Bonding Over Easy Pastillas De Leche

Sam was extremely looking forward to whipping up some pastillas de leche today. Almost in a mantra fashion, she kept saying, “My work is to pour and mix, my work is to pour and mix! Let’s do the pastillas now, puleeeeease!”.  NOW was her operative word and that got me running to the nearest grocery to get the ingredients.

Okay, pastillas project was finally underway. She was ready to grind away and have fun at the same time.  Happiness was written all over her face:

She poured, mixed and packed some of the pastillas. For twenty minutes, she left the Disney Playhouse channel that momentarily seemed less significant than making pastillas.

Bonding over cooking and food has been one of my greatest moments with my daughter, Sam. My heart jumps for joy at the site of those bright eyes over the prospect of  “cooking with mommy”.

I get overwhelmed each and everytime I hear her proudly announce to family and friends that we cooked and that she immensely enjoyed it.

Ahh, simply priceless.

Pastillas De Leche:

2 cups sifted powdered milk

1 can condensed milk

Sugar for coating

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Mix  powdered milk and condensed milk. Mix well. Let settle in the ref for 5-10 minutes before molding or kneading by hand.

Form into balls or tubular shaped pastillas. Roll into sugar.

Wrap in cellophane.

Cheesy Chicken Sticks

Inspired by my friend, Aileen Lara, and an HRM student from PUP during a chefwars competition, I created a dish that will make parties extra exciting, elegant and gastronomic with these cheesy chicken sticks on the table. The crunch on the exterior just ends up getting chewy and everything nice inside with that cheese peeping hello to you as you make that big bite.

Just a sidebar, the choice of cheese is a bit crucial. Mozzarela sticks tend to melt right away the moment it hits the pan. Should you decide to use it, make sure you freeze it a bit first before you use it for cooking. Other soft cheeses like kesong puti, feta, brie, etc. tend to behave in the same manner too. Cheddars like the sharp ones and medium sharp are likewise as vulnerable to quick melting. Personally, I’m fine with Eden cheese. Heehee, I hope I don’t get a flack for choosing the ‘unexpected’ choice. There.

The green chillies are actually optional. Yes, you have the option to make it yummier! Ha! I love, love the lethal cross of the cheese’ saltiness and the kick of chillies, rolled into one and made crunchy by the parmesan-crusted lumpia wrapper.

So, are you hungry now?

Okay, here goes the recipe:

6 lumpia wrappers, small

6 slices cheddar cheese, sliced horizontaly 1/4 inch thick on all sides

1/2 breast of chicken, seasoned, boiled and sliced

1 egg, slightly beaten

1 tsp flour

1 cup Japanese bread crumbs

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

6 pcs green chillies (siling pang sigang), SEEDED OR BE READY TO BURN YOUR TONGUE!

oil

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1. Arrange sliced cheese and chicken inside green chillies. Close both ends of wrapper and roll with the filling.

2. Meantime, in a separate bowl, combine egg and flour. Mix to form a batter. Dip the lumpias onto the batter.

3. Dredge in the breading mix (to do this, combine Japanese bread crumbs and parmesan cheese). Deep fry until golden brown. Pat dry on napkin and serve immediately.

My Little Chef!

Chocoholic!

Here goes something my little one and myself love to bond over– food and all the fun that goes with it. The past few days saw Sam helping in the kitchen when she tried her hand (literally) at baking some soft, chunky and chewy chocolate chip cookies that would not stay in the cookie jar for long and the other project, whipping up some white chocolate lollipops that our dear family friend Mae Ramos taught us how to make.

Sam greasing the pan for the chocolate chips. I got the sense that she enjoyed more brushing on some shortening as opposed to brushing watercolor on paper!

Sam was extra giddy as I officially announced to her that we were to make chocolate chip cookies. Like always, she just HAD to do the mixing. She loves, loves, loves to mix practically anything “mixable”! Ahhh, starting ‘em young eh? Well, kinda.

Future pastry chef?

Her faves include our carrot cake and now, these cookies.

Soft, chunky and chewy chocolate chip cookies

Next on our to-do-list was our white chocolate lollipops– in ring and candy cane shapes.

Serious. Very serious!

 These are lovely!!!

White chocolate ring lollipops

Our first time to do these chocolate delights.

White chocolate sugarcane-shaped lollipops

Our dear family friend gave us pointers on how to make this goody possible. Quite simple I might say. So easy that even kids can do their culinary obras by way of doing this.

Sam was uber delightful just sprinkling the toppings!

The little chef!

She had the finished products given to cousins and titas soon after. Okay, next project please!

XOCOLAT!

Did somebody once say that chocolate is cheaper than therapy and you don’t need an appointment?

 

 

Indeed, there is really something about chocolates that eases up the stress, discomforts and other aches of the daily grind.

 

 

It’s rich, creamy and heaven-perfect. It reminds me of the old adage, “In heaven, chocolates have no calories and are served as the main course”.

 

It was during one hot choco break when a life-changing eureka moment would happen between two friends, Pinky Ortiz and Valerie Lopez, while they sipped away what they thought was the best-tasting version of their favorite drink.

The setting was at Christian Escriba in lovely Barcelona, Spain. Friends Pinky and Val, enamoured by the great-tasting dark beverage they sampled, thought of  bringing home their experience back to the country. They struck a partnership with two more friends, Trish Malvar and Rina Avecilla, in 2004 to establish Xocolat, a chocolate-inspired restaurant that would soon be an important player in the highly-competitive restaurant scene of Manila.

In an interview with FOODIE at their Katipunan Ave. branch, Pinky intimated to us the inspiration behind Xocolat. “A journey to Barcelona (Spain) brought us to the doorstep of this curious pasteleria in Las Ramblas. It served the creamiest and yummiest cup of hot chocolate. That little cup of heaven is the blueprint of our legendary ‘taza de Xocolat’”.

 

Now considered a breakthrough in the local restaurant environment dominated by conservative-palated Pinoys, Xocolat is able to pull off  a menu that includes savory dishes with drizzles of chocolate! But who’s complaining? I can eat a pillowcase that’s chocolate coated!

The owners of Xocolat definitely get a kick out of seeing their loyal clients enjoying every bite and sip of their delights. They excitedly spoke about the “high” they get when a customer goes for seconds, and thirds, of that thick, dark and rich drink!

Pinky also shared with us their future dreams. “We see Xocolat as being recognized as a homegrown chocolate bar that that can compete with the global giants.” She adds that Xocolat’s vision is to someday dabble into more ambitious plans like setting up a Xocolat village, factory or a museum.

Pinky shared with FOODIE that, to date, they are still hurdling with the fact that coffee is still the default stress relaxant in the metro. “We are entering a coffee-dominated arena; so, we need to start creating a sustainable chocolate-drinking market,” she adds.

There is strong evidence that they will soon achieve their vision. The four branches that they’ve established so far have been enjoying continued patronage from a rather discriminating clientele. Who can say no to chocolates, anyway?

After all, it has been written somewhere that “On the eighth day, God created chocolates.”

Off to heaven now.

 

If I win the lotto, I’m gonna buy an hacienda!

Say Cheese!

Foodie drives all the way down south to experience the lethal combination of good food and nature tripping.

WE started clicking away with our cameras the moment we stepped down from the van.

Why, the place, Hacienda Macalauan in in Laguna, was every inch captivating and oozing with charm.

We were greeted by a refreshing breakfast of mozzarella sticks, a pitcher of chilled freshly-squeezed dalandan juice and their very own yogurt of different flavors, all locally grown.

Then we proceeded to check out the cow barn where fresh milk is sourced from.

We walked over to the main plant where they make all the cheeses that go to the market. Definitely some milk and cheese 101 for the FOODIE team.

Witnessing first hand how commercial milk and cheeses are processed, a dairy 101 of sorts for the FOODIE team, was one of the major highlights of the tour–and that alone, made the three-hour trip well worth it.

We scoured the Hacienda some more and caught a majestic view of the place. The luscious landscape with the steady gurgling of the water stream nearby just blew us away.

 Milk and cheese plus a nice nature tripping experience equaled some good memories of the hacienda. Moo!

I’ve made up my mind, if ever I win the lotto someday, I’m gonna buy out this Hacienda:)

Baked Hoisin Ribs

Hoisin sauce  is the equivalent of America’s barbeque sauce in Chinese cooking. It is a sweet-smelling and sometimes pungent sauce usually used in a lot of Asian dishes. Hoisin is powered by a number of spices specifically some fermented soy, garlic, vinegar, and usually chilis and sweetener.  

Today, I baked some ribs with some hoisin marinade. I loved how the hoisin coated the fall-off-the-bones ribs quite perfectly. Ahh, this one is delightfully one of the best hoisin dishes you should try and sample.

Okay, you will need to pressure cook your ribs before you bake it. I prefer tenderizing meats first before I submit them into the oven. I want to be able to control the smokiness, degree of caramelization of the sugar in the sauce and the doneness of the meat. You don’t want to burn your marinade and the meat way before the meat gets done!

Anyway, my 1/2 kilo sliced pork ribs (the part you use for lechon kawali) went to the pressure cooker. Pressure cooked it for 25 minutes. Remember, the timing for the pressure cooker ONLY begins when the whistle begins to make noise NOT when you seal the lid.

When done, remove meat from water, season with salt and pepper  and generously lather and baste with hoisin sauce. Let stand for 30 minutes.

Meantime, preheat oven to 400 c. Bake for 25 minutes. Serve hot!

Fish and Oysters

Parmesan-crusted lapu-lapu fillet with garlic-mayo dip

 Wet markets have always awed me. The sight of freshly-delivered fishes jumping in ‘balde’ -fresh water majorly amuses me. The seafoods and veggies– fresh and obviously spelling quality never fail to get my attention.

A few days ago, my mom rang me up to ask what I wanted from Farmer’s Market. Almost instantly and instinctly, I pleaded for fish and oysters. Ahh, who needs to go outside the city for some fresh catch? It’s right in Cubao!

And so, the moment I got hold of them, the cooking began. The lunch ‘project’? Some parmesan-crusted lapu-lapu fillets!

 

Ready to be deep fried

I sliced two whole fillets of lapu-lapu (finger size) and seasoned them with salt and pepper. 

In a bowl, I beat 1 egg and mixed in a tablespoon of flour to make a batter.

Dipped the fish fingers one by one onto the batter then coated them with Japanese breadcrumbs mixture (1 and 1/2 cup Japanese breadcrumbs, 1/2 cup parmesan cheese and  1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper and mixed everything together. Then I was ready to deep fry.

Ahh, how I devoured the crunchy crust and moist flesh inside!

 The fish went with some garlic-mayo dip. I mixed 1/2 cup mayo with 3 cloves of minced garlic and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, seasoned with salt and pepper too!

The second dish was made up of creamy cheese and oysters. Ahh, this was the bomb. I boiled 1 and 1/2 kilos of oysters until shells opened. Them I arranged the oysters on a baking plate, then topped each with a pinch of garlic, 1/4 teaspoon butter and 1 spoonfull of quick-melting cheese. Baked for 15-20 minutes at 275 c. Now, how easy was that?

Don’t forget to squeeze in some swig of lemon before eating!

Baked cheesy oysters

 

 

 

 

 

Tuna Pesto Wrap

I saw a pack of tortillas sitting on a lonely shelf at Rustan’s yesterday when Jake and I did the grocery. I just knew I had to grab it for some warm, comforting  and delish “blank-blank” wrap, well, I impulsively got it without any exact intent as to what I wanted to do with it.

A lightbulb moment happened today and I was able to fill in the  “blank blank”. I felt like making some tuna pesto combo that I randomly teamed up with some great cheddar cheese and crunchy lettuce plus a number of spices.

Sarap!

Okay, how to do it:

2 cans tuna (solid in brine or hot and spicy)

1 cup mayo

2 tbsps mustard

3 tbsps pesto

1 medium-sized onion, minced

1/4 cup cucumber, chopped

1/4 cup celery, chopped (optional)

2 pcs romaine lettuce leaves

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

salt and pepper to taste

6 pcs tortillas

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1. Drain tuna from all the liquid. To take off the ‘lansa’ factor, soak tuna chunks in 3 cups drinking water and drain.

2. Mix tuna, onion, cucumber, celery, mayo, cheese and mustard together. Season with salt and pepper.

3. On a piece of a heated/grilled tortilla bread, put lettuce and tuna spread and put some pesto on top. Fold two sides of tortilla towards the center. Serve while pita is warm.

NOTE: Tortillas can be heated through a teflon pan or a griller. Heating time should only be a minute or less to maintain its softness.

Beef With Gravy Sauce

The last few weeks saw me mostly biting on Chicken. I planned to cut the pattern and  decided to whip up some beef dish that used my fave part, top sirloin.

Top sirloin should be the tender part as opposed to the bottom sirloin. And equally yummy was the gravy that went with the beef. I love, love, love homemade gravy. It’s got all the beefy goodness that makes gravies the most sought-after sauce next to ketchup.

Believe it or not, this dish is one of the easiest dishes to make. Easy, yeah, EASY as in E-A-S-Y!!!

Okay, the ingredients: 1/2 kilo top sirloin, 1 minced onion, 4 cloves of chopped garlic, salt and pepper.

For the gravy, you will need: 1/2 cup butter, 2 cups beef stock, 3 tbsps flour and 1 big can of sliced button mushrooms.

Okay how to do it:

Saute onion and garlic. Add beef, season with salt and pepper to taste and cover with water. Add water as needed until meat is very tender. And I mean T-E-N-D-E-R!

Okay, this is the deal with sirloin. It’s very tender if you stir fry it for a few minutes but it gets hard and rubbery when you let it fry and simmer a bit longer than a few minutes.

But hey…

If you let it cook some more, as in for another hour, it will soften again with doneness a guarantee. That I like as opposed to cooking it a bit rare. I like the beef staying on for quite sometime in the pan to make the sauce truly beefy!

Okay, once th beef is done, take out the meat leaving juices and oil still in the pan. Reduce oil when there’s too much to avoid curdling. Some remaining 1/4 cup of oil won’t hurt.

Using the same pan, mix in butter, 1 cup beef stock and flour. Mix flour well until sauce is free of lumps. Add more flour in case you want your sauce thicker.

Stir constantly until sauce is thick enough for you. Be sure to thoroughly scrape all beef residues stuck on the pan. The wealth of flavor is there!

Slowly pour in the remaining stock. Adjust consistency according to your preference by adding or minimizing pouring of beef stock.

Finally, throw back beef onto the pan. Mix in chopped mushrooms. Simmer for five more minutes. Serve hot.

Hoisin Balls

Very recently, I discovered how to make meatballs that are consitently tender and  juicy even long after you’ve cooked and stored them in the ref for reheating.  Culinary purists might just crucify me for this unconventional method but hey, anything to eat good food, right?

Traditionally, meatballs are either deep or stir fried before they are mixed in with certain sauces and are left to simmer some more. While it yields a slightly crunchy texture in the outside and soft in the inside, it easily stiffens in a matter of minutes making it dry, hard and not too pleasurable to eat anymore.

Okay fine, there are other factors that make these balls “hard” (ex. too much egg, too much flour, etc.) But I discovered, it’s really the manner of cooking that makes it so.

Okay, what did I do recently? I made some Hoisin Chicken Balls. The meatballs, obviously, were the rockstars of this dish. I used half a kilo of ground chicken meat, seasoned it with salt and pepper, 1 minced onion, 4 cloves of minced garlic and mixed in 4 tablespoons of flour and mixed all ingredients together.

THERE. No egg, no crumbled bread, no too much flour. You just need the chicken meat and the potential burst of its juices with the aide of some basic spices. I  formed them into balls. Size? Your choice. Wanted mine mini’s so I balled them up this way:

Then I boiled water and boiled the balls! Wee! Boiled them for about fifteen minutes. Drained and set aside.

The balls came out tender, juicy and very meaty.

In a separate pan, I put about 1/4 cup oil, sauted 1 large chopped onion and about 1/2 cup hoisin sauce. Then threw in the meatballs in the pan until all balls were well coated. THERE. Shockingly easy, right? Okay, the secret is out. The taste and texture of the balls were consistent from the moment it got cooked upto the next meal when I needed to reheat them. Yay!

The Most Memorable Cooking Experience

And so it happened.

Super typhoon ravaged, crushed and shattered a great number of homes— and dreams of thousands of Filipino. All too suddenly, I realized how, in a snap, everything you have can actually just go–for good.

I felt guilty being  just comfortably home in the heels of the storm as I watched on TV how Ondoy victims clung on to trees, waded in muddy floods just to survive. I felt so helpless. Super.

So, I grabbed the computer and started to mobilize some help through facebook. I felt that the best I could do was to at least give the victims some hot meals after their tumultous date with the storm.

Using my small kawali, with the help of friends (even from as far as Tokyo, Japan– Sieg and Jen Penaverde), High Schoold friends Kit Apari, Pia Canda-Roxas, Faye Singson, Ex-workshop classmate Tanya Titong, childhood friend, Lily Anne Dela Paz, Gym buddy Mae Ramos, John and Coleen Lesaca, we got the feeding operations started the day after the typhoon. The chickens just came pouring in. Whether in kind, in a form of service or in cash, thanks to you guys in behalf of the Ondoy victims.  The meals were brought to Ateneo,  Rizal and some to various baranggays.

 The whole cooking yielded 400 packs all in all, one and a half days of cooking and a lifetime of gratitude to all who made the relief ops possible.

The food:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Corned Beef With Beans

My lola was an excellent cook. Okay, biases aside, she was. VERY!

She cooked from the heart. Savory, succulent and well plated, she paid intense attention to details. Ahh, I miss her food. Her homemade ham that had the best glaze, her pochero with the mashed squash and eggplant siding, her fluffy tortilla, her nilagang kenchie, her calandracas, tinumis, etc. I can go on and on..

Today, I made one of her dishes. A 3-step wonder. Definitely, the best tasting 5-minute meal.

Okay, how to do this:

1. Saute 4 cloves of minced garlic and 1 chopped red onion.

2. Add in 1 can corned beef and 1 can pork and beans. Stir-fry some more for two minutes.

3. Add 1 cup shredded cabbage. Continue mixing for the next 3 minutes or until cabbage is half-cooked. Serve hot.

How easy was that?

Mashed Potato Makeover (Tuna Croquettes)

Okay, all too suddenly you craved for some creamy mashed potatoes.  You decided to whip up this dish in excessive quantity. You totally forgot about the word GLUTTONY. Yeah, you wanted to binge that night, alright.

Finally, you surrendered gobbling it up. Oh, but the problem was, there were ten containers of mashed potatoes you made. Ha!

Then you decided to stack it away in the ref. One, two, three days later and you realized these mashed potatoes have turned from yummy to icky.

Why, potatoes are always best when they’re fresh from the heat. Old potatoes tend to taste starchy, stiff and overly bland.

But who says days-old potatoes can’t be rockin’ anymore?

Not me.

Today, I made some croquettes. Yeah, using mashed potatoes from last night. The filling was made up of tuna, crumbled white cheese and red bell pepper cubes. I just sauted about 3 cloves of minced garlic, 1 small-sized red bell pepper (cubed) and 1 can of drained tuna. Final ingredient was about half a cup of crumbled white cheese, mixed in the tuna ensemble shortly before turning off the heat.

I thought Tuna and melted white cheese make a great tandem. My mom uses ground beef while others even throw in some chopped raisins on their meat filling. Your choice, really.

croquette filling

I then molded my mashed potatoes into balls and flattened them to push in some filling inside. Dredged them on flour, dipped in one beaten egg and finally coated it with Japanese bread crumbs.The final shape was something like:

Then deep fried:

Crunchy outside, creamy and savory inside:

Mashed poato recipe:

3 large potatoes

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup heavy  cream

salt and pepper to taste

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Boil potatoes.

Mash with potato masher.

Throw in remaining ingredients. Mix thoroughly.

Chicken Spaghetti Melt

Yes, chicken. With all our might, hubby Jake and I have been trying to look away from the pork and beef that have been calling our names since the time we succumbed to the call of healthy lifestyle. Save for the few times we bite on beef, we usually settle for the chicken viand. Healthier, as delish, but less of the fat (unless you eat the skin!).

Okay, today’s lunch was chicken spaghetti melt. Spaghetti that used ground chicken meat in the sauce.

Instead of the usual grated cheese we conventionally top on that good ‘ol hot spaghetti, I decided to melt my medium-sharp cheddar cheese that crowned my chicken spaghetti.

Cheddar, hands down, is my ‘comfort cheese’ as opposed to the other bland tasting variety. I love the saltiness that romances well with the creaminess component of the cheese. I just love, love, love cheddar cheese!

Okay here goes, you will need:

1/2 kilo ground chicken

1/2 kilo whole wheat pasta

1 can diced tomatoes

1 small pack tomato paste

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 large tomato, chopped

1 onion, minced

1 large bell pepper, cubed

6 cloves of garlic, minced

1 cup grated medium-sharp cheddar cheese

salt and pepper to taste

3 tbsp butter

oil

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1. Saute ground chicken in garlic,onion, bell peppers, tomato sauce and paste in oil and butter. Season with salt and pepper. Cook until meat is tender. Pou heavy cream and continue stirring until bubbly. Set aside.

2. In a separate pan, cook pasta acording to package direction. Shock and drain.

3. Mix pasta and sauce. Top generously with cheddar cheese. Microwave for 3-4 minutes. Serve hot.

NOTE: You may substitute cheddar with mozzarela, parmesan or both! Enjoy!

Lime Chicken

Quite impulsively, I picked up a pack of lime that I saw when I did the grocery at Tropical Hut very recently. I thought it looked really pretty and would love to use it sometime. It hasn’t yet cooled down much in our ref when I decided to use it up in tandem with my chicken right away.  

In the culinary world, lime holds a lot of value as it is appreciated for its acidity of its juice and the aromatic properties it posseses. Quite a popular ingredient in Mexican, Southwestern United States and Thai dishes, it’s become very popular in our household too:)

And yeah, finally, my fingers are back pounding away on these keys, blogging. I missed blogging. The last two weeks kept my hands tied having had to work on certain important “missions” (a.k.a rakets, lol).

Anyway, here goes the recipe:

2 whole chicken breasts, cubed

juice of 1 lime

1/4 cup soy sauce

4 cloves of garlic, minced

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup oil (for marinating)

1/2 cup oil (for frying)

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1. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Meantime, combine all ingredients (except frying oil) to make the marinade.

2. Marinate chicken for an hour. Pour marinade and chicken in a shallow pan. Fry until chicken is done and liquid has almost evaporated. Pour chicken in a plate including sauce from frying. Serve hot. 

Lime

Spicy Chicken In Charsiu Sauce

Yes, it’s chicken made spicy and blended in charsiu sauce. It’s like the bbq sauce version of the Chinese.  It’s sweet, flavorful and loaded with the “Eat me! eat more!” factor. So tasty, you will gobble up a lot without let up. It’s the easiest to make, too. Charsiu sauce is readily available in most major supermarkets in the metro.

1. Just season wings with salt, pepper and a dash of chili flakes.

2.Bread with japanese bread crumbs (for breading techniques, please click: http://theeatingroom.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/chicken-crispers/  ). Fry. Set aside.

3. In a separate pan, heat about three rounds of oil then mix in a pack of Lee Kum Kee (nope, this note is not sponsored..) charsiu sauce. Then, throw in fried wings onto the mixture. Voila!

For a knockout plating, lay down the chicken on a bed of buttered (recipe below).

Just fry your rice and mix in butter. Season with salt and pepper. Add turmeric until desired ‘yellowness’ is achieved (optional). You might want to throw in some chopped basil or any herb of your choice for added flavor.

This dish is a conversation piece because it is so easy to make and yet looks elaborate. It’s perfect for potluck or even for baon. Bon apetit!

Spicy Beef Caldereta

spicy beef caldereta

We had so much catching up to do since we arrived from Cagayan De Oro City for the holidays. Talk about parties, reunions and stuff, we gladly and willfully attended those as much as we could in the last two weeks that we’ve been back.

However, there were times when some potluck gatherings just had me pooping out like anything with all the brainstorming on what to bring on those events.  Yes, sure, to buy food can be the easiest and the wisest thing to do, but half of me tells me that it’s still better if you make your potluck share yourself. Why? because 1. it’s more personal 2. the taste is according to your palatal satisfaction 3. cheaper and 4. it’s downright  ’uncommercialized’. There. 4 solid reasons why you shouldn’t buy pansit malabon or mocca roll for your potluck contribution (hee hee).

Over at Marra’s two weekends ago, we had our belated barkada Christmas party. I decided to do a fuss-free (well, compared to my other party dishes..) dish. Spicy beef caldereta- it’s a filipino favorite. It’s my personal favorite, too. This version was passed on to me by my mom, whom I hail as the ‘kitchen queenpin’. She actually calls this dish adobado and is quite different from the usual way of cooking caldereta as the ingredients are layered, uses minimal canned/foiled tomato sauce and the potatoes are fried.

Okay, to cut to the chase, here goes the recipe for this version of spicy beef caldereta:

1 kilo beef brisket

about a dozen medium-sized tomatoes, cubed

1 pc calamansi

half cup soy sauce

1 head of garlic, minced

laurel leaf

2 large onions, minced

3 pcs siling labuyo, chopped

5 medium-sized potatoes, cut crosswise

2 pcs red bellpepper, julliened

a small bottle of pitted and stuffed olives

 salt and pepper to taste

3/4 cup tomato sauce (for coloring)

1. Season beef with salt and pepper then marinate in soy sauce and calamansi for 30 minutes. Set aside.

2. Layer the ingredients in a casserole such that tomato is at the bottom, then marinated beef, garlic and onion at the top of the whole ensemble. This way, flavors lock in the beef that’s in the middle of the assembly.

3. Pour in about 3 cups of water to help liquify and wilt the tomatoes at the bottom. Bring to a moderate simmer.

4. Once drying out, continue pouring in water until beef tenderness is achieved.

5. Add the bell peppers, laurel leaf, sili  and the pitted olives. Mix in the tomato sauce. Set aside.

6. Meantime, deep fry the potatoes.

7. Pour the beef mixture onto a pyrex dish. Garnish with fried potatoes on top. Something like this:

I prefer slow-cooking versus using the pressure cooker for this dish. By slow cooking, you are assured to achieve the ‘nagaagaw na tomato sauce and mantika’ effect. I used minimal tomato sauce because you wanna achieve the most natural tasting  tomato sauce.

Shrimps In Lemon Butter Sauce

shrimps in lemon butter sauce

My thoughts were astray as we were hearing the 7pm mass awhile ago (bad!). I was thinking of what food to cook for dinner that was  fast and yummy. I scoured the freezer and found my dinner hotshot– my pack of shrimps. Believe it or not, this meal cooks for under  fifteen minutes!

Shrimps in Lemon Butter Sauce

15 pcs medium-sized shrimps, deveined and shelled

1/4 cup butter

6 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tbsp lemon or 1 pc calamansi

salt and pepper to taste

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1. Season shrimps with salt and pepper.

2. Saute garlic in butter then add shrimps and lemon. Cook until shrimps turn pinkish in color.

3. Serve with basil rice (recipe below).

4. Assemble in a saucer as shown above. Pour in extra sauce into the saucer. Ahhh, love that sauce!

5. Sprinkle with chopped flat parsley (optional)

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 Basil Rice

 2 cups white rice

1/4 cup butter

salt and pepper  to taste

1 tbsp chopped fresh basil

turmeric powder

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1. Fry white rice in butter.

2. Season with salt and pepper

3. Add turmeric powder until desired “yellowness” is achieved.

4. Add chopped fresh basil. Mix well.

 

 

 

 

 

Sicilian Tuna Pasta

To date, this dish has been one of the most labor UNintensive meals I turn to when I’m too lazy to belabor myself with cooking. Sicilian tuna pasta– oh yes, inspired by the great cuisine of Sicily (Italy). Food and wine are the two main attractions of Sicily and the former, a ‘must-indulge-in’ when you happen to be there. Sigh, but we are here. Ha! Anyway, might as well bring home the flavors of Sicily, huh? We had this last night. With wine to match. And, stories to boot. How  I look forward to dining at home with Jake after a long stress-peppered day.  Good food and a glass of red just complete the whole dining experience. Okay, here goes:

Sicilian Tuna Pasta

1 pack san remo linguine pasta (or any pasta of your choice, half kilo)

1 small can tomato paste

1 small pack tomato sauce

1 can tuna (in water or brine)

1 red bell pepper, finely chopped

1 green bell pepper, finely chopped

1 head garlic, minced (I love garlic, others find 1 head too much but to me, 1 head just makes the dish extra tasty!)

salt and pepper to taste

1 tbsp fresh oregano, chopped (optional)

1 tbsp fresh sweet basil, chopped (optional)

1 tbsp fresh Italian flat parsley, chopped (optional)

1 1/2 cups chicken stock

olive oil

1. In a pan, drizzle about 4  rounds of olive oil  (about 4 tbsp)

2. Saute garlic. Add tuna, bellpeppers, tomato paste, tomato sauce.

3. Slowly mix in chicken stock to thin the tomato paste. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Add herbs (optional)

5. Sprinkle parmesan cheese on top.

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Cook pasta according to directions.

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Plate pasta and sauce separately.

Chicken Pochero

A Filipino dish majorly influenced by the many races that’s been ‘in and out’ of our archipelago like the Malays and Spaniards, pochero has been enjoying immense accolades from big foodies like me. The salty and sweet blend (from the saba ) gives the dish an interesting dimension.

Interestingly, the original pochero is actually a merry combination of beef, pork and chicken, but since we try to avert the last two for health reasons, I decided to make this chicken pochero.

But the real kick in this dish happens when you start eating this mean dish with the eggplant-squash siding. I promise you, baby, once you’ve tasted this siding, pochero will never be the same again without it. PROMISE!

Chicken Pochero

3 whole chicken breasts, chopped

3 pcs chorizo de bilbao, sliced

3 pcs saba, sliced

4 medium-sized potatoes, wedged or quartered

4 pcs tagalog pechay, leaves separated from the stem

10 pcs string beans, trimmed

1 small pack tomato sauce

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 large onion, chopped

1 tomato, sliced

2 tbsp patis or fish sauce

canola oil

2 cups water

salt and pepper to taste

1. Season chicken with salt and pepper. In a pan, saute garlic, tomato and onion. Sear in the chicken. Mix in fish sauce. Add water. Midway into cooking, throw in the potatoes and saba. Cook until tender.

2. Mix in chorizos. Bring down to a simmer.

3. Put in tomato sauce.

4. Add pechay and string beans. Serve with the siding.

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Eggplant-Squash siding

3 medium-sized eggplant, peeled

quartered squash, peeled and seeded

3 cloves of garlic, finely minced

2 tbsp white vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

1. Boil eggplant and squash. Once tender, remove from the pan and mash and mix together. Put garlic and vinegar. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with the pochero.

Coming up next…

Yaya Lisa’s fabulous chicken and potatoes!

Yaya Lisa’s Zesty Chicken and Potatoes

Sam’s yaya Lisa has been in the thick of watching cooking shows lately. She tells me how much she wants to learn the art of cooking someday. That, to me, is a great start.

The other night, she made this– zesty chicken with potatoes. I love, love, love the mouthwatering blend of asian soy and calamansi! And, I want lots! haaay, you can NEVER have enough of this once you start biting into it.

Anyway, here goes yaya Lisa’s recipe—

Zesty Chicken With Potatoes

2 pcs whole chicken breasts, halved

5 pcs calamansi, juiced

3/4 cup soy sauce

3 medium-sized potatoes, cut into sticks

salt and pepper to taste

canola oil

________________________________________

1. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Marinate in soy sauce and calamansi for a good 30 minutes to two hours. The longer it gets soaked, the better.

2. Fry the chicken. Once cooked, add the remaining marinade. Make sure you achieve the ‘agaw mantika and soy sauce’ effect.

3. In a separate pan, fry potatoes.

4. Mix chicken and potatoes together. Serve.

TOUCHDOWN!

Coming up next…

My Homemade Hearty Cream Of Spinach Soup…

Hearty Cream Of Spinach Soup

Having Popeye as spinach’s biggest endorser to date, this veggie has gained immense popularity from all four corners of the globe. It is, hands down,  universally acclaimed as one of the biggest providers of calcium and iron. It’s flavorful, versatile and physically appealing to the naked eye.  That’s  why I love giving this green leaf some interesting twists and turns when I get the chance.

The other night I got my hands working on this cream of spinach soup. It’s simple, rich and elegant. So, who says those three can’t go well together? 

To cut to the chase, here goes the recipe:

Hearty Cream Of  Spinach Soup

1 pack of fresh spinach, coarsely chopped

1 box all-purpose cream

3 cloves of garlic, minced

1  small onion, chopped

1 and 1/2 cup chicken or beef stock

salt and pepper to taste

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1. In a skillet, saute garlic and onion. Throw in spinach and mix in stock. Bring down to a simmer. Never overcook the spinach.

2. Meantime, transfer this mixture into a food processor or blender.

3. Pulse until semi smooth.

4. Put back on the skillet. Switch heat to medium. Add cream. Season with salt and pepper. Stir. Serve.

Coming up next…

Spanish Chorizo With Cheddar Cheese  Omelet

Spanish Chorizo And Cheddar Cheese Omelette

The original version of this dish uses scrap ham. Those hams that come from Excelente in Quiapo or Adelina’s Ham are certainly  the ones that garner  adulation and patronage from foodies like me. However, last I checked our fridge for Adelina’s, what greeted me, in one of my food containers, was a lonesome long stick of Spanish chorizo that seemed to have begged me with the, “Eat me! eat me!” appeal.

Chorizos always have that effect on me. It just makes me bite and devour it  selfishly with my eyes closed. To the point of addiction. To the point of gluttony. Ah, to the point where I mechanically eat and eat and eat these chorizos some more. And, to couple it with cheddar cheese? Arg, holy cow! Deadly combination, I must say.

Last week saw me dishing out this mean Spanish chorizo and cheddar cheese omelette. Used my new baby, my non-stick greenpan that’s eco-friendly and amazingly efficient. Wow, if you’re serious in your cooking, this pan is a MUST-have!!!

The bed of egg from the omelette  just flipped so perfectly from the pan to the serving plate!

Anyway, let me share with you my omelette  experience in the company of my Spanish chorizos. Here goes:

3 whole eggs, slightly beaten

1/4 cup all-purpose cream

1 long stick of chorizos, sliced

1 red bell pepper, minced

1/2 cup cheddar cheese, grated

1 tomato, chopped

1 onion, chopped

3 cloves of garlic, minced

2 tbsp butter

1 tsp worcestershire sauce (optional)

salt and pepper to taste

canola oil

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1. Saute garlic, tomato, onion and bell pepper in oil. Add chorizos. Season with salt and pepper. Add worcestershire sauce (optional).  Add cheese.

2. Mix beaten eggs and all purpose-cream together.  Pour eggs on a buttered skillet to form a round bed of egg. Distribute the chorizo mixture over one half of the egg. Fold egg with the chorizo filling inside. Serve with  your favorite toast.

TOUCHDOWN!

Herbed Yellow Rice

 

How I crunch at the thought of skipping rice during times I ‘attempt’ to go easy on my carbs. How much more when the rice is much more satiating than the main viand! Arg, I cannot, for the life of me, go through my daily motion without being fueled up by the mighty rice!

For the last two days, I have been having a serious affair with my rice that would later on be fried, wolfed down and remain to be a memory…

I dished out this herbed yellow rice for my friends Aileen and Mai, who swung by my place separately for two nights. In both evenings, I had this and a beef viand plus some vegetable dish to boot.

Healthy, yummy, earthy and truly fragarant, this rice simply rocks.

I just fried four cups of day-old rice into 3 tbsp butter. Seasoned it with salt and pepper, mixed in a teaspoon of turmeric powder  and threw in chopped fresh rosemary, tarragon, oregano thyme and flat parsley, all herbs 1 tsp each . Then mixed it til flavors blended in perfect harmony. TOUCHDOWN! Now, how simple was that?

Coming up next…

Adobo-Brown Rice Sinangag

Adobo-Brown Rice Sinangag

We are definitely brown rice converts by now. I mean, my family has succumbed to the concept of healthy lifestyle yielding better health and a more productive ’self’. Foodwise, we have started embracing the fact that anything organic and low fat is good. Amen.  So, brown rice is it for us now. Well, save for some ocassions when we have guests at home who still would howl for the white variety…

But who says you can’t have that yummy fried rice while being healthy with your choice of brown rice?

Cooking brown rice is a bit different than when you cook the white kind. The brown rice bigas is soaked in water for a good thirty minutes or so before they are cooked. Once cooked, you gotta let it sit for a day or so (in the ref, of course) to achieve the ‘lose’ texture that is best for fried rice.

To do the adobo fried rice, mince about 5 cloves of garlic. Saute in canola oil. Add 4 cups of rice. Season with salt, pepper and a swig of liquid seasoning. You may throw in about 2 tsp chopped chives if you wish for added flavor and extra kick. Once cooked and plated, top with shredded chicken adobo (recipe below). You may actually opt to toss the adobo already along with the chives.

Chicken adobo

1/2 kilo chicken

1/2 cup vinegar

5 cloves of head of garlic, minced

water

laurel leaf

peppercorn

salt and pepper to taste

canola oil

1. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Mix in garlic, vinegar and water enough to cover the meat.

2. Midway into cooking, add laurel leaf and peppercorn.

3. Bring to a simmer until tender and flaky. Add water as needed. Continue to fry until meat gets flaky and crunchy if you wish. Add canola oil as needed (chicken is expected to render fat, though).

I personally keep a container of adobo handy all the time. I store it in my freezer for future use. Who doesn’t cook adobo at least once a week, anyway? I even use it as panini filling (ah, that’s for the next blog, perhaps?)         

There.

TOUCHDOWN!

Coming up next…

Chinese Style Steamed Dory

 

Chinese-Style Steamed Dory

I can’t be luckier to have a Chinese neighbor whom I frequently exchange goodies with. Her Chinese cooking is very reminiscent of those fares typically sold in a lot of good Chinese restaurants in Binondo. It’s authentic, hardcore and real Chinese! Nothing adjusted to the Filipino palate. It’s genuine Chinese cooking, period.

Steamed Dory. Two of my favorite things, combined. I love anything steamed and I love Dory. This dish is best for those who avert red meat or those who are battling with the bulges. It’s light, tasty and healthy.

There is a minor tweaking in steaming this dish from the usual method that yields major difference in taste. Ahhh, love this! Indeed, thou shall always love thy neighbor!

Chinese-Style Steamed Dory

2 large fillets of cream dory

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 teaspoon light soy for each fillet

2 tbsp grated ginger for each fillet

1/2 tsp chili flakes or chopped fresh chili

1. After washing the fillets, lather them with grated ginger. Steam for ten minutes.

(Note: Don’t season your dory with salt and pepper at this point. You would want to extract all the excess juices from the fillets first before you season it.)

2. Remove excess juice from the fish.

3. Season with salt, pepper and light soy. Steam for another ten minutes.

4. Garnish with chili flakes or chopped fresh chili on top. Serve.

TOUCHDOWN!

Coming up next…

Mayo-Mustard Tuna Sandwich

Jack’s Loft, And Ours Too!

As newlyweds about four years ago, the place Jake and I first stayed in was  fifty steps away from Jack’s loft in San Juan. No wonder, we trooped over to the place quite often then– whether to just have a swig of banana- peanut butter smoothie or grab a big time bite!

Just today, ‘Jack’ and I had a reconnection of sorts. My high school friends and I decided to hook up at Jack’s loft, Tomas Morato for a catch-up chat. Once  again, I feasted on their gastronomic delights with my eyes closed! Yum-o! 

Our fantastic beginning was made up of lettuce and everything nice…

classic caesar salad

 After much deliberation on what to order next, we finally decided to get carbonara, chicken fingers, beef salpicao, and grilled chicken breast with mashed potatoes. Now, that’s 3 hours straight on the treadmill! Haha!

crispy chicken fingers

 

beef salpicao

Their beef salpicao just had the right blend and consistency of the soy sauce and oil. Very garlicky but not offensive nor bitter. Beef, so tender. Yum! Ahh, how we raved about this salpicao (translation: pinag agawan namin!).

grilled chicken breast with mashed potatoes

 Their mashed potato dish has got to be one of the yummiest I’ve sampled. It’s soft, creamy and literally melts in your mouth!

classic carbonara

 I just love their carbonara. The pasta noodles lock in much of the flavors of the white sauce. The play of salty (courtesy of the bacon) and creamy in the sauce, absorbed by the lingune noodles, just makes the whole ensemble wonderful beyond words!

Cheers!!!

Mustard-Mayo Tuna Sandwich Spread

Great-tasting sandwiches do make me giddy every after bite. ‘Great-tasting’, to me, would mean chunky tuna, creamy mayo and a dash of mustard, all in between two slices of freshly grilled whole-wheat bread!

I keep a jar of sandwich spreads in my ref handy for ‘emergency’ purposes. There are times when Jake and I would experience some pangs of hunger in the middle of the night and would automatically turn to these bottled spreads to stuff our famished tummies. One of my favorite spreads would be this mustard-mayo tuna sandwich spread. It’s  got the merry mix of creaminess, chunkiness, yumminess and HAPPINESS in every bite! Ahh, it’s so good that I even convert it into a salad topping when there’s extra. The crunch factor is made possible  by the onion, cucumber and celery, while the zing from the mustard and boy, do they rock!

Mayo-Mustard Tuna Sandwich

1 can tuna (solid in brine or hot and spicy)

3/4 cup mayo

3 tbsp mustard

1 medium-sized onion, minced

1/4 cup cucumber, chopped

1/4 cup celery, chopped (optional)

lettuce

2 slices of cheddar cheese

a slice of tomato

salt and pepper to taste

2 slices whole wheat bread

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1. Drain tuna from all the liquid. To take off the ‘lansa’ factor, soak tuna chunks in 3 cups drinking water and drain.

2. Mix tuna, onion, cucumber, celery, mayo and mustard together. Season with salt and pepper.

3. On a slice of grilled bread, put lettuce, cheese, tuna spread and a slice of tomato on top. Seal with the remaining grilled slice. Serve.

TOUCHDOWN!

Coming up next….

Chicken Galantina

Chicken Galantina

 Learning how to debone a chicken has been one of the greatest highlights of my food life. Never thought I’d be able to cut through those chicken cavities!  Why, it seemed too intimidating, laborious and kinda time consuming until I learned  how it’s done. And, the first step? Courage.

With the help of my trusty knife, my first attempt was a resounding success. I just let my knife cut through the flesh while it parted from the bone. Trust me, your instincts will guide you all the way. Easy!

I will post pics soon to graphically demonstrate how it’s done. Meantime, you may opt to have your butcher help you with the deboning.

Ahhh, I just adore this dish. It’s a deadly combination of the chicken’s succulence and the filling’s melt-in-your-mouth factor! Individually, the chicken and the filling are already great and all. How much more when combined? Add to that the sauce from the drippings, hello! That’s super!

Anyway, thought I’d share with you one of my favorite dishes. Guys, it’s yours for the taking, dig in!

Chicken Galantina

1 whole chicken, about 1.5 kilos

1/2  kilo ground pork

1 cup carrot, grated

3/4 cup pickle relish

1 small can crushed pineapple, drained

1/2  box cheddar cheese, grated

1/4 cup  cream of mushroom soup (powdered)

1 egg, slightly beaten

1 large onion, roughly minced

1 large red bell pepper, minced

2 sliced white bread (tasty), cut into small pcs

1/4 cup raisins

salt and pepper to taste

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1. Debone chicken. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

2. For the filling:

Mix well all the remaining ingredients.

3. Stuff the chicken with the mixed ingredients.

4. Preheat oven at 350C. Bake for an hour or until chicken is cooked.

5. Let stand for twenty minutes.

6. Place drippings in a dishware. Serve with the galantina.

TOUCHDOWN!

Coming up next…

Moussaka

Legazpi Sunday Market

All too suddenly, the otherwise bustling Legazpi Village in Makati is a favorite destination on Sundays. Why? It’s become the hub for quality merchandise from great food buys all the way to fabulous home decors. Heck, with great food alone I’m more than happy already, how much more finding more interesting buys there?

 

Discovering that  most of their vegetable produce are organic, my appreciation of the place intesified by leaps and bounds. It just made our trip from QC to Makati all worth it.

 

 

I was floored by the diversity of cuisines I found there. Truly, a melting pot of  flavors, cultures and foodies. I enjoyed choosing among unfamiliar dishes. A food adventure of sorts, ahh, I love it!

A foodie’s piece of heaven right smack in the city of Makati.

 

Quite pricey though for a dressed-down ambience. Most of the Persian/Indian fares cost around P300 a pop. Was told that it was so because of the expensive ingredients (like a 5-karat gold? Gimme a break!).

And for the wine lovers, quite a great collection they have there.

And the extras being the fabulous home thingies over there.

Including works of art.

What a Sunday that was! Envigorating, refreshing and yeah, fattening too! Haha. Anyway, we had to fly as soon as we heard our last burping. Also, Sam was too pooped out to stay for the next twenty seconds.

Moussaka!

A greek dish well-loved by all cultures from all over the world! I am fascinated at how this dish perfectly combines the super triumvirate of great meat sauce, roux and eggplant! This is my version of the moussaka. Other versions use bechamel sauce while I prefer to use roux. It’s thicker and firmer than the bechamel. It’s nice when you layer, you will see the partition between the meat sauce and the roux. Just a bit of warning, a single  serving can be very filling! So, keep the that green tea bag handy, okay?

Ahhh, I can’t have enough of this.

Here goes:

2 medium-sized aubergines (round-shaped eggplants, see picture below) , peeled and sliced about 1/8 inch thick or you may use our regular native eggplant.

For the meat sauce:

1/4 kilo ground beef

1 medium-sized red bell pepper. minced

1 large onion, minced

1 cup tomato sauce

5 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tsp all-spice powder

1/2 tsp cumin powder

1 tomato, chopped

1 tbsp fresh oregano, chopped

1 tbsp fresh basil, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

For the roux:

1 box all-purpose cream

4 tbsps flour

1 box chedar cheese

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup butter

salt and pepper to taste

aubergine

Salt the aubergines and let sit for at least an hour to excrete all the bitter juices. Rinse well. Pat dry before slightly frying.

For the meat sauce:

1. Saute ground beef in garlic, onion and tomato. Season with salt and pepper. Add red bell peppers and spices.

2. Bring down to a simmer then stir in tomato sauce. Add herbs. Set aside.

For the roux:

1. Melt butter in a skillet. Add cream, cheddar , milk and slowly stir in flour. Season to taste. Never bring to a boil. Cook in low heat if possible.

2. Continue stirring until mixture becomes thick and firm.  Set aside.

In an oven-proof dish assemble/layer  the moussaka.

1. Scoop in some meatsauce at the bottom. Then top with a slice of aubergine, then meat sauce again, then spread some roux. Repeat layering twice. Top with parmesan cheese.

2. Bake at 350 c for twenty minutes or until cheese on top is golden brown.

TOUCHDOWN!

Coming up next…

Nyssa’s ‘Red Adobo’

I was just too happy to hear from my high school buddy Nyssa this morning. We were exchanging  notes on what we’ve become after all these many years that we have been apart. Why, Nyssa was like a sister when we were teenagers. We chronicled each and everyday of our high school life by chatting away like anything during recess time, lunch time and dismissal time! Funny, we were not even batchmates. We just hit it off too well. Sadly, we kinda drifted apart when college years came. Thank God for facebook, we’re hookedup again, at least, on cyberspace!

Earlier today, she was telling me about her being a ‘d.i.y.’ girl.  I checked out her work (for proof! Ha!) when she renovated her house and I was awed with what I saw! You might want to swing by her site, it’s  http://nyssaferedo.multiply.com/photos/album/6

So proud of you, buddy!

Beyond that, she told me that she’s simmered down to being a housewife from being a career person. How noble, I thought.

Anyway, she’s sharing with us her recipe of ’red adobo’ which her kids soooo love. Am sharing, too, (with her permission, of course) the note that went with it.

Dear Caren

It’s been great to hear from you and to know that after all these years we end up loving to do the same things! As promised i am sending you photos of the food i cooked today. I tried my best to get the pics to look as good as those on your blog…but im afraid these fall short. The good news is, the kids love it, and as moms you and i know that this is what it’s all about!!

I’ve said earlier that cooking is what my life is all about now. They say that we spend 1/3 of our lives sleeping and in my case the other third is spent in the kitchen or in front of cookbooks. I collect just about any cookbook or food book that strikes my fancy and i spend way too much time reading and thinking about all the food i would like to cook and taste. But as reality would have it , chores, kids and homemaking eats up our time and well, most days we have to stick with what is doable and practical and hopefully healthy. The dish we had today was born out of that. This is  the kind of dish harried moms resort to when there is little time and we have to make do with what’s in our cupboards. 

Antonio’s Red Adobo

This dish is not a kind of adobo. Once upon a time, Antonio refused to eat anything BUT adobo and i had to find a way to get him to eat his vegetables. He would  tell me ” Mom this is not adobo!” And I would say ” Oh yes it is! It’s RED adobo.” ( parenting experts please do not castigate me for this…moms do get really desperate at times ) These days he has gotten tired of the real adobo but still hankers for this faux adobo.

1/2 kilo lean ground pork ( grocery is good but if you have a suki butcher it would even be better )

1 medium onion minced

1-2 tbsp minced garlic

2 medium potatoes ( cubed )

1 medium carrot (cubed)

1 green bell pepper ( cubed )

1 large packet Del Monte Tomato paste

1 1/2 cups water ( to dilute tomato paste )

1 Knorr pork Cube

1-2 tsp sugar ( adjust to taste)

1 laurel leaf

salt

pepper

a dash of patis

Saute garlic and onions in pan ( i used regular Olive oil  1 tbsp) Add lean ground pork and brown. Add laurel leaf, knorr cube, potatoes and carrots. Add Tomato paste diluted with water. Simmer. Add green bell pepper, season and continue simmering until sauce thickens and meat is tender. Serve over hot rice.

This couldnt be easier.

Amici–Great Italian Food!

amici along tomas morato in quezon city

ai quattro formaggi pizza

After a driving-intensive morning, my daughter Sam and I decided to stop by Amici along Tomas Morato for a well-deserved  quick bite. It is , hands down, Sam’s most comforting food ever.

We had the ai quattro formaggi pizza and the spinach fusili montanara. Quite a tandem there. The pizza crust had the good compromise of ’thin-ness’ but still filling. The types of cheeses had the best fusion  and the right aportioning. No cheese overpowered another type of cheese. It just.. melted in my mouth (yes, again, with my eyes closed!).

The herbs and tomatoes subtly enhanced the whole cheese ensemble.

spinach fusili montanara

The pasta is a family favorite. The spinach fusili (fusili is a type of pasta that’s spiral in shape), just held so much of the flavor in its crevices from the sauce which made every bite drool-worthy. The sauce, a well-balanced combi of tomato sauce and bechamel just made this dish extra tasty. On top of these, we had the sausages for the ‘what-is-this-yummy-thing-i’m-biting?’ kick.

Of course, the gelato. Anyone?

Other must-tries there include: milanese de maiale (golden breaded pork cutlets topped with salsa verde), ragu di maiale con risotto (chunky italian style braised pork with risotto and peas), risoto di mare (plate of sauteed mixed seafood on saffron risotto).

Sam was stuffed. Amen!

Parmesan Crusted Calamari

parmesan crusted calamari

 ’Calamari’ or squid in Italian belongs to the mollusk family along with cuttlefish and octopus. Among the three, the fried calamari, by far, is the most loved and sought after by foodies from all over the world.

A staple in most menus, this dish yields the crunchy and addicting taste in every bite. In this version, the parmesan cheese seals the deal– crunchy, soft in the inside and cheesy. In the final stage, you throw a dash of fresh oregano thyme for that woodsy and earthy flavor.

Now, how awesome is that?

Parmesan Crusted Calamari

1 cup japanese bread crumbs

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

6 large squid, cleaned and sliced into rings.

1 egg, slightly beaten

1/2 cup flour

salt and pepper to taste

1 tsp fresh oregano thyme

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1. Season squid rings with salt and pepper.

2. Dredge one by one in flour.

Note: Anything you decide to bread is best when there is less moisture before you dip in egg. That is the reason why you dredge it in flour first.

3. Dip in egg.

4. Meantime, mix bread crumbs and parmesan cheese. Coat squid rings with the mixture.  Let stand for 3 minutes.

5. Deep fry until golden brown. Sprinkle with oregano thyme.

6. Serve with garlic-mayo dip  (half cup mayo, 1 tsp vinegar, 3 minced garlic cloves, salt n pepper to taste—then mix everything together).

TOUCHDOWN!

Cheesy Baked Mac

My mom had me bake our old-time favorite macaroni today. This baked mac was one of the first pasta dishes I got my hands working on back in my college years. Classic and pleasantly filling, this is what this pasta is all about.

Versions, versions. Baked mac has been immortalized in so many variations depending on one’s taste preference. Some like it a bit sweet while others go for the sour-y taste . Some want it cheesy while some want more of the tomato sauce. And yeah, the tomato sauce… others want the classic blend while some settle for the flavored ones. Ahh, choices.

Well anyway, obviously, the baked mac that I make is the version that I want. It’s one that’s generously smothered with cheeses, rich tomato sauce and creamy bechamel sauce. Now, how sinful is that?

My mom gave away some trays of the baked mac to our neighbors as soon as I finished baking the last batch. Of course, the Bayhon family got the lion’s share! Why, but of course! Haha.

Cheesy Baked Mac

1 pack penne noodles

1 box quickmelt cheese, grated

3/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated

1/2 cup mozzarela cheese, grated (optional)

Meat Sauce:

1/2 kilo ground beef

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 medium-sized onion, minced

1 tomato, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

750 grams tomato sauce, Italian blend

1 can chorizos, cut lengthwise and sliced horizontally (optional)

Bechamel Sauce:

1 box all purpose cream

1 cup milk

1 box cheddar cheese, grated

1/4 cup  butter

salt and pepper to taste

4 tbsps flour

___________________________________________________

1. Cook pasta according to package directions.

2. In a separate pan, saute garlic, onion and tomato. Add beef. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer until cooked. Add tomato sauce and chorizos. Continue stirring for the next ten minutes. Remove from fire then add cooked pasta in the beef mixture. Set aside.

3. In a skillet, heat  butter then add all-purpose  creamand milk. Mix well. Add cheddar cheese. Slowly add flour to thicken the sauce. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

4. In a baking dish, assemble the pasta. Scoop up some beef mixture that would be the first layer. Smother with a generous amount of bechamel sauce on top of the beef mixture. repeat the layering twice.

5. Top the dish with the remaining cheeses.

6. Preheat the oven to 350c and bake for 15 minutes or  until cheeses are turned into golden brown. Once cooked, let stand for 15 minutes. Serve with you favorite toast.

Chicken Shiraz

Salty or sweet? Oddly, there are times when I crave  for two tastes at the same time! Dang, why can’t I just slip into a different foodie when moments like that happen? As in dessert time comes, sometimes I want manggang hilaw with bagoong, but dude, can you not obsess with a slice  of a gooey caramel cake, too? Salty and sweet, yeah!

Sometime last week, I marinated some chicken breasts in soy sauce , calamansi and lots of pepper. I craved for the sour-y component of our native calamansi. Ahhh, how I drooled while I cooked (Ooops, chill! I meant it as a figure of speech! Nothing to make the chicken yummier with “it”, okay? LOl) the chicken. 

However, as I forked out my chicken for plating. I saw on the pan the chicken juices/drippings rendered and  stuck on the surface of my pan. GOLDMINE! The most intense chicken flavor is there and I’m not letting it escape! And my bright idea was to make a sauce out of it. Gravy? Nah! I wanted something sweeter and more.. more.. gourmet.

Yes, finally my palate knew what it wanted. It called on a bottle of shiraz (a type of wine) which contently sat on my ref. Then the sweet dimension was courtesy of my trusty white sugar.

Shiraz yields an extra rich plum and ripe blackberry fruit flavor further enhanced with subtle black pepper and soft oak characterts.

Remember, the kind of wine that you use in cooking should be the kind that you like drinking. Arg, I abhor the cooking wines sold in the groceries. They taste awful!

There.

Anyway, what did I do? Here goes:

Chicken Shiraz

Two whole chicken breast fillet

2 pcs calamansi

3 rounds of olive oil

2 tbsps soy sauce

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup shiraz or any red wine of your choice

2 tbsps white sugar (adjust according to your taste)

3 tbsps balsamic vinegar

__________________________________________

1. Marinate chicken in soy sauce, calamansi, salt and pepper.

2. Stir fry until golden brown on each side (about 7-10 mins on each side). Set aside.

3. On the same pan where the chicken was cooked, set on low heat. Gently scrape the chicken by adding the wine, vinegar and sugar. Remember to cook the wine well (meaning, you have to let the alcohol evaporate from the mixture. Give it like 3-5 minutes to be released). Continue stirring until consistency becomes a bit thick.

4. You may stir in cooked chicken or slice the chicken then drip the sauce around (like how i did it). Serve.

TOUCHDOWN!

Coming up next…

Baked Dory In Red Pesto Sauce

Amy’s World

I can’t be happier hearing from my long-time friend, ex-broadcast journalist, Amy Godinez.  It’s always a chat from foodie to another foodie when we’re connected, mostly on-line.

Why, she’s happily settled in NZ with James, her husband, and her stepkids. Great move, I guess. It’s a totally new life for her there and I’m all out for it. 

james and amy (oh, and hunter!)

I miss her, though. I miss the cutting-to-the-chase banters with her that always leave me bitin with the overflowing stories to tell.

Anyway, am just too glad to get an email from her. She’s generously sharing with us some recipes that she has been cooking lately. Thanks, Amy!

Here goes:

_________________________________________________________
Hi Caren,

 

I took some photos of our oven-dried tomatoes which I bottled recently.  Because we had so many tomatoes in varying degrees of ripeness, I wanted to try something other than pasta sauce which I have made lots of, already packed away in the freezer.

 

Aside from the oven dried tomatoes, I thought I’d document dinner for tonight and see how it goes for a contribution!  So…I ended up taking pictures of dinner as well… hmmm… the pears will have to wait on the tree a little bit longer!

 

I have always enjoyed sun-dried tomatoes many different ways, but have always found it a bit taxing to actually do it and let it sit out and dry on its own the way it is normally done.  I don’t have a food dehydrator, but not too long ago found out you can actually dry your tomatoes in the oven (for several hours… as short as 5 to 9 hours, to as long as 20 hours!) at a very low temperature.  You can also decide if you want to keep the seeds or take them out, depending on how fleshy or how dry you enjoy them.  I decided to try it out and did a little variation on researched internet recipes.  Here’s what I came up with:

 

Oven Dried Roma Tomatoes in Balsamic Vinegar and Rosemary

 

Roma Tomatoes, cut in half  lightly salted

 

Preheat oven to 200F or 95C.

 

Lay tomatoes single layer on an ungreased baking tray or non stick baking sheet.  You can fill up the whole tray but do not stack them on top of each other.  Bake for about 8 hours, using the middle tray of your oven.  Some tomato slices will dry slightly faster than other bits, so check after the 5th hour just to make sure. Turn them over if needed. Remove the dryer bits of tomato and let cool.  Let the whole batch cool completely before storing in sterilized jars with the following oil/vinaigrette mixture:

 

1/4 cup Olive Oil

2 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar

Sprigs of Fresh Rosemary

Salt & Pepper

 

Enjoy!

 ______________________________________________________

 

Dinner tonight was chicken thigh cutlets. I figured I should bake them, and decided to play around with my baking combination.  This is probably the easiest way to bake chicken with no worries.

 

Chicken thighs

2 onions cut in quarters

2 small cloves crushed garlic

1 lemon, sliced into wedges

Handful of pitted olives (I used the Fragatta Garlic Stuffed Olives tonight)

Sprigs of fresh Rosemary (so lucky to have this in the garden as well)

1/2 cup of chicken stock

1/4 cup of white wine 
Salt & Pepper

amy's about-to-be-baked-chicken

 

Preheat oven to 350F or about 180C.

Line a rectangular oven proof glass dish with cleaned chicken thighs.  Slice a lemon into wedges and 2 small to medium onions into quarters.  Arrange the lemon and onions around the chicken for even distribution. Toss in a handful of olives, and stick some rosemary sprigs around the gaps.  finally crush some garlic and dot around the chicken pieces.  Carefully pour in chicken stock so the chicken is partly submerged…enough to keep the chicken moist while baking.  Lightly sprinkle top with salt and fresh ground pepper and cover with aluminum foil.  Bake for 45 minutes.  Remove foil and add the white wine.  Bake another 25 to 30 minutes uncovered. 

 

When the chicken is done, you will find a good amount of drippings in the pan. Scoop or pour some of the drippings into a mug and set aside for making some gravy.  To make this, all you need is a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of flour.  Heat the butter in a skillet and add the flour, vigorously mixing with a wooden spoon.  Add the drippings bit by bit, allowing it to thicken while reducing, Adjust taste and thickness to your liking, just remember you have to mix this continously until it is done, just like making bechamel.

 

Serve on the side or pour on chicken pieces when plating.

 

 

We harvested some parsnips from the garden as well.  One was as big as an arm!  Since we had a few I decided we should do roast parnsips on the side along with another side pasta dish of pesto. 

 

I just lined a baking tray with foil, peeled and sliced the parnsips in half, tossed the parnsips onto the baking sheet along with a quartered onion, gave it a dash of olive oil and stuck it in the oven along with the chicken.  This one baked slightly faster than the chicken though, it was ready in about 40 minutes.  No salt or pepper, just as is.

 

 Mind you, we are so lucky to have most what we need in the garden.  We planted this Cinnamon Basil sometime last year and it has a tremendously lovely smell even when walking around it in the garden.  So, pesto it was… I had no pine nuts at hand, but I did have a lot of walnuts from last year.  Walnuts drop from the trees onto the ground, but these are made to dry in baskets for a few weeks to a few months before they are ready for shelling.  Before you even see the shell, there is a green outer covering that turns brownish black and then it peels or falls off, leaving the walnut shell ready.

 

So, my pesto went like this… Walnut Cinnamon Basil Pesto

 

Chop 1/3 cup walnuts in a chopper or food processor, add in a cup of fresh basil leaves, stems removed, and two small cloves of garlic.  Slowly pour in  1/2 cup of olive oil and continue processing till you get your preferred texture.  Season with a little salt and pepper, and for final touch, add in a little grated parmesan cheese, about 1/4 cup or less.  Do a taste test and add a little more olive oil if necessary.

 

Top or stir into your choice of pasta.  We used Bavette No. 13 which is like a very thin fetuccini.  This experiment with walnuts turned into a very pleasant surprise!

 

I hope you try this sometime Caren.  I would be interested to know how yours turned out!  I will send you more when I do something with the pears!!!

 

 

Love

Amy

 

Baked Dory In Red Pesto Sauce

I was so thrilled  as I booted out my flaming hot tray of baked dory from the oven. The sight of melted cheese fused in with the red pesto and oven dried tomatoes just bowled me over. Rich, healthy and very pretty, my baked dory should find its way to my potluck menu very soon!

The contrast of lemon and cheese was quite a combi there. Add to that the sour-y yet a bit sweet contribution of the red pesto. Fantastic, eh?

The original recipe for this calls for the use of Japanese mayo. The layering then  becomes: lemon slices, fish, Japanese mayo, topped with your favorite cheese. Well, meantime,  I thought I’d play around a bit and replace Jap mayo with red pesto.

This dish cooks so quickly. Over less than half an hour. The lesser time you cook it, the juicier and more moist the fish meat remains to be. Now, how mouthwatering is that?

Slice about 4 lemons and line them up on a tray with the slices on top of the other.

Meantime, season 3 large whole fillets of dory with salt and pepper. Lay them on the lemon bed.

Smother generously with red pesto on your fillets (red pesto is readily available at your favorite supermarket).

Top with your favorite cheese. My favorite cheese combi is cheddar and parmesan. Bake at 350c for 20 minutes or until cheese melts.

 

TOUCHDOWN!

Coming up next…

Paksiw Na Lechon Baka

Chelsea Market And Cafe

I crack up reminiscing  the very first time I visited Chelsea Market and Cafe a few years ago. Why, I made a bed out of their table! Yes, I literally dozed off on their table as I wrestled with my fatigue! Coming from work then, I felt too pooped out and just gave in despite the well-lit, packed and bustling ambiance!

 All I remember having was a great glass of white wine and the buttered focaccia bread with baked garlic as a starter (that would be an ender as well!). My, I was ‘dead’ way before the main course was served! Worst, I missed the dessert!!! Sigh, what work can do to you..tsk!

Anyway, ranting aside, I had the pleasure of returning there recently. Ahh, Jake and I tagged along our daughter Sam, this time. And, I swore to my self that I would not succumb to slumber!

For a comeback-with-a-vengence-I-will-wolf you-down dish, I picked the slow-cooked herbed  Norwegian salmon (PHP 495). The slow-cook factor rendered the tastiest salmon in the many years that I’ve become a ‘groupie’ of this kind of fish. It was moist, firm  and juicy all the way.

The herbs set the flavor so wonderfully, I tasted the merry mix of that woodsy and earthy combi that spelled YUMMINESS!

Ahh, my return was all worth it.

The other palate pleaser we tried was their five-cheese pizza topped with arugula leaves ( 10-inch, PHP495). Before I took the first big bite into my pizza, I nibbled on the arugula leaves. I liked the bitter-free and kinda sweet taste the arugula gives. Boy, I ate them like I was munching on some Doritos! Man, sarap!

The five-cheese pizza just rocked.

 It just had the great combi of cheeses that rolled out my eyes. The secret weapon of the pizza was with the fusion of their great cheeses and perfect crust, crowned by the yummy bunch of arugula leaves. Now, how fantastic was that?

Winding down to our last few bites, I knew I would have to make another comeback. The food definitely teased me big time to make bigger bites the next time we visit.

Chelsea Market And Cafe, Serendra. 9097011 9097012

Paksiw!

The term ‘paksiw’ refers to stewing in any sour fruit or vinegar. The three viands most often cooked in the house I grew up in were paksiw na isda, paksiw na lechon and paksiw na pata. The latter being my top pick.

mom's fall-off-the-bones paksiw na pata

My late Ilongga lola ate her ‘paksho’ (or paksiw to us) like anything! My dad swore by her paksiw na isda. It had the precise proportioning of the vinegar, garlic, water, ginger, etc.  On the other hand, I do worship mom’s paksiw na lechon and paksiw na pata! The sour and sweet just end up happily married!

In a recent trip to Fort Ilocandia, my husband Jake, brought home his loot bag of lechon baka from a grand party that served roasted calf. In other words, the sponsoring company gave away pa ‘take-out’! Haha. Now, the task: What to do with it?

I’m not a big fan of lechon baka. Baboy yes, baka, not really. The roasted calf emits a strange odor that kinda turns me off. The taste is nothing like the lechon baboy that’s succulent to the power of ten.

Given these concerns, I decided to give it a bit of a facelift and made it into a paksiw. Ahh, that one I like! It masked the odor and gave the calf a different taste that my palate so welcomed.

 

Saute 4 cloves of chopped garlic, 1 medium-sized chopped onion, 3/4 cup vinegar, 1/4 cup soy sauce, mix in a bottle of Mang Tomas sarsa (yes, it’s my only sarsa brand!), 1 laurel leaf and throw in 3/4 kilo lechon. Voila!

 

Paksiw in any language means great filipino comfort food. Easy, scrumptious and extremely satisfying, paksiw is just the food to eat when you want to feel good.

TOUCHDOWN!

Coming up next…

Pan-Seared Pangasius Fillet In Herbed-Cream Sauce

 

 

It’s All About Aileen

It’s always  the most awaited treat everytime my buddy of two decades, Aileen, invites me to her place. Aside from our usual extremely engaging chats, the food she serves is always, hands down, the most piquant. None of the bad stuff, everything well done and well served.

About a week ago, I had a chance to visit her new place down east. I was marvelling at the posh, very chic  and well thought out design of the house’s interior.

Don’t you just love eating good food with a great interior design at the backdrop?

Now, where is the good food? It’s right here:

roasted aubergines with smoked bacon

I thought that the bacon just complimented well with the neutral taste of the aubergines. Yeah, the ‘melt-in-your-mouth’ kind that kept me grabbing some more bites.

country fried chicken on saffron rice

Aileen’s mom was the moving force behind this gorgeous rice. She promised to share with me the recipe sometime soon. The rice in itself tasted like a complete course! I couldn’t stop scooping up some more of this rice everytime my plate got empty!

The pasta was likewise as palatable. The pasta noodles held so much flavor from the broth used to boil it. The mix of sausages actually brought home the bacon. It just jived in perfect harmony.

The play of herbs and mushrooms did enhance the taste of the whole ensemble.

And, our sweet ending was made of this:

chewy chocolate chip cookie ala mode

And that was ten pounds gained in one afternoon. Ha!

Aileen committed to me the recipe of this cookie which I will post here as soon as I get it. Her cookies were so gooey, so gooey that I ate like a crate of these treats!

My heartfelt thanks goes out to my ‘other sister’ for graciously welcoming Sam and myself to their home and feeding us with only the best stuff. ‘Atta day! Cheers!

Pan-Seared Pangasius Fillet In Herbed-Cream Sauce

At around lunch time sometime last week, I got a text message from my husband, Jake. And, it read:

“Babes, my baon is all BUTO.”

I was half-laughing in silence (couldn’t be louder, was right smack in the middle of a busy, busy mall!) visualizing him drooling to get a big bite of his caldereta when he must have realized that his fork was stabbing nothing but bones!

However, I felt half-guilty for not paying attention to the caldereta beef part that I unceremoniously dumped into his baunan. How insensitive, I thought.

Well, I promised him a much better dish the next time. And, so I did.

He had this:

He had the pan-seared pangasius fillet  in herbed-cream sauce.

Pangasius fillet is actually premium cream dory. This fish has gained ground among foodies all over the world in the last few years that it had been consistently used in many dishes since it became popular. It sears well, feels firm and fleshy. Yeah, nothing ‘fishy’ at all.

(Please refer to my past post, parmesan-crusted-pangasius)

I just seasoned it with salt and pepper, dredged it lightly on flour and pan-seared for about 4 minutes on both sides.

For the sauce, I used 3/4 cup of all purpose cream (If you want to thin the sauce, you may add fish stock or water slowly in the mixture until you achieve your desired consistency), 3 tablespoons of chopped basil, 3 tablespoons of flat parsley (optional) and 1 tablespoon butter.

Just mix them together on low heat and season with salt and pepper. Pour sauce onto the pan-seared fish and voila!

Yes, that EASY!

Haay, nakabawi sa wakas!

TOUCHDOWN!

Smoked Bangus Mania

Smoked bangus is, without a doubt, definitive of Pinoy cuisine.  Yes, one of the many Pinoy food greats that deserves global recognition that’s been long overdue. Waaaay long overdue.

The rich, smoky taste  of this bangus makes it extra palatable, unique and flavorful. Conventionally, this is eaten with itlog na maalat, chopped tomatoes, red onion with matching sinangag (fried rice).  The play of salty, sour and spicy in this combo meal just makes you salivate at any given time that it is suggested.

spicy smoked bangus in olive oil, scrambled eggs with chopped burong mustasa and tomato salad

Tweaking it a bit, though, can spell variety and another food adventure. So, why not?

Well, off hand, there are two smoked bangus dishes I am crazy about, spicy smoked bangus flakes in olive oil and smoked bangus pate. The latter, being a big favorite when we hold parties at home and the former, a flexible dish that can be transformed into many other great-tasting dishes (please refer to my previous blog,  http://theeatingroom.wordpress.com/2009/01/08/one-fine-evening/ for the smoked bangus pasta recipe).

smoked bangus pasta

This dish I’m featuring now is smoked bangus pate.

By tradition, pate is  presented as  baked in a crust or shaped as a terrine. But the crust’ s purpose isn’t really to be gobbled up but to hold the pate in one piece.

Today, the pate is, connotatively, a combination of any seafood, chicken, meat or vegetables with a base ingredient turned into a meat paste.

This dish I am sharing with you is smoked bangus pate. A fantastic dish perfect for snacking, cocktails or for business!

smoked bangus pate

To do it:

In a blender, put in one piece of medium-sized fried smoked bangus fillet (minus the head, tail, skin and bones), 1 box of cream cheese, half cup all-purpose cream, 2 tbsps lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Pulse until smooth and creamy. Serve with crostini rounds.

Organic Tilapia In Two Ways

No less than media mogul Oprah Winfrey declared to the whole wide world her reverence for our tilapia. In fact, her website has, in its food category, a great number of recipes that showcase tilapia.

About two days ago, my family paid a visit to a farm my tita, Charito Mercader (a staunch supporter and advocate of Natural Farming),  is managing. Interestingly, this farm is fascinating  in that it institutes, educates and implements, yes,  Natural Farming.

Natural Farming  is a sustainable farming and advocates the use of organic elements to grow organic produce.  It heals, rehabilitates and reinvents  the soil and other natural elements hurt by previously used chemicals to grow plants and nurture other livestock.

For more about Natural Farming, please click here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SflqYxTQ7zI

Anyway, my tita gave us organic tilapia from their man-made pond for take out. Now, what to do? Bake? Steam? Fry? Ahhh, I was pleasantly in a dilemma on what to do with it.

And so, to break the stalemate, I decided to do my tilapia in two ways: Baked and fingers. I had so much fun doing this. I definitely did not need an Oprah Winfrey to inspire me to move it. This fish could stand alone, with or without Oprah!

Tilapia is loved for its tasty flesh and flexibility. Baked, steamed, fried, it just gives a stellar performance each time it’s cooked.

For the baked tilapia, I seasoned each piece with salt and pepper, inserted about two seeded lemon slices, two slices of ginger and scallion stalks in each tilapia. Topped each piece with about two tsps minced red bell peppers and 2 tsps chopped onion. Baked them for 220C for 30 minutes.

the tilapia before baking...

I knew I had a winner in the oven the moment the perfect aroma escaped the oven compartment a few minutes after I set it in. Ahh, the smell and taste were unbelievable! My palate was  just too happy to have tried something light, healthy and scrumptious.

I particularly enjoyed the taste of the fusion of all the ingredients. The union of lemon and ginger propelled the flavors to greater heights. It just rocked! 

baked organic tilapia

I topped it with oregano thyme sprigs for garnishing.

For the tilapia fingers, I just filleted the tilapia, cut it lengthwise (about the size of a middle finger) seasoned it with salt and pepper, dipped it  in flour then  soaked it in 1 beaten egg then dredged on Japanese bread crumbs, then deep-fried. Pat dried on a bed of napkin, plated and served!

 

 

 

 

Mom’s Lechon Kawali, atbp…

mom's super lechon kawali

Last weekend saw me invading mommy’s kitchen. I grew up eating, savoring and devouring her kitchen goodies. I just LOVE her food. Yep, mommy was my 1st cooking  coach who unceasingly fed me with all the food education I needed to be able to efficiently work around in my own kitchen, now that I am married and managing my own kitchen.

She cooked her lechon kawali that had the crunchiest balat and the super tender laman. It was also  ’lesser evil’ compared to the other lechon kawali around. Why? Because she had the turbo broiler to cook it. Didn’t need oil at all, in fact, the pork was the one who rendered the oil.

Conventionally, as the name suggests, lechon kawali is cooked using a kawali or a deep frying pan, but this time, mom avoided the unhealthy use of too much oil and would use a turbo broiler.

Okay, okay, that was putting the carriage ahead of the horse. Let’s take mommy’s recipe step by step. Basically, all you need would be three ingredients: 1 kilo pork (liyempo), salt and pepper to taste.

 ( Important: Please do not cut or chop you pork at this time. The chopping part happens AFTER you have cooked the pork. You don’t want the pork to run dry and let all those precious juices to escape in the process of broiling IF you cut it prematurely)

She just seasoned the pork with salt and pepper. Put it in a pressure cooker (that got filled up with water enough to cover the pork) and cooked for 30 minutes. Please remember that the timing begins when the whistle has already began whistling. The main secret in any meat dish is TENDERNESS. Believe me, no meat dish is good if the meat isn’t tender enough.

After making it tender, she was ready to put it in a turbo broiler preheated and set at 220C, cooked it for about 45 minutes or until the skin turned crunchy. Then she set it aside and let stand for another 15 mins to let the juices settle back onto the meat. Ahhh, sarap, Lord!

You may freeze the pork before or after broiling it for upto three months. Also, you may consider giving it a coupla ‘facelifts’ for variety and turn it into binagoongan, paksiw na lechon or pangsahog to your veggie dishes.

Anyway, to go with the lechon kawali, she served:

halaan sa dahon ng sili

 My favorite halaan sa dahon ng sili. I liked the broth that had the ginger flavor intensified by a great saute of garlic and sibuyas tagalog.

Other great possible side dishes to go with your lechon kawali could be kamote tops salad in bagoong balayan sauce, munggo with dahon ng ampalaya or papaya atchara.

What a feast! I was simply pleasantly stuffed, yes, with my eyes closed again. Mom just knew how to ignite the foodie in me when I’m there. Oh, and yes, indeed, masarap makikain sa kapitbahay!

Baked Garlic N’ Cheese Tahong

baked garlic and cheese tahong

Tahong can’t be more mouthwatering than this.

The sight of melted cheese just blows me away. The mega tandem of garlic and cheese topped on most dishes where it is suitable always gets me going for seconds each and every time they are served. Ahh, don’t we all?

Tahong is more popularly known in Mindanao as ‘green shell’, it’s actually the species that’s more commercial. It has the green shell, of course, with deep brown streaks on it. The other species of tahong is the brown mussel. As the name suggests, the shell is brown, but the meat is the same as the meat of green shell. In certain areas in the Visayas, like in the town of my lola in Negros Occidental, these brown mussels are called ‘tabahong’.

Today, we had this lovely dish of tahong. It’s baked garlic and cheese tahong. I just put 1 kilo of tahong in a casserole with no water, no salt and pepper, nada! Set the heat on medium and let it cook for about twenty minutes or until the shells broke open. The tahong excreted its own liquid after it cooked. Once cooked, I removed the top cover to expose the meat of the shell for baking.  

I arranged them on my baking pan topping each shell meat with butter, a pinch of minced garlic and quickmelt cheese. In the end I gave it a quick dash of salt and pepper. Cheese and butter were already quite salty that’s why the additional salt wasn’t too much. The pre-baked tahong looked something like this:

ready to go to the oven...

Once cooked, you have the option to take your tahong  to another level and top some more with chopped tomatoes and chives. Something like:

baked tahong with cheese, garlic, chopped tomatoes and chives

Not bad, eh?

Or, you may settle with the default recipe which is…

baked garlic and cheese tahong

TOUCHDOWN!

Coming up next…

Steamed Chicken With Black Mushrooms

Steamed Chicken With Black Mushrooms

Have you had days when you got home tired and starving with no intention to cook but would obsess in biting on great food? Ha! Guilty eh? This dish is a one-pot-wonder and very fuss free save for some minimal cutting. A little movement won’t hurt, baby. Let’s do this.

It’s steamed chicken with black mushrooms. Most Chinese restaurants serve this. It’s usually served rice topping style with the rice flavored and ‘powered’ by the big time flavor of the chicken dripping and the Asian flavor of the ginger.

For this dish, you will need:

1/2 kilo chicken thighs, chopped into bite sizes

5 cups cooked white rice

1/4 cup sesame oil (optional)

1 can shitake mushrooms, sliced (You may use dried shitake mushrooms. Just soak them in water for 15 minutes before use)

3 thumb-sized ginger, grated

salt and pepper to taste

chopped chives or sibuyas tagalog for garnishing

To assemble:

In a round pyrex, put in cooked rice and top with seasoned chicken, mushrooms, ginger and oil. Cover and steam for 45 minutes. Garnish with chives. DONE!

Now, was that shocking? Fuss free it was, yeah. I just love the juices of the red chicken meat dripping onto the rice as it cooked. Plus the flavor back up of the ginger, it truly makes every second of waiting for it to cook all worth it.

TOUCHDOWN!!!

The Oven-Dried Tomato Experience

So, this is the real thing. Plump, juicy and verrry ripe, these tomatoes just got me grabbing my apron for some soiree with my fresh batch of  these fresh and dewy tomatoes. Yes, I’m a kitchen mad scientist again and will train the spotlight, this time, on these picture-perfect cancer-fighting ingredient.

It was once believed that this fruit was dangerous to be eaten as it was called “lycopersicon” in Latin that meant ”wolf peach”. Obviously, people have already gunned down that belief. Why, it’s been the rockstar of most major cuisines all over the globe for many, many years now!

pre-baking of the tomatoes

I use this as base for a great number of my pasta dishes. The flavors just well embrace the pasta when it’s mixed together. Like lovers of fifty years, they just jive in perfect harmony. Yep, it’s the perfect marriage, hands down.

They can go well with other ingredients like pesto, tuna, cheese, chicken or in soups and stews. Given this flexibility, it is wise to jar them up in an air-tight container and put in ref. Life span can reach up to a week in the ref depending on how perfectly sealed your container is. Freezing is a method you may use, too, as it can preserve these oven-dried tomatoes for up to three months.

Now, what to do:

Pick about a dozen plump and ripe tomatoes. Boil them in water until their skin burst. Drain from water and set aside. Remove skin. Let it cool.

Meantime, preheat oven at 120C. In a baking pan, lay down your tomatoes for the prep phase. Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with chopped herbs of your choice (my faves include rosemary, sweet basil, tarragon and oregano thyme). One or two varieties of herbs will do, no biggy. Throw in 6 cloves of chopped garlic. Drizzle generously with olive oil and a quick swig of balsamic vinegar (optional). Bake until the tomatoes begin to shrivel, about an hour. Remove from the oven and drizzle some more with olive oil. Seal well.

 Ahh, this can’t be real!

oven-dried tomatoes

Dishes that go well with this coming soon. Promise!

Tomato and Garlic Pork (Chinese Style)

So, who says you can’t make magic out of leftover food?

I had this leftover lechon kawali in my ref a few days ago from a party at home. Sadly, it ceased to bask in its crunchiest glory after a day. I just had to give it some tweaking to make it appetizing again. And again.

This dish was a three-step recycling wonder. Easy but flavorful, gastronomic and mouthwatering! Cooking purists will curse me for taking the short route in preparing this but harried moms will definitely come to my rescue!

To do this:

Heat the pan with about 3 tablespoons of cooking oil.

Mix in a medium-sized sachet of Lee Kum Kee (hep, not sponsored!) tomato and garlic prawn sauce onto the oil. Obviously, we are substituting the prawns with the pork here. You may opt to use leftover fried chicken, too.

Then throw  in about half a kilo of your leftover lechon kawali (or fried chicken or ,yes, prawns). Mix well. DONE!

 (for lechon kawali recipe, please click http://theeatingroom.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/moms-lechon-kawali-atbp/)

Our sweet ending was made of this:

silvanas!

um-um-ummmm!

It’s silvanas from Carreon’s Sweets And Pastries, you may visit this site for more info, http://www.flickr.com/photos/chris1204/sets/72157605760384753/

Yummy!

Mediterranean Kebabs

We oftentimes run across the word “Mediterranean” in restaurant menus and  cookbooks. But do we actually know what qualifies for Mediterranean food?

Mediterranean cuisine, as we know it,  is the food of the countries that surround the Mediterranean Sea.

These nations include Spain, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Portugal, etc. Overtime, their cuisines have influenced one another, giving birth to what food writers touted as, Mediterranean cuisine.

This type of cuisine is flexible and characterized by its great number of ingredients and its many regional variations. Key ingredients may include: Fish, garlic, olive oil, fruits, vegetables and nuts. Grilling and smoking being the two most used methods of cooking.

Today, I made some kebabs. Chicken kebabs. Along with it on my skewer were red bell peppers, red onion and some cucumber slices. Ahhh, my chicken was in great company!

I seasoned about 2 whole breasts of chicken with salt and pepper plus  3 tbsps light soy (optional). Gave them a quick swig of about half a cup of lemon juice. Threw in a pinch of ground cummin powder for each breast and marinated for thirty minutes. I opted to use the lightest marinade to make the flavors and juices jump out of the chicken meat.

Meantime, I quartered 3 red onions, sliced 1 whole cucumber and cubed 2 red bell peppers. Seasoned all vegetables with salt and pepper to extract their precious juices and for flavors to burst away.

On my other chopping board, I cut the marinated chicken, nugget size. Then assembled  the ingredients into the skewer such that the order went like: Cucumber, chicken, red onion, bellpepper and chicken again. Drizzled the ensemble with olive oil. Then, I was  ready to grill!

Grilled until all ingredients were smoky and had the pretty grill marks. Serve with yogurt dressing:

1 cup plain non-fat yogurt
1 clove of garlic, minced
juice and zest of 1/2 lemon
1/2 tablespoon honey
1/4 cup chopped, fresh mint leaves (optional)
salt to taste
freshly ground black pepper

I just mixed everything together. Yes, that easy.

Please note that you may arrange  the skwered ingredients interchangeably. Or you may even drop an ingredient that you don’t like and replace them with what you want.

My other suggestions to go with the chicken include: Zucchini, cherry tomatoes, half a cob of a corn, leek stalks, etc. Go have fun choosing what you want to put in there! Have a feast!

NOTE: Other kebab recipes will tell you to marinate meat in the yogurt dressing/marinade instead of my concoction. Feel free to try it, too. LikeI said, I just wanted to savor the flavor and juices of the meat almost in its naked glory.

Stir-Fried Honey Mustard BBQ Chicken

Scrumptious food made from scratch. It’s got to be the benchmark of GREAT food. Given this, I am one to make some of  my own cooking ingredients such as homemade tomato sauce, cream-based soups, pizza crust, dressings, marinades, etc.

However, there are instances when I just need to fast track my cooking. And, rush it is— I usually just pluck out great sauces from the pantry to make wonders on my meat given the VERY limited time that I have. Ah, now, can you relate?

One of my favorites would be HUNTS honey-mustard BBQ sauce. The flavor is very  intense yet smooth on the palate. Coats well with your favorite meat, too. It’s become my bestfriend when I need to dish out food that will cook under ten minutes.

For the marinade, I just put in 3/4 cup of the hunts honey-mustard BBQ sauce, 5 cloves of minced garlic, 1/4 cup extra lemon juice , salt and pepper to taste and 5 slices of ginger (optional). Overnight marinating is best.

When it’s time to cook it, I cut the chicken into bite sizes.  Stir-fry them while adding slices of leek stalks for added flavor. Midway into the cooking, I add around 4 more tbsps of the marinade for flavor reinforcement . There. Shockingly fast and easy.

Food purely made from scratch can wait until I’m load free again. Soon, I hope.

Wine-Infused Herbed-Tomato Pasta With Pan-Fried Chicken BBQ

It was already close to 8pm when I realized I still had to cook Jake’s baon. Waaa! I still had to do ten million things but did not want to drop the baon-cooking duty. Okay, what to do?

Another eureka moment again. I suddenly found myself  grabbing some pack of linguine from the pantry and taking out some breast fillets from the fridge for some quick pan-fry.

I decided to make some wine-infused tomato-based pasta sauce. The tomato would be courtesy of a small pack of tomato paste that would be  infused with my favorite white wine ( remember to use only the wines that you like when you use them in your dishes).

The tomato is one of the major sources of lycopene. Lycopenes give tomatoes its red color and has been found to reduce the risk of having lung and prostate cancer.

However, lycopene isn’t well absorbed unless you heat it. In the case of tomato paste, even slightly burning the tomato paste is recommended to aggressively  release lycopenes and intensify the tomato flavor.

Okay, for this dish you will need:

1/2 kilo linguine noodles

2 small packs of tomato paste

4 cloves of garlic

1/2 basil leaves, finely chopped

1/2 cup olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

1 whole breast of chicken, season with salt and peper and marinate in your favorite marinade, in this case, I marinated it in BBQ sauce to counter the ’sourness’ of the tomato-based pasta.

What to do:

1. Cook linguine according to package directions.

2. Meantime, saute garlic. Add basil then tomato paste. Pour in wine.

3. Dry out the sauce from the wine alcohol. Continue stirring til tomato sauce is well cooked, and yeah, slightly overdone. Season with salt and fresh pepper. Mix in the the linguine.

4. In a separate pan, pan-fry chicken, about 5 minutes on each side or until meat is moist and cooked.

5. Chop the breast. Top on the pasta.

‘FISHstek Tagalog’?

I am so tempted to call this dish, ‘FISHSTEK TAGALOG’. And hey, I just did! Haha. It’s actually the bangus belly version of your regular bistek tagalog. That sour-y, oomph-loaded dish loved and savored by the food-loving public.

This dish was definitely a childhood favorite. It was a staple on our table during my younger years. My mom usually served this with her creamy chicken sopas or some hot  halaan soup with dahon ng sili. Ahhh, ‘atta feast!

The smell of red onion, garlic and calamasi just spell YUMMINESS. The mega combi of onion, garlic and calamansi  seals in the dynamite flavor of the entire ensemble. Of course, it goes without saying, that the bangus belly is the rockstar here. Fat, juicy and tasty, how can you not salivate on this bangus?

To do this you will need:

2 pcs bangus belly

3 pcs calamansi

canola oil for frying

1/2 cup canola oil for the marinade

salt and pepper to taste

5 cloves of garlic, minced

3 medium-sized red onions, cut into rings

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 tsp spanish paprika (optional)

1 tsp fresh oregano leaves, chopped

What to do:

1. Season bangus with salt and pepper. Marinate in calamansi, soy sauce, oil and garlic for about 30 minutes or overnight. Rub with paprika before frying.

2. Pan-fry bangus in oil, about 5 minutes for each side. Set aside.

3. Meantime, caramelize the onions with the marinade from the bangus. Add oregano leaves and continue sweating the onions. Be sure to achieve the ‘agaw mantika-toyo’ effect. Remove from pan.

Now you’re ready to plate:

Assemble the caramelized onions…

your caramelized onion bed

Then top with the bangus…

Avocado!

My tastebuds have recently been clamoring for avocado. For three days in a row, I have been swinging by the fruit stand outside Tropical Hut in QC to get my avocado fix.

Using a medium-sized avocado, I break it open, remove the seed, scoop up the flesh (in bite sizes), stir in some 1/2 cup of low-fat milk, 1/4 cup all-purpose cream, add sugar and then chill for an hour. There, I’m ready for the chow!

You may top this ensemble with either roasted pinipig or a cobbler of vanilla ice cream. I like mine plain, though. I like savoring the avocado almost in its naked glory.

This fruit is a rich source of Vitamin A and contains little amount of vitamin B complex and E.

 

Deep-Fried Cheesy-Herbed Chops

Am reminded of my grade school days when pork chops made up my usual baon. They were either fried or stewed in tomatoes and mixed with peas and carrots. Porkchop meat is a great cut because it has the delish triumvirate of meat, fat and bone! Ahh, don’t you just love biting on that moist, juicy and tender porkchop?

Today, I had a fatless porkchop butterflied (aww, did you just ask for the fat and bone?). Sorry! The porkchop today wanted to be a butterfly!

I seasoned the butterflied chops with salt and pepper.

Then I filled it with slices of cheddar cheese, basil and chopped rosemary (optional) leaves.

Then dredged it in flour, dipped it in 1 beaten egg, then dredged again in Japanese breadcrumbs.

Deep-fried until golden brown. Served it with my favorite cream of asparagus soup.

Garlic Shrimp Kebabs On Red pasta

 

A kebab refers to any grilled or broiled meat that is skewered or put on a stick. Extremely popular in places like the  Middle East, the Mediterranean nations, Africa, Central Asia and South Asia, these kebabs are instant crowd pleasers in any occasion.

The known kebabs include lamb and beef. Ahh, kebab meats always get me giddy. I just love its smoky, spicy and juicy feel! Wonderful.

Today, I whipped out my pack of shrimps from the fridge. Got about 8 pcs. Deveined all of them then seasoned them with salt and fresh pepper. Marinated them for 30 minutes in 3/4 cup melted butter (expect the butter to solidify a bit once you put it in the ref, you might want to melt it about ten minutes before grilling) , 1/4 cup of lemon juice and  8 cloves of minced garlic. Afterwhich I grilled them on low fire.

Meantime, I cooked my whole wheat spaghetti pasta according to package instructions. Set aside and had it wait for the sauce.

For the pasta sauce, I heated the shrimp marinade and mixed with my bottled oven-dried tomatoes onto the pasta. Sprinkled with my  favorite parmesan cheese on top. The richness of the butter, the flavors of herbs and the acid taste of the tomato chunks just revved up the whole pasta dish.

(For the oven-dried tomato recipe, please click: http://theeatingroom.wordpress.com/2009/04/25/the-oven-dried…ato-experience/ )

The last touch would be plating the shrimp kebabs over the pasta ensemble. Serve with your favorite toast.

Elle’s Gastronomic Cooking (Part I)

My good friend from high school Elle Acuña-Lorenzo and I have been in the thick of some culinary-related banters lately. I see her food styling and photography (by her husband) on facebook all the time and man, they sure rock!

Anyway, I got an email from her today in response to my request for her to let us sample (at least, via our ‘cyber palate’, haha) her dishes. Here goes her note:

Dear Caren,

I hope you will be able to use my recipes in your blog. I really love reading your blog & trying out your recipes. Parang natetempt na naman ako mag-aral ng culinary. About 3 years ago I took a short 3 month course at ISCAHM at Katipunan and I enjoyed it tremendously. I just love cooking so much & thanks so much for sharing your passion. Sobrang kaka-inspire.

 Mwah!

Elle Acuña Lorenzo (a.k.a Mari)

Yummy Baby Back Ribs – Pork

 1. 1 Rack of pork ribs – about 1 -1.5 kilos

 2. Marinade ribs – soy sauce, mustard, tomato ketchup, lea & perrins, garlic, calamansi, pineapple juice, sprite & brown sugar.

 3. Put ribs in pressure cooker with marinade.

 4. Bake slowly till cooked while basting in its own sauce.

 Procedure:

 Mix all ingredients except pork and adjust amount of ingredients to your own taste. Afterwards marinade pork for about an hour then pressure cook for 10 minutes.

Transfer to a pan and bake for 10-15 minutes at about 250 degrees Fahrenheit. Serve hot.

 Serving Suggestion: may serve with salad & potato gratin

*Will publish two more of her recipes in the succeeding posts.

Calandracas!

CALANDRACAS was certainly one of the greatest flagship dishes of my childhood. Growing up, my lola served calandracas to us quite often when our family gathered in her house for the usual Sunday lunch. Ahh, her food was fabulously gratifying! Simple home food that rocked til the very end!

My lola dished out the most unforgettable tinumis, the best torta and her gastronomic rendition of the classic pochero. I sorely miss her. The scent of her hand-me-down food just plesantly haunts me. Yeah, I miss her…

Today, I swung by my mom’s place and had lunch there. She had lola’s Calandracas. Beef cubes slow cooked and blended in with chorizos, pasta and cabbage. 

Warm, hearty and filling, this  dish was  packed with all the beefy goodness that spells  YUM-O (font 94! Haha!). Truly, one ‘hot’ heirloom from my lola!

To do, it you will need:

1/2 kilo beef brisket or kenchie

about two cups macaroni or penne pasta

4 medium-sized potatoes. quartered

1 can chorizo de bilbao (or 2 sticks), sliced horizontally

1 small head of cabbage, cut into four parts

2 large onions, quartered

3/4 cup chickpeas or garbanzos, drained

salt and pepper to taste

water

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1. Season Beef with salt and pepper. Add onions. Cover with water. Cook until tender.

2. Mix in potatoes, chorizos, chickpeas and pasta. Cook until potatoes and pasta are tender. Add in the cabbage. Serve hot.

‘East Meets West’– Shiitake Walnut Pasta

Chef Ming Tsai recently  turned up in Manila to be a head judge in a culinary competition among the country’s top 6 culinary schools. As a writer for FOODIE magazine, I had the chance to do a one-on-one interview with him (full interview on June issue of FOODIE mag). I was so in awe! My smile was like:

I was such an avid fan of his shows, ‘East Meets West’ and ‘Ming’s Conquest’. I covered his 3-day public appearance and boy, was that awesome!

Born out of my ‘Ming exposure’, my food today was inspired by the very concept of most of his dishes– FUSION. Yes, Eastern cuisine blended in with Western ingredients. Something out of the ordinary, eh?

Ming told me (naaks!),  that we have to be adventurous with our palate, he says we can never be ‘high’ in terms of culinary taste and standard if we don’t jump over the bridge. He was referring to Filipinos who are too conservative in their palate depriving themselves of concepts like food fusion and other tastes very unfamiliar to them.

Anyway, today I made my version of ‘East Meets West’. I called it Shiitake Walnut Pasta. Shiitake is a kind of mushroom that is edible. Off white to dark brown in color, these mushrooms are quite common in East Asia and eaten in a lot of Asian countries. Can be used in cooking  as either fresh or dried. It’s a common ingredient in most Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Thai dishes.

Today, Shiitake of the East met Pasta of the West. It’s the my box-office hit for the day.

And now my lunch:

 Shiitake Walnut Pasta

1/2 kilo whole wheat spaghetti noodles

10 pcs fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced

1/2 cup hoisin sauce

5 cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 cup sesame oil

2 tsps dried rosemary

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

What to do:

1. Cook pasta according to package directions.

2. In a separate pan, saute garlic. Add shiitake mushrooms and hoisin sauce. Season with salt and pepper. Add dried rosemary and walnuts.

3. Mix pasta and sauce. Top with cheese. Serve while hot.

Some Great-Tasting Finale

fried rice ala dominique

What a grand finale! Being the last course of the day (unless you have midnight snack..) , dinner of fried rice definitely makes a scrumptious day-ender dish. It’s pleasantly filling, aromatic and very fun to make!

Tonight, I dished out some great fried rice I named after my daughter, Sam (whose formal name is Isabel Dominique). Fried rice ala Dominique was gone on the serving plate in a flash. What a great dinner. Arg, bitin!

Why am I not surprised?  We had a  second dish that looked like this:

beef with broccoli

The conventional beef with broccoli dish served in most Chinese restaurants usually has thick sauce with thicker beef slices. The one  I made had a sauce that was a thinned out version due to the absence of starch or flour. I purposely dropped the latter since I like biting on the more natural tasting beef minus the thick sauce.

Also, if you are expecting to get the conventional Chinese resto ‘beef with broccoli’ dish, this is not the one. Oyster sauce is replaced with hoisin that is sweeter, tastier and posesses the ‘eat me! eat me!’ effect.

Now, the recipes:

Fried Rice Ala Dominique:

5 cups of cooked white rice

1 small red bell pepper, minced

3/4 cup sweet ham, cubed

5 cloves garlic, minced

2 leek stalks, sliced

1 tbsp worcestershire sauce

1 tbsp turmeric powder

salt and pepper to taste

canola oil

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1. Saute garlic and leek stalks. Add rice, ham and bell pepper. Put worcestershire sauce and turmeric powder. Season with salt and pepper. Serve hot.

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Beef With Broccoli

1/2 kilo rib-eye sukiyaki cut

3 tbsps hoisin sauce

5 cloves of garlic, minced

6 pcs broccoli flowers

salt and pepper to taste

oil

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1. Season beef with salt and pepper

2. Saute beef in garlic and hoisin sauce. Add broccoli. Serve hot.

Paella Valenciana In A Hurry

valenciana ala dominique

My series on rice continues. My last post featured some fried rice I called ‘fried rice ala dominique’ (named after my daughter Isabel Dominique). I got a coupla emails requesting for more rice twists and recipes.

fried rice ala dominique

The Fried rice garnered good reviews and I thought of giving it just a bit of some tweaking. This valenciana is similar to the ‘fried rice ala dominique’ (in terms of ingredients and appearance), only more labor-intensive. But hey, don’t worry, this is the ‘quick to make’ version that’s great for harried moms like me.

I used jasmine rice instead of the usual malagkit na bigas. Chorizos and mushrooms were used to replace the usual chicken and prawns.

Oh how I loved biting on the rice that’s been coated with the chicken and ginger flavor. The harmony of flavors and spices just made the dish so satiating.

Yeah, this version is the scaled down and simplified version. Culinary purists might crucify me for simplifying this, but hey, I got things to do while I still want great food— in a snap. Simple but flavor-loaded.

So, here goes:

Paella Valenciana

2  cups jasmine rice

5 cups chicken stock

*Okay fine, if you don’t have chicken stock, use 5 cups of water then add a cube of chicken broth

4 medium-sized shiitake mushrooms, sliced

1  stick chorizo de bilbao, chopped1 thumb-sized ginger, sliced

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 medium-sized red onion, minced

1 large bell pepper, julienned

2 tbsps turmeric powder

1/2 tsp spanish paprika (optional)

oil

chives for garnishing

What to do:

1. Saute garlic, ginger, onion, bell peppers, chorizos and mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper.

2. Add rice, turmeric powder and broth. Give it a quick stir.  Cover until done. Sprinkle with chopped chives before serving.

Basil Chicken In Coconut Milk

Coconut milk or what we call gata in the Philippines, is one of the major staple ingredients in Asian cooking. In Brunei, Malaysia  and Indonesia, it is referred to as santan. In Thailand (where a lot of great tasting coconut milk-based dishes come from), it is called ga-ti . In Brazil, it is called leite de coco. To me, I simply call it ‘yumminess overload’!

This milk is a product of some vigorous squeezing from the meat of a mature coconut. Ahh, how I love all dishes with coconut milk. It can be used in a lot of savory dishes and likewise in a great number of desserts!

Today, I made some basil chicken in coconut milk. My tastebuds demanded for a reunion of ginger, basil, chicken and coconut milk. The aromatic contribution of the basil,  the succulence and tastiness of this chicken’s red meat plus the malinamnam quality of the gata just did a mega ensemble that definitely gave us an extra scrumptious lunch.

To do this you will need:

3  thigh and leg parts, cut into bite size

1 can coconut milk

1 green bell pepper, jullienned

3 medium-sized potatoes, halved

1/2 cup green peas

8 leaves basil, chopped

2 thumb-sized ginger, sliced

3 tbsps fish sauce (patis)

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 medium-sized red onion, chopped

water

salt and pepper to taste

oil

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1.Season chicken with salt and pepper.

2. Saute ginger, onion and garlic. Add chicken and cover with water. Season with 3 tbsps fish sauce. Cook until tender and water has evaporated by half the original amount.

3. Add potatoes, bell peppers, green peas and basil leaves.

4. Stir in coconut milk.  Serve while hot.

Buffalo Wings

I always get bitin when I munch on those mouth-watering buffalo wings at places like Chili’s or Fridays. Each serving usually has six to eight wing pieces. Why, it posesses the ‘mahirap tigilan kainin‘ effect similar to when you eat butong pakwan or chicharon balat. And, going for seconds would  mean whipping out another P400 (or thereabouts) from your wallet. Tsk, so that’s P800 plus for the 16 precious wings. Over at  the grocery, 16 pieces would only cost you P300 or less. So, there.

Now, the point: MAKE YOUR OWN!

Buffalo wings originated from Buffalo in New York. It is famous for its taste, degree of ‘hotness’ and the blue cheese dip that traditionally goes with it. It’s very definitive of American dining especially among ‘clubbers’ who wolf these wings down while drinking some beer. In our native language, we refer to this buffalo wing dish as the perfect pulutan. Its spicy and hot nature make these drinkers drink more to numb the throat and mouth-tingling sensation caused by the spices.

This dish can be made in two ways: baked or deep-fried. I prefer the latter. While the former advocates health benefits (since it does away with cooking in oil), the latter yields a better texture, appearance and taste.

Okay, to do this, you will need:

10 chicken wings, wingtips removed

1/2 cup hot sauce

1/4 cup melted butter

1 tbsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp paprika

salt and pepper to taste

1 tbsp worcestershire sauce

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1. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Add hot sauce, butter, cayenne pepper, paprika and worcestershire sauce. Marinate for an hour.

2. Deep-fry chicken until cook. Pat dry. Set aside

3. Meantime, in a separate skillet, heat 1/4 cup oil.  Pour chicken marinade. Stir in chicken. Serve hot with dip.

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Traditionally, buffalo wings are served with blue cheese dressing. I did not have blue cheese when I cooked this today and so I settled for the next best thing, garlic-cream cheese dip.

To do it, you will need:

8 oz cream cheese

3/4 cup sour cream

(If youdon’t have sour cream, you may make your own. Just Mix in half a lemon juice or 1 calamansi or 2 tbsps vinegar onto 3/4 cup all purpose cream)

3 cloves of garlic, minced

salt and pepper to taste

__________________________________________

1. In a processor, blend in all ingredients until smooth in consistency.

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SERVE WINGS WITH CELERY STICKS.

RED At Makati Shang

I knew I was going to be in for a gastronomic experience when my FOODIE editor rang me up for a wine tasting event that I had to cover. It was to be held at RED at Makati Shang, yes, the same place where my husband, Jake, asked me to marry him about four years ago.

The dinner was exclusive to just about ten people. The diners were people who communed at RED for a common purpose (aside from work) — to eat, drink and be merry! Great company in one table. Did I say all of them were hardcore foodies?

The event was Casa Lapostolle Winemaker’s Dinner hosted by Moët Hennesy Asia pacific (Full article on the wines will be for FOODIE’s July issue). Diego Urra walked us through our wine tasting experience, detailing extensively everything we needed to know about the wines we sampled.

Anyway, the dishes that went with it really propelled us to extra high gastronomic levels.

After the cocktails, we had this:

crab and mango canneloni

I have to confess. I’m allergic to crabs.  Funny, I grabbed these fancy bites the moment it was laid before me without knowing that I was to have some crab-infused dish. I whispered to FOOD’s editor-in-chief Mickey Fenix, who was seated beside me, to be on stand by for a possible respiratory attack as an allergic reaction.

The guys dining with us called on the hotel’s pharmacy nurse the moment they got wind of my concern. I took antihistamine and yes, tuloy ang ligaya!

The second dish was this:

pan seared scallops wrapped in parma ham

The choice was between this or pan seared sea bass. I thought I wanted something salty and meaty-juicy last night. The parma ham and the scallops just perfectly satisfied that craving. It went with some corn puree dripped all over the plate and basil pesto that gave extra spunk to the whole ensemble.

Then came along this:

mango sorbet with chardonnay foam

 At this point, I thought they were winding down already with their food presentations. Finally, the sweet ending (or so I thought!). The sorbet had the perfect consistency. Compact but icy-soft. The mango flavor tasted very natural, almost in its naked taste. It sat on a foam of chardonnay that further kicked out the great taste of the sorbet.

I was ready to sip my tea to cap the whole dining experience when I discovered that we were just about to start with the real deal!

And this was what next popped on my plate:

grilled beef tenderloin with foie gras and chicken mousse

Suddenly, I felt the food in my stomach giving space for the night’s rockstars. This dish, hands down, made my night! The beef gave away the juiciest, most scrumptious beefy goodness anybody can imagine. Cooked medium well, it just got me closing my eyes for some savor-the-moment experience!

Shortly after we finished,  we were served with this:

roasted rack of lamb

The photo says it all. It was served with cous cous, gremulata. Tender, oomph-loaded and very satisfying, the lamb was superior.

Finally, the fantastic ending was served:

bitter chocolate macaroon (berry compote)

Dream job it is. I want to work everyday.

Cheesy Chicken Balls

The super tandem of meat and cheese is back.  Recollective of the traditional cheeseburger, this dish combines ground chicken meat and cheese that’s been tucked in the ball of meat. So, when you cut it in half, the cheese greets you with the “Hello, eat me!” surprise!

I get emails from readers requesting for recipes they can execute with their kids.  This dish has to be the answered prayer. It’s easy, fanciful and tasty.

Cheesy Chicken Balls

To do this you will need:

1/2 kilo ground chicken

1 small egg, beaten

1/4  cup flour

1 onion, minced

3 cloves of garlic, minced

salt and pepper to taste

1 sprig of rosemary leaves, chopped (optional)

cheddar cheese cubes

1 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)

oil for frying

__________________________________________________

1. Season chicken with salt and pepper.

2. Mix chicken, egg, flour, onion,garlic, rosemary and cayenne pepper.

3. Scoop some meat mixture forming a patty on your palm. Put  cheese cube on top. Now, lift the patty sides up to enclose the cheese inside. Mold into a ball.

4. Fry in medium heat until golden brown. Set aside and let stand for 5 minutes.

Arroz A la Cubana

Our favorite Arroz a la cubana means Cuban style rice in Spanish. Its origins traced from Spain (during the time when Cuba was still under the Spanish rule). And, due to its mega combo of meat in tomato sauce, fried egg, fried banana (saba or plantain) and rice, it immediately gained ground among foodies in several countries  including the Philippines.

I particularly like the play of tastes in this dish. The meat providing the spice and succulence, the bananas giving the sweet dimension, the egg yielding the linamnam factor and the rice just binds everything before it slides down to our stomach in the best possible gastronomic way.

There are versions to this dish. Some throw in peas and carrots or sometimes cubed potato bits in the meat dish. Not for me, thank you. I go for the  beefy and savory version of this. Peas, carrots and potatoes tend to steal some degree of beefiness in the process. Better to keep it simple but extremely tasty. Don’t worry, the saba will have to combat the umay factor of the meat. Also, your call whether you want it spicy or mildly spiced. Would taste fantastic any which way, anyway.

To do this you will need:

For the meat dish:

1/2 kilo lean ground meat (preferably, ground round)

2 red medium-sized bell peppers, cubed

1 onion, minced

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tomato, diced

1/2 cup raisins

1 cup tomato sauce

salt and pepper to taste

oil

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)

1/2 tsp spanish paprika (optional)

1 pinch cumin (optional)

salt and pepper to taste (must! hehe)

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10 pcs bananas (saba) cut lengthwise, 5 cups rice (depending on how many will eat!), 5 eggs (again, depending on how many will eat!)

What to do:

1. Season meat with salt and pepper(s). Saute onion, garlic and tomato. Mix in meat then red bell peppers. Cook until brown and tender. Put tomato sauce and bring down to a medium simmer. Throw in raisins about 5 minutes before you turn off the heat. Set aside.

2. In a separate pan, do a sunny-side-up.

3. Fry bananas. Pat dry on a bed of napkins to remove excess oil.

4. Plate all components. Be creative!

Henry’s Pizza!

Today saw me make pizza with my daughter, Sam. Quite laborious, this pizza ate up a good part of my morning, our morning. Sam kept coaxing me since yesterday to go on with our pizza project. And so, we did just that.

sam greasing the pizza pan

It was fun rummaging through the ref for potential toppings for the pizza and we found these:

meatball chunks, tomatoes, bell peppers, capers, mushrooms, olives and garlic

After I made my labor-intensive dough, I started doing the topping assembly, such that:

the dough, topped with the trimmings (although still cheeseless at this point...)

 Now the fun part– ‘cheesing’ the pizza!

now ready for baking!

 

To do this you will need:

For the topping:

3/4 cup tomato paste

1/4 cup sundried tomatoes

1/2  cup mozzarela cheese

1/2 cup monterey  jackcheese

1/2 cup cheddar cheese

1/4 cup capers

1/4 cup pitted black olives, sliced

1 red bell pepper, sliced

2 tomatoes, sliced

6 cloves of garlic, minced

3 pcs meatballs, diced

For the dough:

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour, sifted

1 tsp salt

1 cup warm water

2 tbsp sugar

2 packages dry yeast

1/2 cup olive oil

cornmeal for sheet pan

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How to make the dough:

1. Mix flour and salt in a bowl.  In a  food processor fitted with a metal blade, pour the mixture. Combine the warm water and sugar in a measuring cup. Sprinkle the yeast over the warm water. Let stand until foamy in appearance, about 5 minutes. Pour the water and oil into the food processor. Process until the mixture becomes a ball.

2. Remove the dough from the food processor and put on lightly floured surface. Slightly knead until smooth. Put  in a greased bowl and let rise in a warm place (about 45 minutes).

3. Punch down the dough and let rise for another 45 minutes.

4. Divide the dough into 6 equal pieces. Roll each piece on a clean surface, with a bit of flour if necessary, to a 6-inch circle.

5. Meantime, dust 2 sheet pans lightly with cornmeal. Place the dough disks on the prepared sheet pans and top with sauce and toppings. _____________________________________________________

Meantime, preheat oven to 500F.

Now, you’re ready to do the toppings.

Brush dough with tomato paste the add sundried tomatoes. Distribute evenly all topping ingredients except cheese. Put a dash of salt and pepper.

Add cheese. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

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I would have loved serving this to my late dad, Henry. He wasn’t big on pizza.  He would’ve changed his mind had he tried this. Cheesy, tasty, and oomph-loaded, Sam just munched a lot. Yum!

Dampa Forever!

My sister turned a year wiser very recently and decided to mark her natal day by grabbing some great eats made up of baked oysters, crabs, shrimps, etc.

Dampa was to be her ‘party place’. Fantastic!

Dampa destinations have flourished around the metro in the last few years that it made sensation. If my memory serves me right, these dampa places have been around as early as in the 80’s and Roxas boulevard (then Dewey boulevard) has been the original hub since it all began and grew big time.

The concept of dampa or sometimes referred to as a paluto eatery, is that you go to a particular resto (in our case, we went to ChaCha at Julia Vargas Avenue), and will have the option to either personally scour for fresh eats (meat, vegetables or seafoods) at a nearby palengke or ask the restaurant runners to do it for you.

They then cook what has been freshly bought. Next, you are handed a menu that contains plenty of options as to how you want your food cooked  (ihaw, sigang, kilaw, etc). Ahhh, it’s the coolest.

And, FRESH is the operative word here.  I can’t overemphasize how satiating it is to  eat at these dampa places that serve everything fresh and great. Yeah, nothing beats eating anything F-R-E-S-H!

Now, I’m hungry again. Anyway, here goes what we had:

The ‘hot front act’ dish was made of halaan soup with onion leeks.

My family is a crab-loving family. These crabs got amputated in the first ten seconds that it landed on our table!

These shrimps were dipped in a special sauce by the resto. Sweet, nutty and malinamnam, the sauce was a hit.

Baked oyters in garlic and cheese.

Grilled tuna belly. Fat, juicy and smoky, I love this!

Baked scallops. A must-try!

Meet my FOODIE mom, Baby. My nephew, Marty, and my daughter, Sam.

My celebrant-sister, Tina and her hubby, Oliver.

My sis-in-law, Michelle with my brother, Jerome and their son, Marty.

The family!

My husband, Jake.

And me looking very, very stuffed by this time!

Tinumis!

Mom served our favorite tinumis today with a very wet weather at the backdrop. Can there be anything more soothing than having your best comfort food in the middle of a chilly-rainy-sleep-encouraging day?

Tinumis is a favorite dish among Nueva Ecijanos where it is believed to have originated. It is closely similar to dinuguan, only it uses ground pork as opposed to dinuguan’s pork that is cut in chunks.

Ponciana’s restaurant makes great tinumis (the owners are Nueva Ecijanos).

Growing up, I always looked forward to having this on our dining table. The distinct taste of pork blood, combined with the gratifying flavor of ground meat and the zing of the peppers and vinegar just left me pleasantly stuffed each and everytime I had it on my table then.

Now, fast forward to 2009, Mommy had me go back to those days. Her tinumis for lunch just made my day. Great weather, fantastic comfort food, good company, life is great.

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To do tinumis, you will need:

1 kilo ground pork (whole skin included, separated from meat)

200 gms Pork liver , chunked

3 cups pork blood

1 cup vinegar

1 tali tanglad (lemon grass)

8 pangsigang peppers

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 medium-sized onion, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

water

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1. Season pork and the pork balat with salt and pepper. Add garlic, onion and vinegar. Dump everything in a casserole. Don’t stir for the first 2 minutes or until vinegar is cooked. Bring to a simmer until vinegar seeps into the meat ensemble. Add water when necessary until the meat is cooked.

2. Midway into cooking, add liver, tanglad and peppers. Remove pork balat and cut into fine cubes. Throw back into the mixture.

3. Meantime, strain in pork blood onto the mixture. Coarsely chunk the blood left on the strainer and throw back into the mixture again. Continue simmering until meat is cooked. Serve hot.

Pan-Fried Lemon-Rosemary Chicken

In the olden times, our Christian brothers and sisters  referred to rosemary as the “Holy Herb”. Why? Well, based on Spanish legend, Mother Mary put her cloak over a rosemary bush during the Holy Family’s journey to faraway Egypt, turning the shade of the blossoms from white to blue.

In this day and age, we regard rosemary as a major herb-cuisine player used in most scrumptious dishes. It shines best with lamb or chicken, perfect with a lot of pasta dishes and salad dressings, and even makes a refreshing summer refreshment! Rosemary sometimes doubles up as a Christmas ornament, potpourri or as insect repellent, or its fanatstic scent used in oils and other aroma-generating  products.

Tonight, I combined it with my chicken and lemon. I loved the way the sauce coated the cooked chicken after I pan-fried and sliced it. The meat just absorbed a lot of the lemony flavor of the sauce, that plus the aromatic component of the rosemary herb. Obviuosly, I’m a big rosemary fan. People at Edsa Garden House (where I buy my fresh herbs), know how big a rosemary fan I am.

Okay what to do, you will need:

4 pcs chicken breasts, halved

juice of 1 lemon

4 cloves of garlic, minced

5 sprigs of rosemary, chopped

1/4 cup soy sauce

salt and pepper to taste

4 potatoes, french fries cut

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1. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Marinate in rosemary, lemon juice, soy sauce and garlic for an hour. Pan-fry in a skillet on medium heat. Remove from pan and let it rest for ten minutes.

2. Meantime, deep-fry potatoes. Set aside.

3. Add chicken marinade to the pan used in frying chicken. Try to achieve the “agaw-toyo-mantika” effect.

4. Slice chicken. Toss over to the sauce in the pan until chicken slices are well coated.Add potatoes  or put on a plate with the potatoes on the side. Sprinkle with some more rosemary for garnishing.

 

 

Sweet Ham In Two Easy Ways

 

I enjoy working with sweet ham. It’s versatile, flavorful and pleasantly juicy. A great  ingredient for cocktail pica, paninis, salads, soups or even for ‘pangsahog’, sweet ham just shines at any given time in any dining event. In Manila, my favorite brands are Adelina’s, Excelente in Quiapo and Salazar’s. Ahh, Adelina’s ham in hot pan de sal with kesong puti, God help me! Sarrrap!

My sister-in-law, Tish,  recently swung by Manila from Cagayan De Oro City. My in-laws had her bring this fantastic Oro ham for pasalubong. The ham just oozed with all its  precious juices. The meat,  tender and moist, perfect for a great omelette. The kind that you would make papak!

Meantime, Jake’s aunt, tita Aling,  gave us some wonderful and tasty  native eggs from her farm. I thought the two would make a perfect tandem for a power omelette. And, it did!

And so went the first of  the two dishes that I used it in.

To do this simple omelette, you will need:

3 eggs, scrambled

3/4 cup sweet ham, cubed

1 red bell pepper, julienned

7 pcs pitted olives, sliced (optional)

1/2 cup cheddar cheese, cubed

1 onion, chopped

1 tomato, diced

3 cloves of garlic, minced

salt and pepper to taste

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1. In a skillet, saute onion, garlic and tomato. Add ham, olives, bell pepper and cheese. Stir lightly. Set aside.

2. In a separate pan, pour beaten eggs creating a round form. Add ham mixture.

3. Flip two sides of the egg to enclose the ham mixture. Serve hot.

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You will be amazed with the next dish, it’s caramelized ham. This one is a personal favorite. I always obsess in having this for breakfast with scrambled eggs with sliced onions to match.

Even your one-year old kid can shine in the kitchen doing this. It involves just three steps all in all. Step one: slice sweet hams. Step two: dredge in white sugar. Step three: Fry.

Sweet hams aren’t really sugary sweet. Intensifying its sweetness  will perfectly strike a balance with its built in saltiness. Best served with hot steamed rice and coffee.

Bangus Belly ‘Sandwich’

This is perfect for bangus belly fanatics. It’s steamed, stuffed with all the healthy stuff, covered and cooked in fresh banana leaves. Potentially the perfect partner for your ginisang munggo sa hipon or your pinakbet, this dish should work its way to your menu soon, somehow.

Easy to make, too.

Just season two whole bangus bellies with salt and pepper. Chop 1 tomato, 1 onion, mince three cloves of garlic and chop 5 leaves of basil (optional). Dump everything on top of  one bangus belly.  Drizzle with canola oil. Cover with the other bangus belly on top (fat side down) to ’sandwich’ the filling.

 Loosely cover with banana leaf.

Steam for 45 minutes or until cooked. Serve with the vinegar-soy sauce dressing ( 1/4 cup suka, 4 tbsps toyo, 1 minced small onion and 1 siling labuyo. Just mix all ingredients).

A Taste Of Spain!

Spain’s got to be one of the loveliest places I’ve been fortunate to see. The haunting beauty of its awesome character just made me want to see it a million times all over again.

The picturesque setting set the tone for one unforgettable journey.

The richness in history, cultural heritage,  majestic architecture and the excellent gastronomic treats certainly make Spain the “IT” destination, hands down.

 

 

mime artists do move for a fee, a few bucks should do it.

For some art appreciation, do swing by Barcelona and Madrid when you happen to visit Spain. Quaint museums that are rich in artifacts, historical pieces and world-famous obras abound all over these two cities.

at museo del prado

These are but just some of the few of major attractions in Spain aside from the many other bewitching destinations you might want to visit.

And, for foodies like me, Spain is the place to be. It’s got to be one of the most exciting culinary destinations in the world.

at museo de jamon, madrid.

Great weather, fanatstic company, a heart-stopping architecture at the backdrop with matching sangria for toasting spelled JOY OVERLOAD!

chillin' at plaza mayor

These are but memories on a playback now.

Anyway, last night was a blast. Suddenly, I was back in my “bring-me-back-to-Spain” mode again. I hosted an event that presented the exclusive screening of the Mallorca episode of “Spain On The Road Again” which airs on the Asian Food Channel (Skycable channel 58) every 9pm on tuesdays. 

The show is hosted by my favorite Italian Chef, Mario Batali and actress Gwineth Paltrow.

*photo from brownturtlenecksweater.typepad.com

A cooking demo of pescado ala sal or fish baked in salt, sobrasada or sausage or pate and a paella was one of the main highlights of the event. All dishes wonderfully executed by fantastic Spanish Chef and owner of Tapella by Gaudi, Chef Xandra Got Pradera Cacho.

The paella was a winner. Saffron and broth based paella that used calrose rice witha mix of mushrooms and chorizos, this dish blew me away.

chef xandra's paella

 

the chef and i

Have some sobrasada pate!  Oh, lord! It tasted like a pate version of the Spanish chorizo. It sat well on those cruchy crostinis.

sobrasada

 The event was peppered with tapas all over the serving trays! Add to that the food  served to the guests by Chef Xandra, which she cooked during the demo.

  Great food! Truly delicioso! Isalud!

Farfalle in Pesto And Sun-Dried Tomato Sauce

“Mommy, you’re the pasta queen!”, I couldn’t be more flattered when Sam referred to me as that. She delightedly finished her plate of ribbon pasta in pesto and sundried tomatoes in a whiff. Quite a surprise there,  considering Sam’s preference for unflavored pasta and all.

But hey, before somebody raises a howl, it was just Sam labeling me as the ‘queen’, okay? Chill! In her eyes, I am. So be it! Haha!

Healthy, tasty, meatless and fanciful, this pasta has the x-factor kids would love to eat. The very pretty ribbon pasta (farfalle) should be the main attraction here to get kids into eating it. Then you load the pasta with all the healthy flavors that taste just as great.

Okay, for this dish you will need:

1/4 kilo ribbon pasta (farfalle)

1/2 cup pesto

3/4 cup sundried tomatoes

4 pcs shitake mushrooms, sliced

1/4 cup kesong puti, diced

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

1 tbsp dried rosemary

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 onion, minced

1/2 cup black olives, sliced (optional)

salt and pepper to taste

olive oil

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1. In a skillet, saute onion garlic, olives  and mushrooms. Add cooked pasta. Mix in pesto and sundried tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Add dried rosemary. Serve.

2. Top with parmesan cheese and kesong puti. Serve with your favorite toast.

Paksiw Na Pata

 

Food doesn’t have to be complicated to be big in taste. In fact, most dishes that, to me, are drool-stimulating  are those that are simple, common and very easy to make. The secret to making it extra rich and scrumptious is actually in the way that it is cooked.

Let’s take the case of my all-time favorite, paksiw na pata. I am bothered by the fact that quite a number of restaurants serve these pork knuckles half-cooked and still gummy. If this is their way of saving up on gas, time and effort, then I suggest that they better just ditch this dish for dishes that are less labor-intensive. Serving them matigas and makunat kinda bastardizes the real thing.

Paksiw na pata is best eaten when it’s tender, falling off the bones and immeresed in a sauce that has the balance of sweet and sour.

Ahh, my dad loved having this dish while he watched his fave tv programs. He liked this with matching ginisang munggo with dahon ng sili or pritong bangus (na ‘posta’ and hiwa..).

I’m reminded of how my dad introduced me to simple but delish home-cooked meals that included halaan soup with dahon ng sili, inihaw na liyempo in just salt and pepper, batchoy (that was made super tasty courtesy of the kinchay), laing, inadobong atay ng manok, pancit molo, etc.

And this, paksiw na pata. Another great flagship food of my happy childhood.

So easy to make, here’s how to do it:

You will need..

1 pork pata (front, it’s meatier!), chopped

1 cup vinegar

1/2 cup soy sauce

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 onion, chopped

1/2 cup banana blossoms (bulaklak ng saging)

3 pcs saba (banana plantain), cut diagonally

1/2 cup brown sugar (adjust according to taste)

1 tsp pamintang buo

1 laurel leaf

salt and pepper to tase

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1. Season pata with salt and pepper. Put pata in a casserole with the garlic, onion, paminta, vinegar and soy sauce. Cover with water and bring to a simmer. It is best slow-cooked (about two hours).

2. Continue adding water until meat is tender and sauce is reduced to half. Add saba, laurel leaf , sugar  and banana blossoms about 2o minutes before turning off the fire.  Serve hot.

 

 

 

German Franks In Spicy Tomato Sauce

A German Wurstchen or a frankfurter sausage is, traditionally, made from veal and lean pork meat. The flavor, usually powered by some fresh seasonings like fresh onions and other great tasting spices, just makes it one of the best-tasting sausages around.

Interestingly, the mixture is encapsuled in some  natural sheep casing and cooked through a special smoking process. The cooking method definitely yields the aromatic factor that makes this sausage extra addictive.

It was said that during the 13th century, a butcher from Frankfurt created this dish in Vienna and later on made this dish world-famous. Now that’s interesting, a German creating the frankfurter in Vienna!!

Anyway, Jake got me some German franks from his trip to Germany. He brought home several kinds of sausages, but the one I picked to cook first were the franks. So, what did I do? I did some mean spicy frankfurter bites in spicy tomato sauce. It looked something like this:

 

The juiciness of these sausages was well accompanied by the rich taste of the spicy tomato sauce. Imagine Regine Velasquez in a concert backed up by the Philippine Philarmonic Orchestra! Yeah, something of that magnitude…

Anyway, to do this you will need:

2 German frankfurter sausages, sliced diagonally

1/2 cup tomato paste

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 onion, minced

1 bell pepper, julienned

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp fresh rosemary, chopped (optional)

salt and pepper to taste

oil

 

 Saute garlic, onion, bell pepper and sausages. Stir in tomato paste. Slowly add in water to thin the sauce until desired consistency is achieved. Season with cayenne pepper, regular ground pepper and salt. Add chopped rosemary. Serve hot.

 

 

 

Tapenade On Sliced Burger

I love flavors. Don’t like it when the same taste (spanning weeks)  dominate the flavors of our home food. Variety is key. Ahh, how I enjoy a  see-saw of  sweet and sour, of spicy and zingy… my palate is insanely adventurous.

Today,  I decided to do a tapenade-grilled beef tandem. Tapenade is an extremely popular dish in France. It is used as spread on breads or fillng in fillets or paninis.

The original recipe calls for olives, capers and anchovy fillets, mixed together and finely chopped. Now my version, coarsely chopped. LOveet!

Biting into these roughly chopped olives and capers excite my palate. The play of salty and sour in these two great ingredients take me to some great gastronomic trip.

The meat that went with it was actually some sliced beef burger that I earlier cooked.

The tapenade would be the meat topping, wrapped in some warm pita bread.

(Meats are always kept moist when cooked whole then sliced after it’s cooked as opposed to meat that were cut before they were cooked.)

 

So, here goes how it’s done:

The tapenade will call for 20 pcs black pitted olives, 2 tbsps capers, 3 tbsps lemon juice, 1 tbsp mashed anchovy fillet (optional) and 3 tbsps olive oil. Coarsely chop the olives and capers, mix in anchovies, lemon juice and olive oil. Set aside. Tapenade can keep well in the ref for upto 2 weeks.

Meantime, to prepare the burger meat, season 1/2 kilo of ground meat with salt and pepper. Add 1 beaten egg, 3 cloves of chopped garlc, 1 minced onion and 3 tbsps flour. Mix all ingredients together. Form patties and grill. Let rest for 3 minutes. Slice into 1 inch width or your desired size.

Meantime, warm some pita bread (available in most supermarkets). Place some sliced burger on the center, top with tapenade and fold pita with the meat-tapenade fillng inside.

Cooking On TV 3 (US Girls, Studio 23)

I left ABS-CBN today feeling totally awesome. Taping went great and was very excited cooking before the cameras again. Angel Aquino was the nicest and most grounded celebrity I’ve met recently.

Here goes some snippets of the taping to be aired sometime this week on Studio 23.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ham and Cheese Waffle ‘Sandwich’

Lifted from the recipe pages of FOODIE magazine, I literally dished out three exciting  food treats from leftovers during the taping of Studio 23’s “US Girls”.

Ahh, how I embraced the challenge of having to revv up an otherwise dull, unappetizing, ex-yummy-now-eecky leftover dish! My magic wand/sandok just had me do some quick but yummy dishes.

Okay, the first dish was the ham and cheese waffle sandwich. The leftover ingredient was the waffle (waffle recipe courtesy of FOODIE magazine). The challenge for me was how to tweak the waffle and transform it into a mega breakfast. And so, I did this:

Nice? Nothing easier than this, really. I just put a piece of salami and cheese in between two waffles and toasted them using a lightly greased pan, a minute on each side. There. Shockingly easy! I cut them into bite sizes and placed a dipping bowl of maple syrup. Dipping your waffle bites into it should be a great idea.

I thought allowing the citrus fruits to join my waffle ensemble was a good idea, too. There. Shockingly easy.

The next two leftover ‘wonders’ on my next blog, stay tuned!

Pasta And Peas

Still on with our interesting series on “leftover makeover” inspired by some dishes we lifted from the pages of FOODIE magazine. This second dish I cooked for Studio 23’s “US Girls” was such a big hit that it was gone instantly before I could finish saying “bon appetit” to everybody!

Simple, tasty to the core and very elegant, this dish should work its way on your menu soon.

The leftover food was the pasta. In this case, we used salad macaroni. Have you ever had the experience of over estimating your pasta, cooking more than you need  and ended up just stacking them away in the ref to grow those icky molds?  Ha!

Alright, let’s have some great-tasting solution to this leftover dilemma.

The dish I made called for about 5 cups of cooked salad macaroni (cooked according to package directions), 2 tbsps olive oil, 2 tbsps butter, 1 medium-sized chopped white onion, 3/4 cup chopped bacon or pancetta, 3/4 cup frozen sweet peas (thawed), 2 tbsps dry white wine, salt and pepper to taste and grated parmesan cheese.

I Sauted onion and bacon. Added wine and let alcohol evaporate before I mixed in peas which I had to saute a bit longer til I got it tender while still very bright green in color. Tossed them gently onto my pasta and sprinkled parmesan cheese on top.

Creamed Pork Stew

A crowd pleaser, this creamed pork stew is definitely a delectable treat at any given dining ocassion. Creamy and extremely  palatable with the other flavors jumping out of this dish, this should be on your plate this very minute!

classic pork stew

I originally  cooked a simple but delish pork stew and I thought it tasted  sooo good as it was until I had a eureka moment again and decided to pour in some cream to further liven up my stew. The dish just got better and better. And yeah, it turned out to be  the best!

Okay, to do the creamed pork stew you will need:

1/2 kilo pork loin, cut into thin strips

3/4 cup shitake mushrooms, sliced

1/2 kilo ripe tomatoes, diced

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 medium sized red onion, sliced

1 medium-sized bell pepper, julienned

1/4 cup soy sauce

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup butter oil

3 tbsps oil

1/2 cup all-purpose cream

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1. Saute pork in onion, garlic and tomatoes in butter and oil. Add pork, season with salt and pepper and soy sauce.

2. Bring to a medium simmer. Add water until pork is tender and tomatoes totally wilted. Midway into cooking, throw in bell peppers and mushrooms.

3. Add cream. Bring to a simmer and stir for about four minutes,. Serve hot.

Baked Dory In A Hurry

pre-cooking stage of the dory

All too suddenly, my palate started to nag me for a juicy, tasty and very savory dish of baked fish. So, I rushed to the freezer to grab some dory fillets to silence my craving. I knew I just had to have it right away!

I am a fan of dishes with salty, sweet and sour combinations. And, with a fat, juicy and moist dory to go with it, ahh, it’s the best, baby.

Anyway, here’s how to do it.

You will need:

2 whole dory fillets (medium-sized)

salt and pepper to taste

2 large lemons, seeded and sliced (see picture on top of this page)

3/4 cup mayo

1 tbsp honey

5 cloves of garlic, minced finely

3/4 cup parmesan cheese

3 tbsps bread crumbs (optional)

1  tsp fresh rosemary, chopped (optional)

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1. Preheat oven to 350c. Season fish with salt and pepper. Set aside.

2. In a baking ware, bed  lemon slices vertically. Lay fillets on them (see picture on top of this page).

3. In a bowl, mix mayo, honey, rosemary and garlic. Season with salt and pepper. Mix well.

4. Top fish with mayo mixture. Sprinkle cheese and breadcrumbs on top.

5. Bake for 20 minutes or until cheese become bubbly hot. Serve warm.

Cooking Demo On MomWorx (Lifestyle Network)

I have no regerets having dabbled into newscasting for a good decade or so. Why, it was a dream waiting to happen since I was seven years old! When all the kids obsessed in becoming doctors, lawyers and artista, little me fantasized in becoming somebody like Tina-Monzon Palma. And, as fate would have it, it ‘kinda’ happened although not in the magnitude that I wanted it to be. Still, newscast was one of  my life’s most remarkable highlights, bar none.

Now, fast forward to 2009. I’m now officially out of the newsroom and finally in the kitchen! Yehey! Like a fish thrown back into the water, like an eaglet back in the wings  o f her mother, I can’t be happier in the company of my ’sandok’ and ‘kawali’. Like I always tell my friends, I’m better off annotating how to ‘gisa’ than annotating  rallies in Edsa!

Cooking is ME. Since birth. And yes, even in my past lives.

And now that I’ve become the ‘kusinera’ that I have always dreamt of becoming (back to back with my news ambitions…), I sure have to tighten my grip in holding on to this dream and focus, focus, focus! It’s definitely the best recipe to succeed:)

Anyway, here goes a video clip from a guesting I made for Lifestyle Network’s “Momworx” with Maricel laxa-Pangilinan. All the recipes I did were lifted from this site.

I hope in my own small way, I am able to offer you a third hand in your kitchen.

Corn Chip-Coated Chicken Fingers

chicken fingers on tomato-wheat pasta

I love the thousand and one ways you can have your chicken fingers. In most fast food restaurants, their basic breaded chicken is always given a makeover, usually by way of adding special sauces to it.

Traditionally, the sauce choices for the chicken include teriyaki, curry, sweet and sour and other great-tasting sauces. Why, as long as the chicken finger is made excellently (translation: crunchy, moist and juicy!), pouring over any good sauce on it will definitely yield a perfect combination.

On the other hand, it is also used as  pasta topper, usually in any pasta that’s meatless and tomato based. It provides the crunch and savory factor in the otherwise almost subdued taste of a simple tomato-based pasta.

Today, I whipped up a corn chip-breaded chicken fingers on a simple, basic tomato based-pasta for dinner. The corn chips actually got my hands into doing this dish. It’s the first time for me to get those chips onto my fillets, a momentary breakaway from my Japanese bread crumbs.

Now, here’s how to do it. You wil need:

1/2 kilo chicken breast fillet

1/2 cup bread flour

1 cup corn chips, coarsely pounded

1 egg, slightly beaten

salt and pepper to taste

For the pasta, you will need:

1/2 kilo whole wheat spaghetti

2 cups tomato sauce

4 cloves garlic

1 large bell pepper, cut into strips

1 tbsp hot sauce

salt and pepper to taste

parmesan cheese

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chicken fingers

Season chicken with salt and pepper. Dredge in flour then dip in egg. Coat with corn chips. Let stand for 5 minutes. Deep fry for four minutes on each side. Top on pasta.

tomato pasta

Cook pasta according to package directions. Meantime, in a sauce pan, saute garlic and bell pepper. Add tomato sauce. Season with salt, pepper and hot sauce. Toss in pasta. Sprinkle with cheese on top.

Inadobong Baka Sa Gata

adobong baka

It started this way. ADOBO. Yum.

Half of me clamored for some classic adobo and the other half  howled for some dish that used rich gata (coconut milk). And, both persistence won. Yehey.

Beef, isn’t really the most popular main meat of the traditional adobo. It’s usually pork and chicken grabbing the lead star spot in any adobo fare, but hey, beef rocks too.

In fact, tonight, I did both adobong baka and inadobong baka sa gata.

inadobong baka sa gata

I know that was insane. I just had to scratch the  itch to cook and taste adobo in two ways. And, was it good!

I am a serious advocate of pinoy food. Very serious, actually. In fact, this post has to be the nth time I am talking about adobo, otherwise touted as Philippines’ flagship dish. Yeah, mabuhay ang adobo!

Okay, here’s how to do it. You will need:

1 kilo brisket, cubed (choose the part that has the fat marbling all over!)

6 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup white vinegar

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 laurel leaf

salt and pepper to taste

1 pack instant gata (hey, was running late eh!)

water

oil

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1. Season beef with salt and pepper. Put garlic. Pour vinegar, soy sauce and water enough to cover the meat. Simmer. Continue adding water until meat is very tender and most liquid has evaporated. Add laurel during the last 3 minutes of this procedure.

2. Add gata. Stir for about 5 minutes more. Serve hot.

The Perfect Sansrival Cake

This must be pure joy in cake form.

With extreme glee written all over my face, I felt like wolfing down a slice or two the minute I got this. Pistachio sansrival cake by Delize of Chef Jill Sandique, it’s simply the Louie Vuitton of cakes, hands down.

Had my mom taste it and grabe, she was blown away, big time. Haaay, new finds like this get me very giddy. I’m like “oh-dear-this-must-be-love” as I was tasting it, yeah love at first taste!

I particularly like the use of pistachio nuts as opposed to the traditional peanuts in this cake. Definitely an excellent source of protein, it dramatically reduces cholesterol too, among some of its benefits. Love pistachio nuts.

The butter wasn’t overwhelming. Not at all. I did not feel that I was munching on some butter bar with ‘incidental ingredients’ like nuts. Walang daya.

Great taste plus the vibrant green color of the nuts spelled excellence in this cake. Gooey, creamy-rich and really pretty, Chef Jill is the pastry rockstar!

This just worked its way on my ‘top-of-mind-party-potluck-contribution’ list. Loveeet!

*for orders, please call/text 09228262673 look for Lea.

Beef Cannelloni

 

I was pleasantly surprised to find a pack of cannelloni pasta at S&R last I did the grocery there. Cannelloni pasta should be a welcome change/addition to my pasta family. Why, my spaghetti begged for a day-off  today. So, newbie cannelloni took the centerstage in my kitchen for some rich, beefy and cheesy pasta.

This is excellent with some clear soup and a glass of white wine (naks!). I love, love, love capping my day with a relaxing chat with my hubby, Jake, over some good serving of pasta and a glass of wine, on certain nights. It just winds me down in the best possible way.

Anyway, here goes the recipe:

1/2 kilo ground beef

10 cannelloni shells

1 can diced tomatoes

1 large tomato, chopped

1 onion, minced

1 large bell pepper

6 cloves of garlic, minced

1 cup grated jack monterey cheese (or your favorite cheese)

1/2 cup chopped ham (optional)

3/4 cup fresh milk

1/4 cup butter

1 egg, slightly beaten

4 tbsps flour

salt and pepper to taste

oil

1 tbsp fresh rosemary, coarsely chopped

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1. Saute beef in garlic, tomato and onion in oil and butter. Season with salt and pepper. Add ham. Cook until meat is tender. Set aside. Let cool for ten minutes.

2. Once cool, mix in egg and flour. Stuff uncooked cannelloni with beef mixture. Set aside.

3. Using the pan used for the beef mixture, pour in tomato sauce and milk. Simmer for five minutes.

4. In a greased pyrex dish, pour about 1/4 cup of the tomato sauce mixture. Lay down cannellonis giving a 1/4 inch-space in between each piece. Pour over the rest of the tomato sauce mixture. Top with cheese.

5. Bake in a preheated oven (160 c) for an hour. Garnish with fresh herbs. Serve with your favorite toast.

Sirloin Strips With Baby Corn

Love your own.

Yes, that seemed to have been our family’s battlecry everytime Christmas happened and we had this dish as potluck for the usual clan get-together and my immediate family would dig in ahead of everybody onto this dish and dig in some more for a  second, third and even fourth serving! Haha, talk about extreme fanaticism!

Sirloin is a personal favorite cut. Top sirloin, is the ultimate. It’s tender, very savory and excretes all the beefy goodness one can ever imagine. Kinda pricey, though. Quality’s got a price tag, so..

Now, the baby or young corn. I learned from our past helpers that these baby corns, in the provinces, are nothing but waste, dirt or trash. To them, they are freaks born out from a supposedly, “normal” corn. While me here in Manila is crazy about my beef sirloin with baby corn. Yee.

Okay, how to do this dish now. You will need:

1/2 kilo top sirloin, cut into thin strips

1/2 kilo ripe tomatoes, diced

3/4 cup tomato sauce

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 medium sized red onion, sliced

1 cup baby corn

1/4 cup soy sauce

salt and pepper to taste

laurel leaf

1/4 cup butter oil

oil

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1. Saute beef  in onion, garlic and tomatoes in butter and oil. Season with salt, pepper and soy sauce. Add water to cover meat.

2. Bring to a medium simmer. Continue adding water until beef is tender and tomatoes totally wilted and half of the water evaporated. Add about 1/2 cup of oil.

3. Add baby corn, tomato sauce and laurel leaf. Cook until done. Serve hot.

Meatloaf With Sundried Pesto Rice

The immortalized classic meatloaf  dish, hands down, has proven to be one of the most popular dishes over the centuries that it has been served in a great number of dining banquets all over the world since the 5th century. It is a traditional German, Belgian and Dutch dish, and is a cousin to the Italian meatball.

Usually made of ground beef with a classic combination of lamb or pork, I personally think that this dish is best when it’s baked or smoked as opposed to steamed. I just adore the juicy, tasty and engaging taste of this dish. The play of flavors just work in perfect coherence. You wanna  bite on it like there’s no tomorrow.

Anyway, here’s how you do it. You will need:

1/2  kilo ground beef

1 small bottle pickle relish, drained

1/2 cup cheddar cheese, grated

1 pack cream of mushroom soup (powdered)

1 egg, slightly beaten

1 large onion, roughly minced

1 red bell pepper, minced

2 sliced white bread (tasty), cut into small pcs

1/4 cup raisins

1 cup chopped sweet ham

3/4 cup black olives, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

1.. Preheat oven to 350c. Mix all ingredients.

2. Place the mixture in a 9×4 rectangular baking pan. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 45 minutes.

3. Serve with VELOUTE sauce.

It’s…

             1 1/2 cups beef or chicken stock

            2 tablespoons unsalted butter

            3 tbsp flour

            Salt & Pepper, to taste

In a saucepan, raise heat to medium. Melt butter then add flour to it to form a roux. Stir in stock until thickened. Season with salt and pepper.

For the sundried pesto rice, you will need:

4 cups overnight rice

4 tbsps sundried pesto sauce

1. Heat pan. Pour sauce. Mix in rice. Serve hot.