Kangkong – Never Out Of Season

Any dish using kangkong should be popular these days, as the water-loving vegetable is the only one in abundance at public markets; all other vegetables from the lowlands and the mountains have been damaged by typhoons and the habagat rains.

3 TYPES FOR ALL SEASONS – Kangkong grows almost everywhere, and this is evident in the three distinct types sold in the Philippines.

Camote Tops Salad

Trim a bunch of camote tops and rinse with top water.Put it in a casserole and add 1/2 cup of water. Set the stove in medium heat and let it boil for about 2 minutes. Drain. Transfer it to a serving dish. Garnish it with 1 clove of sliced onion, tomato and ginger.  

Add 6 tbsp. of vinegar and bagoong (fish sauce) to taste. Mix well and serve.

Pako Salad

Pako (edible fern) can be cooked in many ways. One of my wife's favorites is the pako salad (edible fern sallet). It is one of the easiest dishes to prepare. All you need is to blanch 1 bundle of pako with a boiling water for approximately 4 minutes, just enough for the pako to be half cooked so that it remains to be crunchy.Then add 1 clove chopped onion,  tomato, ginger  and the seasonings: 6 tbsp. vinegar, approximately 1 tbsp. fish paste (bagoong) to taste, and 1/2 teaspoon monosodium glutamate.     

Nutritional Benefits of Pako (Edible Fern)

Most of us would think that ferns are just ornaments used for floral arrangement. You can see ferns in most gardens and they grow as fast as the grass. But who would have thought that this fern can actually become edible. In our country, we call fern as pako. 

Pako has the scientific name of Athyrium esculentum. It belongs to family of fern. The very common use is for different vegetable cookings like adobo and ginisa. It can also be served as salad.

Pako is a good source of calcium, phosphorus, iron and vitamin B. Decoction of rhizomes, young leaves and sugar is good for haemoptysis and for ordinary coughs.