Batchoy Tagalog

A pork innard soup thickened with blood and finished with misua, with no noodle bowl to it.

Pork. Not vegetarian — contains fish sauce, pork.

Ingredients

• 600 g pork innards, in small pieces
• 300 g pork belly, in small dice
• 250 ml pig's blood, strained
• 150 g misua noodles
• 80 g fresh ginger, in fine matchsticks
• 1 onion, chopped
• 8 garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1.5 litres water
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 0.5 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 bunch spring onions, sliced

Method

1. THIS IS A BROTH, NOT A NOODLE BOWL. The batchoy already on this site is a bowl of miki noodles with toppings arranged on it. This is a soup of innards thickened with blood, and the misua goes in at the very end as a few threads through the liquid rather than as the body of the dish.
2. A GREAT DEAL OF GINGER, in fine matchsticks, and it is the defining flavour rather than a background note. Innards and blood without it read as flat and metallic.
3. Rinse the innards in several changes of cold water with salt, rubbing them, until the water runs clear, then blanch 5 minutes and discard that water.
4. Fry the pork belly in the oil, 8 minutes, until the fat has run and the dice have browned.
5. Ginger, garlic and onion in, 4 minutes.
6. Innards in, turned over 3 minutes. Fish sauce over them.
7. Water in. Simmer covered 45 minutes, until everything gives under a knife. Skim for the first 10 minutes.
8. Heat right down to a bare shiver. Blood in, in a thin stream, stirring in one direction the whole time. 12 minutes at that heat, stirring often and scraping the bottom. Boiled, it goes grainy.
9. MISUA IN FOR THE LAST 90 SECONDS ONLY. It is wheat thread and it dissolves: two minutes too long and the soup is paste.
10. Pepper and a handful of spring onion in each bowl. Serve at once -- the misua keeps softening in the pot.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Philippines · All recipes