Midnight Express: Exploring unique comfort food with kalandrakas and ‘healthier’ sisig

Saksi's "Midnight Express" on Monday and Tuesday explored two examples of comfort food that Filipinos love. One is perfect for the monsoon season while the other is a common pulutan for inuman sessions.  

Lamay-favorite kalandrakas

Originating in Cavite, kalandrakas is a soup usually served during wakes. It got its name from "kalandra," or the bier on which a casket is placed.

Its has ingredients in common with most soups: garlic, onions, cabbage, chicken stock, carrots, potatoes, and chicken meat. But kalandrakas also has sotanghon.

To try this soup at home, sauté garlic and onions. Add the chicken meat and stock. When the water boils, add the carrots and potatoes. Let it boil again until the vegetables become soft. Then put in the sotanghon and cabbage.



Cholesterol-free sisig

It may be called by some the tastiest pork dish on earth, but sisig is also known for its high cholesterol content. Now, a restaurant in Tagaytay is offering a more healthful substitute to pork cheeks, sisig's main ingredient!

The sisig from Gratchi's Getaway has no meat. Aside from the usual ingredients of onions, calamansi juice, green chili, siling labuyo, ginger, vinegar, pepper, and salt, the restaurant uses tofu, potatoes, and oyster mushroom in lieu of pork. Sounds healthy, right?

But healthier doesn't mean easier. You still need to go through the same steps to prepare this cholesterol-free sisig: fry all the ingredients, sprinkle calamansi juice and vinegar, season with salt and pepper, and serve on a sizzling plate!

During his taste test, Mikael Daez said that this healthy sisig tastes just like the usual sisig except the potatoes add an unusual texture. It's like eating sisig and French fries at the same time, he said.



— Trisha Macas/BM, GMA News

"Midnight Express" airs weekdays on GMA 7's "Saksi".