Maritime Southeast Asia · Volume 51, The Black Broth, the Sultanate and a Cuisine the Rest of the Philippines Forgot
Palapa
Lake Lanao, Lanao del Sur
Illustration
- Time
- 20 minutes
- Researched
- 6 sources cited
This volume's own working notes described palapa as a fermented base. That does not survive checking. Edgie Polistico, a Filipino culinary lexicographer, describes it as pounded raw aromatics cooked briefly in a dry pan until fragrant and reduced, then jarred, a cooked and dried relish rather than a lacto-fermented one; Wikipedia's own sourced entry, citing Polistico and a 2018 ABS-CBN News feature, agrees. This chapter does not call palapa a ferment.
As tradition built it
Yield around 400 g. Active work 20 minutes.
Ingredients
- 100 g white scallion, finely chopped
- 120 g ginger, pounded
- 60 g turmeric, grated
- 8 bird's eye chillies, finely chopped
- 90 g fresh coconut, grated and toasted
- 3 g salt
Method
- Toast the grated coconut in a dry pan 5 minutes, stirring constantly, until golden.
- Combine the white scallion, ginger, turmeric and bird's eye chillies with the toasted coconut, except the salt.
- Cook the mixture in a dry pan over medium-low heat, 10 to 12 minutes, stirring constantly, until dry and fragrant.
- Season with salt, cool completely, then jar and refrigerate up to a month.
What a modern chef changes
Rupture before heat, pushed with a high-power blender
Rung 2
Method
- Grind the scallion, ginger, turmeric and chilli in a high-power blender rather than a mortar and pestle, pulsing hard enough to genuinely rupture the cell walls before any heat touches them, the same principle Rung 2 sets out for palapa and pamapa alike.
- Toast and dry the mixture in a dry pan exactly as tradition does. Palapa's character comes from dry-toasting, not fermentation, so no dehydrator is required; a Big Green Egg run indirect at low heat for the coconut-toasting stage works just as well as a stovetop pan.