Laing

Laing (or dried taro leaves) is one of my favorite spicy vegetable dish. This is cooked in coconut milk. I love it with pork or dried fish (daing). I remember my grandmother used to prepare this from scratch; getting ready by drying the stems and leaves under the heat of the sun. Once dried, she would cut the stem into about 2 inches, remove unwanted parts, then cut the leaves into small bite size pieces. Only then she would cook with coconut milk and add the other ingredients.

Pork Laing

Obviously we can not do such process here as only dried taro leaves in a plastic pack is available in Filipino stores in the city, which mostly are being imported from the Philippines. Thanks to them for making us feel like we’re home too :).

If you will notice, most of the ingredients that I used are just alternatives: dried instead of the fresh taro; coconut powder dissolved in water instead of the traditional kakang gata; and chili powder instead of fresh chili. Taste is still favorable to those lovers of Laing. 

Ingredients:

- 70gms dried taro leaves

- 1 cup of pork cut in cubes

- 12 tbsp coconut powder

- 4 cups of water

- ginger

- 1 tsp chili powder

- 1 tbsp shrimp paste

Procedure

- dissolve coconut powder in water

- in a pan, heat the dissolved coconut powder on medium heat

- add the pork and ginger and let boil until pork turns to light brown

- lower the heat and add the shrimp paste and chili powder

- let boil until coconut milk thickens

- add the dried taro leaves

- mix until taro leaves evenly combined with the sauce

- remove from heat and enjoy