Dried Gabi Leaves (Dried Taro Leaves)

Taro leaves (Gabi leaves) - one of our products for export to the US, Canada & Qatar.
It is understandable for you to know that there is a vast population of Asians in the US so it is normal to have our dried gabi leaves (taro leaves) in our product line.

However, you would probably wonder why Qatar?  Well, I have not been there (but hopefully someday I will be able to see and experience the beauty of this country) but one of our partners have lived and worked there for 11 years.  He had told me about how significant the Filipino population is in Qatar and still growing tremendously due to its more stable economy than other countries.  There are a lot of various organizations for Filipinos and its regions.  Filipinos love to gather together and have their native food.  I tell you, it is always a feast of various dishes from meat to vegetables and desserts.

If you look at some photos of Qatar or go to www.qatarliving.com, you would find that most of the contract workers are of Asian heritage.  This is the best market for Asian food & flavors being a country that abundance of seafood & meat products.

Let me show you one of the main dishes that use this dried or even fresh taro leaves (gabi leaves)
LAING

LAING

I was born and raised in Albay, a town in Bicol Region where we basically have this filipino dish at least 2 or 3 times a week.  Since we have the plant growing abundantly  in our backyard, we usually cook the leaves fresh.  One good thing about our gabi plant (taro) is that it is so tender and does not have the itchy feeling when you eat them.  There are so many varieties of this gabi (taro) leaves some of which are tough and not really good.  Another technique that I had seen my grandma shredding the leaves is not to include the hard part or veins like on the leaves to make it tender when cooked.

It is cooked with ginger, garlic, sometimes meat, shrimp or dried fish and coconut milk.  Sometimes the stalks are included too, by peeling and slicing them but since we have the abundance of the plant, our grandma uses only the leaves itself.  One distinguishing factor of our laing from our region is cooking it with our local hot chili pepper called "siling labuyo" or sambalas (we also sell the dried sambalas or siling labuyo)

Bicolanos are well known for this hot and spicy dish.  You can smell the aroma of the spices--the pepper, garlic, ginger and seasoned with fish sauce.

Later in this food blog, I will be posting the recipe for this Laing.

Until next time, I can just imagine myself now eating this laing with our jasmin steamed rice--yummy!

So stay tuned when we will post our local retailers for this dried taro leaves.
Photos courtesy of Bikolandia! and 80 Breakfasts