Filipino sphagette

It’s a thing. It’s a sweet, sticky, saucy, even-sold-at-McDonald’s thing.

Much like the pancit from last week, this meal was served at almost every birthday party at the orphanage where I worked this last year, usually mushed together on kids’ plastic plates with heaping piles of steaming rice and some mixed vegetables. On this particular party day, Auntie Elvira and Auntie Puriza invited me into the kitchen and showed me how it’s done. Here’s the story, in pictures.