Are you boring? No idea what to do? If that so, text or make a call to your friends invite them for a picnic. If you are in Jolo, Igasan beach would be the best beach to go to. However, for this it’s up to you to choose what beach you like to spend your weekend with friends and families.
Before you are going to plan what sort of food you like to eat on the shore, try first this suggestion: go to the public market before the sun bursts and buys the readymade Piyutu (steam cassava) or Siyanglag (roasted cassava), in Sulu and in Sabah, this food is highly available. If this food is not available in your country, white rice would be okay. Then buy a striped mackerel (to be grilled using coconut husk) and tuna or big eyed round scad (tamarung) to make a kinilaw. After that, buy a green or red Agal-agal (sea vegetable or edible sea weed) and gamay (edible seaweed). For the Tausug, this type of weekend party is a part of their culture. In fact, the food I suggested here is just a portion of the food usually eat by the Tausug on the shore.
Agal-agal is a delicious sea vegetable yet has health benefits and can be used for many purposes. It’s called as carrageenan if it is already extracted and can be found in the Atlantic Ocean near Britain, Continental Europe and North America. An article found in this site is unveiling the health benefit of agal-agal which says, “The laboratory of Cellular Oncology at the National Cancer Institute reported that a comparison of a variety of compounds revealed that carrageenan, a type of sulfated polysaccharide extracted from red algae, is an extremely potent infection inhibitor for a broad range of sexually transmitted HPVs.” (See the research - slides 50, 51.)
Aside from that Agal agal is also a fine source of iodine, calcium, iron, phosphorus and vitamins as has been reported. On the same site the usefulness of agal agal is also revealed, “This sea weed is mainly used as a gelling agent in desserts, puddings, pie fillings, and aspics.”
In Sulu, agal-agal has seriously contributing to the economy of the Tausug. This sea weed is planted in a strategic location usually near the shore because its survival relies on the sea current. When the demand for sea weeds is increasing in the world market the mass cultivation for this plant in Sulu has booming.
According to BFAR “Seaweed farming used to be an alternative livelihood in the 80's.” One of the islands in Sulu Archipelago producing volume of dried Agal-agal is Sitangkai.
Back to the kitchen, to eat for fresh agal-agal, without extracting it, follow the steps below.
Ingredients:
1 kg fresh Agal-agal
2 thumbs of ginger
1 big onion
2 pieces tomato
Vinegar
2 pieces calamansi
Salt
Soy sauce (salty)
Water
Method:
Slice the agal-agal into small pieces then boil it for 5 minutes. Do not overcook it!
After boiling, remove the juice and get only the sliced agal-agal.
Clean the boiled agal-agal with clean water
Put the cleaned boiled agal-agal on small basin
Peel the spices
Cut the ginger, tomato and onion into tiny pieces. Then mix them with boiled agal-agal
Add little vinegar, soy sauce, calamansi juice and salt. You can also add Monosodium glutamate and chilli pepper if you like.
It’s up to you to add more spices to make delicious agal-agal sauce.
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