described looks like LASWA in Ilonggo cuisine. Aboy’s Camalig serves really good home-cooked meals. For those who might be visiting Bacolod in the near future, you might also want to try Imay’s for equally good home-cooked meals! For authentic chicken inasal, please try the Manokan strip at the reclamation area. I would suggest Lion’s Park. Also try Calea’s for the delicious cakes, Bob’s for fine dining. Unfortunately the Pala Pala has been demolished, and the newer version does not even come close to the original Pala Pala. The oysters are very good at this time of the year, tambok tambok! yum!
my mom cooks it this way (without coconut milk) and she calls it bulanglang. she’s batanguena….
iska, yes, apparently many regions have their version of this satisfying dish. I, too, learn so much every day from the comments of readers like yourself and look forward to reading them for every post that I place… thanks!
I call this pinakbet. I either cook it with shrimp bagoong or perucho bagoong. SOmetimes I cook it too with coconut milk. I also add dahon ng kamote, dahon ng ampalaya, dahon ng sitaw, dahon ng chayote or chinese spinach, which ever is available in the oriental store or in the farmer’s mkt near me…I like butternut or cabocha squash with dried shrimp cook in coconut milk and spicy. I prefer eating cold vegetables cooked in coconut milk with hot rice and bagoong on the side…
MM,
You just made me MISS my mother even more. Whenever I write to her I keep reminding her that I miss her cooking. Thanks for posting this. I will try to make it soon. Sniff..
Laswa is my husband’s most favorite childhood “ulam” and he still rues the fact that I don’t know how to make it. Aside from the lack of proper ingredients (especiallly “tugabang”) where we live, I simply don’t know how despite my Ilonggo father-in-law teaching me. With this post and the follow-up comments, I am encouraged to try my hand on this and hopefully our little ones will love it, too. Thank you, Market Man.
wow!! utan!! hehe!! i really dont like eating utan because i like meat, but since then i saw the pictures above.. i think im starting to like it though^^,.. padayun sa imong site teng!!
yes, lain gd ya basta ilonggo ang magluto sang utan. just this evening,I prepared this utan- unripe green papaya, saluyot, malunggay leaves, okra and shrimps. Shrimp juice is extracted by pounding head & tail of the shrimp and squeezing juice out of it. My husband who is not a tru-bloodied Ilonggo sure like the way I cooked it and ask me to cook another utan the next day.
Kanamit guid kaayo tulo laway ko.
There are few other names pertaining to “Malunggay”
1. Horseradish Tree Leaves as mentioned by the author of this page.
2. “Kamunggay” in Cebuano Version, I am not familiar with the Hilonggos term.
3. Drumstick Tree Leaves and
4. The scientific terms is “Moringa Oliefera”
I think there are more different terms particularly in our own country since we have 200 dialects all over the Philippines.
As a “Bisoy†I always referred this as “Kamunggayâ€. Anyway, my purpose of this contribution is to help us to find this item in mainland U.S.A. I knew that this tree are plenty in Christiansted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Island. I was told by my brother that it can be found everywhere and nobody is harvesting it. I wish I can find it where I am now presently. But I doubt that this trees would grow in the winter areas.
My son, Andres, who was born in Australia loves his ‘utan bisaya sabaw and rice’. My mother adds tangkong and a spoonful of ginamos for seasoning instead of the salt. I use the same recipe but with 1 or 2 anchovy fillets, as we don’t have ginamos in Darwin, Australia. It does not have the bisaya umppph, though. Has anyone tried eating maiz (Cebuano version of the couscous)with this? It’s a must.
about the “odong,” if its a plain and simple ginisang sardines with sotanghon then it’s a pretty common dish in baguio and la union. but it has no particular name to it
about the “laswa”,tip#1 you can try also suwahe (white shrimp) instead of dried fish or dried shrimp to flavor the broth…you know eventhough im bicolana in nature id really love to eat and cook laswa coz im fond of eating veggies, tip#2 you can soak the sliced okra first before cooking it, then the water you used in soaking you can use that for the soup broth,instead of plain water and adding tugabang(saluyot)for slimy effect of the broth why not try my tip, used the soak water from the sliced okra, guaranteed the soup is slimy in consistency…