The Elusive Bulcachong

For any friends of mine who say that they are from a certain province or they have traveled a specific locale, I've always asked what are the special cuisines of the place.

For example, the spicy Bicol Express is commonly known to originate from Bicol, while Lechon is the prime culinary feat of Cebu. Pampanga, the culinary capital of the country , had produced unforgettable dishes such as sisig,longganisa,tocino and Kare-kare.

Although I am a Davaoena, I'm not sure what certain dish we can dub as exclusively from Davao.I asked my friends for their opinion and one of them mentioned: ' Bulcachong'.

Having heard about this for the first time, I did a quick research in the net and found this blog complete with picture and recipes.

Bulcachong is carabao meat stew with peanut butter, ginger, annato seeds and some spices. According to some blogs, this dish is reminiscent of Kansi in Iloilo.

After copying, I sent the recipe to my boyfriend and asked him to try to cook this dish over the weekend. The ingredients were easy to find, with the exception of carabao meat which we replaced with beef instead.

Served with blanched pechay as side dish. :D

The result was a stew that was reminiscent of kare-kare. I am not sure if we had exactly replicated the Davao dish but the taste was both sweet and spicy. Probably because we added too much peanut butter:P

Our first attempt at Bulcachong

The original Bulcachong

Nevertheless ,that won't stop me from trying to cook it again. Perhaps, I might reserve this Bulcachong tasting itenarary on my way back to Davao.