Quail eggs have been a hawker’s staple in the Philippines. You usually find several vendors offering them on provincial bus trips. Sometimes the floors of the buses would be a mess of boiled peanut shells and eggshells. Plain hard-boiled quail egg dipped in rock salt is a cheap snack for commuters going on a 2-hour trip.

Several years ago, street food vendors began offering battered duck eggs and quail eggs. It’s unclear when or who started this trend but it has picked up over the years and “kwek-kwek” has become standard street fare in Metro Manila.

The addition of orange food coloring was probably done to distinguish it from other fried foods like squid balls and fish balls, which are cheaper than quail eggs.

Aside from this tasty snack, hard-boiled quail eggs are also used as garnish in some noodle and stir fried vegetable dishes.

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Good for: 1 – 2 people

Ingredients

• 16 pieces quail eggs
• ½ cup flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 1 drop orange food coloring (optional)
• ½ cup vinegar
• 1 teaspoon crushed garlic
• 1 tablespoon chopped onion
• Cooking oil

Kwek-kwek, Fried quail eggs in batter

Method

Boil quail eggs until hard. Use a gentle boil only. It shouldn’t take more than 3 minutes to cook the eggs once the water starts to simmer.

Remove quail eggs from water and set aside to cool.

Mix flour, salt, baking soda, food color and pepper with a little bit of water until you get a mixture that has a very thick, pasty consistency.

Peel quail eggs carefully and then dust with some flour.

Drop quail eggs in to the flour batter mixture. Make sure that each egg is coated with batter.

Heat cooking oil in a frying pan. The oil should be deep enough to submerge 1 quail egg.

Drop each batter coated quail egg individually into the hot oil. Fry for about 1 minute or until the batter is cooked.

Set the fried eggs aside and drain excess oil.

You may skewer the eggs with bamboo sticks or use a metal barbecue skewer.

Mix vinegar, garlic and onion. Adjust taste with salt and pepper. You may add chili peppers if preferred.

Serve fried quail eggs with the spicy vinegar dip.

Kwek-kwek, Fried quail eggs in batter

Turon, banana-que and maruya are different Filipino methods of frying saba or plantain bananas. Turon, however, has made the leap from cheap street food to standard restaurant fare. There are even turon versions that use crepe as its wrapper and then served ala-mode.

The additional step of boiling the bananas in syrup helps to ensure that they are cooked evenly. This is quite helpful especially if the bananas slices are thick. Since the bananas are already pre-cooked, then the crisping of the wrapper is the only concern when it is fried.

Turon sold at the street side usually have thinner slices of bananas inside the lumpia wrapper. These smaller slices cook in a lesser amount of time. The resulting turon however, usually has more wrapper than bananas.

Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Good for: 3 – 4 people

Ingredients

• 1 kg peeled ripe saba bananas (about a 12 pieces)
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 cups water
• 12 pieces spring roll wrappers
• Cooking oil
• ½ cup preserved jackfruit in syrup, sliced into strips (optional)

Turon

Method

Put saba bananas in a casserole. Add sugar and water.

Bring to a boil and then turn off after 4 minutes of simmering.

Set bananas aside and let it cool down.

Slice bananas into half lengthwise.

Get 1 lumpia wrapper and coat it with the sugar syrup used to boil bananas.

Wrap 2 pieces of sliced saba banana in the lumpia wrapper. You may add 1 strip of jackfruit preserve to the banana slices.

The sugar syrup will ensure that the wrapper sticks to the bananas. You may also sprinkle brown sugar over the turon if you prefer.

Repeat process until all bananas are wrapped.

In a pan or wok, heat oil for frying. Use medium heat. There should be enough oil to submerged 1 turon.

Fry turon in hot oil for 20- 30 seconds or until wrapper crisps. Do not allow to the wrapper to turn dark brown.

Set aside fried turon until all excess oil drains away.

Serve as a snack with coffee or any hot drink.

Turon

Maruya is another snack that often graces a Filipino’s regular merienda (which could mean afternoon tea or a snack between meals). Its primary ingredient is the starchy saba banana.

Maruya hawked by street vendors tend to be drier and use semi-ripe bananas. This is done to help improve shelf life. The version featured here produces a moister maruya with a batter mix similar to what is used for waffles.

To adjust the dish and make a more traditional version, remove the butter and replace the milk with ½ cup water then use only semi-ripe bananas. You also need to fry it in a deeper pan with more cooking oil.

Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Good for: 2 – 3 people

Ingredients

• 500 grams ripe but firm Saba Bananas (avoid over ripe and mushy bananas)
• ¾ cup flour
• 2 eggs
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup fresh milk
• 1 tablespoon butter or margarine

Maruya – Saba Bananas Fried in batter

Method

Slice bananas into 1 cm thick slices. Set aside

Cut butter into flour. Mix well to spread ingredients evenly

Mix in salt and baking powder to flour.

Pour in milk and eggs. Mix thoroughly until it you reach a smooth consistency. You can use a hand blender if available.

Add sliced bananas into the batter. Mix gently to ensure that all banana pieces are coated with batter. You may also mash the ripe bananas into the batter if you prefer.

Melt some butter in a non-stick pan. Set stove to low heat.

Once butter has melted, scoop ½ cup of banana and batter into center of the pan. Spread out into a patty of approximately 10 cm.

Cook until maruya is firm and slightly browned on each side.

Sprinkle a small amount of sugar over Maruya before serving.

Maruya – Saba Bananas Fried in batter

This snack is best serve with coffee or any hot drink like salabat. Salabat is a hot drink made from steeping sliced ginger in boiling water and then adding brown sugar and an optional slice of calamansi.