Salted egg ice
cream, anyone?

The Good Life with Eli F.J. Tajanlangit

Sometime ago, when Good Friend C suggested I put a speck of dried fish on a bite of brazos de Mercedes, I winced. Dried fish on delicately done egg-and-sugar brazos? It was unthinkable and I guess the fact that the dried fish was tabagak helped made it even more so.  The mental image the idea created did not quite cut properly.

I had gingerly tried that one, expecting thunder and lightning in my mouth and earthquakes in my stomach. Nothing of the sort happened. In fact, although I did not immediately admit it, it was actually good: the saltiness added another layer of taste and texture to the sweet, soft and smooth brazo. Of course the tabagak was the premium sort, one that only Good Friend J, with his inimitable wet market wisdom could pick out.  There was no fishy smell to it, and the flakes that were yielded were firm and good so that its destiny with the brazos came off beautifully. 

I bet some eyebrows will go up with that idea. In fact, I won’t be surpised if some will go “ewwww!” with the thought of eating brazos with dried fish.

But don’t dismiss, nor condemn  it too soon. Some of the new things that are coming out of our chefs’ kitchens are seemingly outrageous ideas like this tabagak on brazos.

A lot of those outrageous ideas are done with the ice-cream maker.  I recently read about an ice cream line the included bacon flavored and green peppers variants. I don’t know how these come off, I haven’t had the opportunity to try them out.  But I understand  the business is still there, and is in fact thriving, so I guess it has attracted customers beyond the curiousity level. Of course there has always been green jalapeno jelly, an old homemade delight that continues to thrill, although no one seems to have done that on a commercial scale locally.

I recently tried salted egg ice cream. Gorgeous. It is part of an artisan ice cream line that also included  a sea salt caramel variant – that’s caramel and asin nga bahol – rough salt – in our dialect.  There is also an azuki tikoy variant.

Now how did salted egg, more popularly known locally as red egg, or guinamos nga itlog, get into ice cream? And a Pinoy ice cream line at that? The salted egg, of course, has always been an important Pinoy deli item, but it is traditionally used as appetizer, or palate teaser, served with red, juicy tomatoes. Although people eat it anytime of the day, it is a usual breakfast number.

In ice cream, salted eggs  work very, very well with fresh milk and sugar. Its saltiness is still there, but somehow dissipates in the frozen sweetened fresh milk. The yolk has been crumbled, and they provide interesting texture in the ice cream, you know, little soft and salty bits that the tongue must press to dissolve.

It is, simply, an adventure in taste and texture, a new one, at least for me, and it just blew me away.

I can only imagine where we could get as we continue to push and break down our  culinary boundaries farther, as we keep turning things on their head and try out what otherwise would seem outrageous on the surface.

By the way, just in case someone out there wants to try tabagak with brazos, please remember a few things. Choose the dried fish carefully, choose the one that’s firm, and doesn’t have the overpowering fishy smell. And I said, speck, just a speck of the tabagak flakes on a teaspoon of brazos. Happy taste adventure!*

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