Binignit

Binignit is a vegetable soup from the Visayas. The dish is generally served hot though it can also be eaten cold. In Luzon, a similar dish is called ginataang bilo-bilo

Binignit is a popular Cebuano afternoon snack though, traditionally, it is served during the Holy Week especially on Good Friday. 

Yesterday's binignit, cooked using muscovado sugar.

Today's binignit, cooked using brown sugar.

Ingredients:

taro (the purple variety, cubed)

cardaba (sliced in thick circles; 5 or 6 slices per fruit) or saba (Musa acuminata × Musa balbisiana) is a triploid hybrid banana cultivar originating from the Philippines. 

sweet potatoes (usually the yellow/orange variety, cubed)

brown / muscovado sugar 

sago pearls / tapioca pearls (soaked in water)

landang (soaked in water) comes from the Buli or Buri tree (Corypha utan), a type of palm found in the Philippines and other tropical countries.

coconut milk (diluted and undiluted)

Landang

Sago pearls in traffic light colors.

How to cook:

1. In a large pot, pour the diluted coconut milk. Drain the landang and add to the coconut milk. Bring to a boil. Stir the liquid every now and then to avoid the landang from burning and sticking to the pot.

Unripe cardaba

2. Add the taro and cook until soft. Do not stir while cooking the taro. Stirring the cooking taro would make it itchy to the tongue.

3. Drain the sago pearls and add to the pot. Add the cardaba.

4. Add the sugar. 

5. Lastly, add the undiluted coconut milk—adjusting it to the amount of binignit being cooked. Bring to a boil and serve.

You may have noticed that I did not use measurements on the recipe above. I have watched people cooking, assisted in cooking and cooked binignit but no one really measures the ingredients. Binignit is usually cooked for a large group of people—usually in a large cooking pot and cooked to one’s taste.

Variations to the recipe include adding glutinous rice, strips of jackfruit meat, anise or all three to the soup.

Yesterday, Maundy Thursday, we had binignit for snack. Today we are having the soup for lunch—we just can’t get over a bowl of binignit.

As of this writing, I am enjoying a bowl of binignit and, almost everyone in Cebu is cooking or enjoying their binignit.