Ngohiong

Two ngohiong with hot dipping sauce

My wife had been craving ngohiong lately, so the other day (payday) she came home with a big, greasy paper bag full of them. Only 100 pesos (US$2.50) for 20 plus dipping sauces!

You don't make ngohiong, you buy them. The best ones come from a small place across from the University of San Carlos' (USC) Talamban campus, which happily is very near and on her way home from work.

Ngohiong (pronounced something like no-yong or new-yong) are a type of fried spring roll. They contain ubod (palm hearts: the center portion of the very top of a coconut palm tree) and Chinese five spice powder (Five Fragrant Spices) which is what the name ngohiong actually means. Some people also add things like ground pork, chicken, or other meats, but your basic ngohiong just has palm hearts. This makes them cheap, which is attractive to the poor, hungry college students which is this place's main clientele. You take four or five strips of palm heart and season them with five spice powder, then wrap them in a large lumpia (egg roll or spring roll) wrapper, dip it in a batter made from rice flour and deep fry it in hot palm oil until it's crispy and golden brown.

Ngohiong are eaten with a hot chili dipping sauce mixed with some soy sauce, and accompanied by rice or puso (so-called "hanging rice", which is portions of raw rice wrapped tightly in woven strips of fresh banana leaves then boiled in the wrappers.) Puso is a frequent accompaniment to street foods as it's a convenient way to eat rice. The dipping sauce is hot and tangy while the ngohiong are more subtle and mild-tasting. They're even good all by themselves.

We have several ngohiong left over, so I plan to reheat them for dinner tonight. They need to be eaten up already.

Puso (hanging rice)