Food: Soup - Kaling Soup

“Kaling” is the Igorot term for the Jojo mudfish, which believed to have originated from Japan during the Japanese occuptaion in the Phillipines. This fresh water slippery fish is slender and elongated with a length of about 5 to 8 inches when matured. It looks like a ball pen with a dark brown color on its back and light to white below the lateral line. In the past, kaling fish freely spawned in the streams, marshlands and watered rice paddies where the Igorot highlanders gathered the matured fish for food. But when a certain kind of rice paddy snails swarmed the area, the kaling started to disappear because the said snails feed on kaling eggs. Nowadays, kaling is being raised in special fish ponds and are being sold at the market in Mt. Province.

Kaling Soup Ingredients:

- 1 kl of kaling
- ½ cup of chopped ginger or turmeric
- ½ cup of tapey (including the mash/rice)
- 1.5 liter of water
- 3 table spoons of salt (depends on your preference)

- leeks, tomatoes (optional)

- use either msg, sinigang or sugar for seasoning (optional)

Steps:

1. Cook the kaling and the chooped ginger with the 1.5 liter of water
2. When the water starts to boil, wait for 5 minutes before adding the rest of the ingredients.
3. After that, wait for 8 to 10 minutes pf boiling before keeping it aside for serving.

In the highland Cordillera, the dish is served as viand for rice during mealtime.