One afternoon of grocery strolling and I chanced upon the veggie section. Leisurely peering through each green leafy vegetable, I came upon the humble malunggay. I've heard about it since I was a kid, but for the bloody life of me, I couldn't recall anyone cooking them for any dish.

Curious, I took a sealed pack and figure out how to use it later. This happened:


Really. I feel like a koala.

I have no friggin idea how to use it. It looked like tree leaves instead of the usual fleshy veggie like pechays and kangkongs. It's just ... foliage. Not to be distracted, I used it on corn-asparagus soup, and a couple of days later, on scallop adobo (yeah, I ran out of chicken).

What puzzles me is that it doesn't have any distinctive flavor or some proper culinary adjective that aptly describes it so how come it reached the tables of the home cooking Pinoys? I mean I could just pluck a bunch of leaves from any tree stick a recipe at it and call it a dish. This just doesn't reach me.

To me, it's just a boring bunch of leaves.