Ronald Villavelez
IN THE last degustation dinner I did two Sundays ago for a group of old friends (the same group that first tasted the very first few experiments I did in my home kitchen more than a year ago), I dished out a few surprises that my guests never imagined would ever find their way onto the fine-dining table.
But at my dinners, people come expecting to be surprised, as we always do when we dine out, either by flavors that fulfill their gustatory fantasies, or by dishes and ingredients, familiar or strange or both, done and presented in a manner they never imagined could be possible.
A few days before the dinner, I informed my friends that I would be doing what I now call the Love Soup, formerly known as Soup No. 5 or lansiao in local carenderias.
I received some ambivalent reactions: they weren’t too excited about it, but I guessed, they just kept an open mind as to what I would do with it, trusting me enough that I wouldn’t be sending them straight to the lavatory when they’d be eating it.
When I told the sastres in my atelier that I would be adding lansiao to my menu, they readily squirmed at the idea.
Lansiao, a local delicacy that is probably introduced to us by early Chinese immigrants, is not for the faint of heart, or the weak stomach.
It is still an acquired taste for most Cebuanos I know.
In my previous atelier near the Ramos Public Market, I used to walk down the block to this carenderia at the corner of Echavez Extension and Jakosalem street to eat lansiao for lunch. Most diners were taxi or jeepney drivers, who needed a hearty, warm and filling soup to get them through the rest of the day.
In Hokkien, lan chiao means “like a penis,” thus lansiao is a soup made of the bull’s testicles and genitals and some chopped skin whose gelatin renders the broth a bit thick and sticky. It is best eaten with a generous serving of steamed mais or ground corn.
Men consider this dish as an aphrodisiac, as it is said, true or not, to heighten their libido or keep them “hard.”
As for me, I never had that experience after I ate my first bowl of lansiao.
Or the second, and the ones after.
Chef Ron’s the Love Soup, his new take on Soup No. 5 or lansiao.
When I started planning how to cook my Love Soup, I wanted to follow the early process of boiling all the meat, including the skin, for about 10 minutes simply to sanitize them before I would do the actual cooking process.
From there, I deviated from the original recipe and cooking method.
First, I created the broth, following the old French method, infusing different flavors and aromas with my mirepoix, and fennel, and a medley of herbs and spices in a sachet.
It was a slow cooking process that lasted for 6 hours, until I achieved the exact consistency I wanted for my broth, with the flavors more pronounced.
To extract more flavors from the meat, I pureed them in a liquidizer before sauteing it in a deep saucepan with another set of mirepoix, adding the broth slowly and in constant flow (just like when adding your oil to your egg yolks when doing your mayonnaise), until everything is mixed, before adding a dash of madeira or marsala and seasoning.
I took the whole gelatinous mix out of a pot and passed it through a fine chinois several times, over and over, until I got the soup I wanted. I warmed the soup on a bain marie, right before serving it to my guests.
This time, everyone at the dinner was excited to try my Love Soup, as it looked entirely different from the lansiao they used to know.
The Love Soup broth is cooked first by infusing layers of flavors and aromas, before the meat is liquidized to create a gelatinous mixture and to better extract the lansiao flavors.
For people who claimed to have not developed that taste for this delicacy, they said there was this layer of flavors and aromas in the soup, while the lansiao, as how we know or taste it, always present.
And each time the liquid entered the mouth the flavors and aromas infused in the whole cooking process were revealed in succession, in various nuances, as it filled the mouth, ending with just the right heat at the back of the throat.
They raved at how I got rid of that icky film of sebo that usually coats the palate or the back of the lips when you eat lansiao or balbacua in the local carenderias.
I was happy with how my Love Soup turned out, knowing it was a first attempt, after so many months of wanting to do it, and knowing I cooked it from memory.
The last time I ate lansiao must be, maybe, 10 years ago.