Batangas Bulalo

If a picture paints a thousand words, then this one definitely says it all:

It still baffles me how a simple stew of shallots, beef thighs and bone marrow, roasted garlic, spring onions and cabbage can turn out to be one of the best flavors in the world. Bulalo (beef stew) does not use fancy spices (except maybe bay leaf for some), rather, relies on the earthy taste of beef chunks and the buttery taste of the marrow; indeed, less is more.

Of the entire Philippines, Batangas serves the best bulalo. I never understood this (how else can bulalo be cooked otherwise?) until I tried it first-hand in Jhorjanes, Batangas. I suppose the secret to their recipe is a large pot of beef slowly cooked in a hearth of burning wood, thus the tender texture and smoky taste of the beef. Also, Batangas uses high-quality beef thigh saturated not with fat, but tendons and ligaments (litid), which really are, you must agree, the essence of the stew, apart from the marrow. Moreover, bulalo in Jhorjanes digresses from incorporating a lot of vegetables (carrots, potatoes, corn, pechay, leeks), thus concentrating the brawny beef broth.

If you come to think of it, bulalo exemplifies everything Batangas: warm, homey, hearty, simple but with a bang! Batangas has a lot to be proud about but, of them, bulalo is the best; if it isn't, I don't know what is.