The Malunggay Pesto in Olive Oil is an original creation by me and my wife, we are owners of Premium Local Philippines / Pinoy Ordurvz Specialty Bottled Food. We created the Malunggay Pesto back in 2007.
When we were dabbling with the idea, we we're researching in the web if it has been created before. There was nothing like it existed anywhere locally or abroad. We believe that it was a divine inspiration that lead us into creating this wonderful product - the Malunggay Pesto.
When we first introduced the Malunggay Pesto and displayed it on our shelves at our weekend markets: Salcedo Saturday Market and Legazpi Sunday Market, there were only a few adventurous souls who would try it out.
As Filipinos we only used the malunggay leaves to garnish our chicken soup dish (Tinola), or use it as natural anti-bacterial remedy for cuts / bruises (as how we would use band-aid) and that's it!
The early adopters for the Malunggay Pesto are the adventurous customers from our weekend markets and those who received these as gifts from Christmas. They would come back for more and the Malunggay Pesto became popular through word of mouth. For some, it is their staple food.
The Malunggay Pesto are bought as "pasalubongs" when Filipino Balikbayans or even travelers from the Philippines goes back home to their countries.
We use industry standard methods and equipment for making the Malunggay Pesto.
It is also very safe for air travel - it will not pop open at high altitude since it is pressure-canned.
Right now, the Malunggay is considered as a superfood. You can research about the Malunggay and you will see a long list of health benefits. It is also organic, all natural. This plant can grow anywhere on the Philippines.
It was only about 2009 (two years after we have created our Malunggay Pesto) that a Senator expressed her full support for the government to tap "malunggay" as among its priorities for propagation because of its health benefits. Years later, it became our national vegetable.
The Malunggay Pesto as a brilliant idea that we came up with is copied by other food manufacturers. However, they would not be able to match our original flavor. Also we realized later on that though the recipe maybe simple but it is not exactly easy to make!
Sad to say, we see even celebrity chefs take photos of our creations on our shelves and try to recreate it and claim to have made it for themselves. However, you don't see any bottled Malunggay Pesto around much because it is not easy to make.
Making the Malunggay Pesto in a glass jar that is shelf stable for a year would not be easy if you have don't have the right quality of ingredients and the technique to do it. You would also need industry standard equipment to accomplish that and a passion to create an excellent Filipino product that is healthier than most products being non-dairy as well as sugar-free.
When you make home-made pesto, it will take about 1-2 hours of your time to make small batch and it will not last one day after without oxidising. So to say that it is easy to make the malunggay pesto is misleading.
There is another "Malunggay Spread" being sold outside Metro Manila, a copy from our original but it is filled with dairy product - it doesn't even have the characteristics of "deep-greeness" of the Malunggay leaves. It's actually white! So be aware!
Our customers would be the ones who would discover these copies and would come back and "report" to us of the poor quality of that copy-cat. They would assure us that our Malunggay Pesto is still the best.
It is available at our weekend markets: Salcedo Saturday Market, Legazpi Sunday Market, we have online outlets aside from our online store at premiumlocalph.com.
Online outlets are as follows: GRABMART : Premium Local PH, LAZADA : Premium Local Philippines or Premium Local PH, METROMART : Premium Local Philippines, PICKAROO: Premium Local PH, SHOPEE : premiumlocalph,
Our Malunggay Pesto in Olive Oil is non-dairy and sugar-free. We use only fresh malunggay leaves and basil (not dried) and local cashew nuts.
You can use it as a pesto sauce for pasta or mix it with rice (as most mothers as breakfast for their picky toddlers and kids) or use a spread on bread (as shown in the picture, it is our usual breakfast and we never get tired of it).
We have a Japanese chef who use it as a base for his Shrimp Pesto Pasta. We have an American chef who uses it to generously spread over his baked salmon.
We use it instead of butter for our morning toast. Sometimes we eat it like an open sandwich, we put egg on top for a full meal for breakfast.
For some of our customers, they spread it on anything whether it be baked potato or even with plain suman. The possibilities are endless for the creative mind. :)
Enjoy!