By Kiki in Stories —

Bulalo: a hangover cure?

As it turns out, bone broth is filled with a whole bunch of vitamins and minerals to replenish your body, it hydrates with its savoury healing water and is filled with gelatin that supports healthy digestion. It's soupy goodness.

Bone broth heals

After a night that rides on till the AM and waking up feeling apologetically hungover, know that I will be having a flavourful, meaty broth for breakfast. It's been tried and tested, my go to that at the very least make me feel better. How? As it turns out, bone broth is filled with a whole bunch of vitamins and minerals to replenish your body, it hydrates with its savoury healing water and is filled with gelatin that supports healthy digestion. More than that, it's comfort food usually made from generations of family adding their bit to get the right amount of salty, soupy goodness.

Pre-colonial, simple cooking at a low, slow boil

Philippines very own, Bulalo is one of those broths. Bulalo translates to bone marrow. It's a soup that's boiled for hours to develop flavour and served with rice. With time flavour is extracted from beef buto (bone), litid (cartilage) breaks down and changes into a chewy texture which my dad loves and the fattiness from the marrow all comes together. Nearer to the end, vegetables are added to the mix soaking up the alat (saltiness) to balance the flavour. It dates to pre-colonial Philippines, simple cooking at a low, slow boil however it's still hotly (pun intended) debated which of the Luzon provinces either Batangas or Cavite can claim Bulalo as their own.

According to some, what makes Bulalo different to other beefy soups like Nilaga is that has to be made with beef bones. Given its indulgence of bone marrow, you'll have to resist eating Bulalo on the daily. Cue in filipino relative talking about their cholesterol and their dose of Lipitor. Although...day 2 Bulalo is even better than day 1 with more time for everything in the pot to deepen in flavour. My only bit of advice is to cook with the biggest pot you have, if there's any leftovers from day 1 you can freeze the stock for whenever you need that morning fix. With or without the hangover, Bulalo is just as good.

Resources