How to Prepare Bamboo Shoots ("Labong") for Cooking

How to Prepare Bamboo Shoots (“Labong”) for Cooking

Have you tried eating the young trunk of a tree?

That’s a trick question. But for most rural folks who are familiar with “labong” and “ubod”, the answer is yes.

Our fish farm and neighboring areas are host to a number of coconut and bamboo trees (latter is technically a grass!). A very young bamboo trunk and the topmost inner portion of the coconut tree trunk are actually edible.

Coconut Tree

In one of my previous posts “Uses of Coconut Trees in Our Bangus Farm” (click this), I mentioned the topmost part of the coconut tree trunk where the inner core and growing bud is located. This portion, called palm heart (“ubod” in Tagalog, “apungol" in Pangasinense), is edible and considered a vegetable when harvested.

It’s commonly used as main filling to make “lumpiang ubod” (vegetable egg roll using a crepe-like wrapper).

Bamboo

In this food-related post, I’d like to focus on the bamboo and its edible part.

As we all know, the mature culm (trunk or stem) of the typical bamboo is so tough that it’s commonly used as hardy material for the posts, beams, roof frames, etc. of bamboo houses (click this to see my post on “How to Build a Bamboo Farm Hut”).

A bamboo tree (or grass) has a root system (rhizome) below the ground that we don’t see. But the rhizome continuously produces young culms or stems that sprout upwards. These are commonly referred to as bamboo shoots (“labong” in Tagalog and Pangasinense).

These young shoots are highly sought after by locals (especially rural housewives). In the urban areas, you can buy them at the public market. But in our farm village, they grow naturally in the wild among the bamboo groves. Local folks harvest the shoots and prepare them as ingredients for various native dishes after slicing and boiling.

Here’s how to prepare the bamboo shoots (“labong”) for cooking:

Procedures

1. Get a couple of unpeeled “labong” shoots (shaped like a cone), newly harvested from the bamboo grove. You’ll see green overlapping outer skin layers.

A couple of unpeeled newly harvested bamboo shoots

2. Using a kitchen utility knife or the shorter paring knife, slice off the outer skin layers near the base of the “cone”.

Slicing off outer skin layers near the base of the "labong" cone

3. Peel off (with your hand) the outer layers from the upper portion of the cone. Keep peeling off until you get to the bare whitish flesh.

Peeling off outer layers with hand

4. Slice off with a knife the remaining hard skin portions until the bare whitish flesh is fully exposed. Wash the bamboo shoot cone.

Removing remaining hard skin portions

5. Cut off the hard bottom part.

Removing the hard bottom part

Stripped and cleaned up "labong" cone ready for slicing

6. Cut the cone crosswise into thin round slices.

Cutting crosswise into thin round slices

7. Further cut the round slices into thin strips.

Slicing further into thin strips

Sliced strips from two cones of "labong"

8. Put the thin strips of “labong” in a pot. Pour water to wash out remaining dirt, if any, then drain.

Cut strips transferred to pot

9. Pour water again then cook for around 10 minutes until the "labong" strips are tender.

"Labong" is not eaten fresh but boiled to remove the bitter taste.
 
10. Take out the pot to the basin. Drain out the water using strainer. 

Newly boiled pot of "labong"

Draining out water

11. Put tap water back into the pot, then squeeze out by hand the cooked strips of bamboo shoots.

Squeezing is also meant to remove any lingering bitter taste before cooking.
 

Putting tap water into the pot after draining out hot water

Squeezing out water from the "labong" strips

12. Put the squeezed “labong” in a clean plastic basin.

Squeezed "labong" ready as ingredient

The “labong” strips are now ready as ingredients for cooking various "labong" dishes (see below). They are also used for making pickled "labong" (for basic pickling steps, see my previous blog, Item 2) . 

In our farm, the “labong” strips are normally used:

· For making "atsarang labong” (pickled bamboo shoots)

· To cook “ginataang labong” with shrimps and/or pork (bamboo shoots in coconut milk)

· Or “ginataang labong with saluyot” (bamboo shoots in coconut milk with jute leaves)

· To make “dinengdeng na labong” (bamboo shoots cooked in fermented fish – usually mixed with “saluyot” (jute leaves) and grilled bangus). "Saluyot" plants grow naturally in our farm during certain months. Or buy them in the public market.

· To saute the strips into “ginisang labong” (sautéed bamboo shoots usually with shrimps).

For a complete list of Fish Pond Buddy blog posts on fish farm-related topics, please click the Index page.