I’ve been cooking stir-fry dishes Chinese style for so long I miss the way mom does it – gulay guisado Pinoy-style (Philippine-style sauteed vegetables). This takes additional minutes of cooking time. Meat isn’t cooked over high heat for few minutes or so. Instead, cooked with its own juice over low heat until it renders fat. Here is ginisang upo with daing (sauteed bottle gourd with dried fish) – one of those simple, easy-to-cook, everyday Pinoy dishes.
I was browsing through my food photos and realized I have too many adobo pics. All looks a little different from one another, the basic cooking principle tweaked depending on how my family wanted it at the time. Adobo is … Continue reading How to Cook Adobo? Lemme Count the Ways…
I remember mom’s adobo is devoid of vegetables and always dry and dark with soy sauce. Yet last December, she surprised me with her new version – really soupy and with potatoes. Our family loves soup in meals so a soup dish like nilaga, tinola or sinigang is always a hit. This soupy version of adobo didn’t fail. After all, pouring soup over rice is in fact a Pinoy custom. Ingredients: 1/2 kilo pork (w/ fat), cut into chunks 2 tbsp crushed garlic 2 medium-sized potatoes, cut into chunks 1/2 cup vinegar 1/2 cup soy sauce salt and peppercorns 2 … Continue reading Mom’s Soupy Adobong Baboy
Quite busy for weeks I didn’t have time to blog so here’s another easy recipe. It’s basically the same as my 1st chicken hamonado post but instead of fruit juice, I used what was left of our raisin snack. Ingredients: 2 large chicken thigh/leg 1 tbsp. of crushed garlic 1 onion, chopped 1/2 cup soy sauce 1/2 cup Chinese green raisins 2 tbsp. of sugar salt & crushed peppercorns leak, julienned Mix the above ingredients in a pot. Pour enough water to cover the chicken and simmer until the chicken is cooked and the sauce is thick. Continue reading Chicken Hamonado with Green Raisins
An Entry to Lasang Pinoy 10 – Food Memories from your Childhood hosted by Buhay Cucinero. I did try thinking about other food memories from my childhood but couldn’t single out another one that could trigger more fond memories than those I’ve already written months ago in a meme with the same theme. My dad, who has such a green thumb, planted lots of fruit-bearing trees around our home that one may get lost finding it. Star apples, coconut trees (including macapuno, freak coconut full of soft meat), chico, santol, mangoes, papaya, guyabano or soursop, atis or sugar-apple, banana (finger-like … Continue reading LP10 – Ang Prutas, Bow!
Today marks the 1st anniversary of Edible Experiments! A total of 82 recipes if I counted correctly. Not much but not bad for a working mom though I still have lots of food photos waiting to be published.
I cook and I forget the little details so I write them down. That’s how it goes. But clearly it has meant much more than that. I’ve met wonderful people and new friends. I got reacquainted with old colleagues and relatives around the globe. I now see Filipino culture through food in a different light. I’ve encouraged friends to blog and join Lasang Pinoy events. I even hosted LP8! I’ve also learned a lot from other foodblogs – new recipes, techniques – and marveled at their own stories. From all these I believe my cooking got better.
Most of the recipes I’ve posted are about simple home-style cooking but every time a reader writes me about how great a recipe is from this blog – of course after being kitchen-tested – I feel great. I even get requests from time to time. There are also those who write to share their own tricks that I do appreciate very much. So for my blog’s birthday, I prepared a PDF file of few recipes published here ready for download . Not much and not that special but I do hope they would be helpful.
Tagged by Ajay (and a pleasure being called beautylicious), I am now tagging Lani and favorite tagmates Ces and Mike with this meme about describing your top 10 simple pleasures in life. (Wanna tag Toni but Vina beats me to the punch. ) Ajay said “be original with your answers and not repeat those which have already been written by your circle of friends”. Her list is so interesting I had a difficult time completing mine. Funny how hard it is to think about simple things I got stucked at no. 9 for days. 1. Looking at that photo of … Continue reading Life’s Simple Pleasures
Beijing weather is getting too warm for spring it looks like I am gonna miss soon all the fruits that the season brings. As always, that Russian store nearby offers fabulous fruits like this pineapple. I thought of making pinya turon (pineapple spring rolls) out of the leftovers but unfortunately my wrappers got molds before I had the time to make my turon experiment ala-Mirsbin’s apple turon and inspired by Mcdo’s pineapple pie. I might do the apple turon as Fuji apples seem available anytime of the year. These strawberries are really great! Sweet and crisp we didn’t even think … Continue reading Spring Fruits
Here is a stir-fry recipe that is neither Chinese nor Filipino but a combination of both. Chinese stir-fry veggies normally have ginger and thick sauce while I grew up with ginisang sari-saring gulay (mixed vegetables) with tomatoes and no ginger. Mom’s gulay guisado is never about high heat and meat is always cooked longer. So, I took out the ginger, retained the tomato flavor and cooked it the way I love Chinese stir-fry dishes – the thick sauce and of course, how fast we can prepare a meal this way.
I seldom get requests from readers about a recipe. Gilda has tried my pakbet, liked it and requested for afritada. Just what I needed, an idea of what to cook next. Oh yeah I do run out of ideas especially when I’m lazy to browse through the internet.
As a kid, afritada (a stew normally cooked with tomato sauce) is not a common dish in our dinner table as we are a family not so fond of tomato sauce. I learned how to cook the dish from my HS home economics book and cooked it devoid of tomato sauce. A generous amount of real tomatoes were used instead (recipe to be posted here soon). Below is my tomato sauce-based pork afritada. Instead of browning the meat before stewing, I simmer the pork first until tender before browning and adding the spices.
What I had in mind actually is beef pares. This is already my 2nd attempt and my official tagatikim (food taster) thought what I did here is very similar to the one served in our favorite restaurant back home. Still we believe a stronger flavor would do the trick. My guess is star anise. I purposely omit it as we don’t really like too ‘Chinese’ tasting dish but I will definitely stir it in next time. I was also lazy to add in cornstarch to make thicker sauce so for the meantime, I will call this dish simply beef toppings. The hard-boiled egg in the photo? Well, I felt like I wanted to add some in the stew.
I know I just had offal overload last month with LP9 but this maybe a reason for us to celebrate as it is the first time I cooked dinuguan (pork blood stew) in Beijing. Why, it’s the first time I saw it available in the supermarket! Oh well I found dugo ng baboy damo (black pig’s blood) last week but I don’t think I would like to use that. I am sure a lot of things are available here we just don’t have the time to actually go out to find where. I received a tip from a reader who also resides in Beijing (many thanks to you!), about a wet market here frequented by expats. We haven’t checked it out yet so my stock is still limited to what I find in our favorite supermarkets. Actually it’s not that bad to buy from these supermarkets. Maybe a little bit expensive but most of the time the meat and produce are always fresh and in good quality.
I have few childhood memories of dinuguan. It is also a famous carinderia dish that I learned from my dad. It is exotic and may be unacceptable to some westerners. I still don’t know how the locals cook it but I am sure they have their own special way of doing so. How was I able to find it here if they don’t eat it, right? So I accidentally saw this small slab of pork blood, looked at it and saw it is clean and nice and bought it right away. Back home, we usually buy blood from newly-slaughtered pig that all you need is mash it with your own hands in prep before cooking. Here I mashed half of it with a fork and the other half I cut into cubes. Also, I wasn’t quite sure if I could do this the right way as it’s been a long while since the last time I cooked dinuguan. Luckily, it turned out quite well.
I’ve had few busy weeks but today I found the time to do this interesting foodbloggers meme. In Our Kitchen‘s JMom has tagged me. 1. Please list three recipes you have recently bookmarked from foodblogs to try. Bookmarked for months, no time to do. Chinese Sweet & Sour Pork – Like Stef, I’ve had enough of sweet and sour pork that’s either too sour or too sweet, too thick and gluey. This dish plus more Asian recipes from Noodles and Rice. Tom Kar Kai (Spicy Chicken Coconut Soup) – I like Thai food and this one from Thess of Eet … Continue reading A Foodbloggers Meme Around The World
I’ve always wanted to post a pork sinigang recipe but my ingredients are perpetually incomplete. It’s the weather that’s driving me crazy like kangkong (river spinach) isn’t available during winter or that I couldn’t find a single decent gabi (taro) during the summer days. Either I missed out buying the green chili or I am just plain unlucky. 
So I decided to post what I have and present few pics all at the same time…
Sinigang na baboy is a sour soup and I grew up loving tamarind as the main souring agent. Love it with bony parts or even slabs of pork fat. These, of course, must be simmered for quite a while to be tender and nice.
The vegetables that I normally include in the broth are sitaw (string beans), kangkong, radish, okra, aubergine, mustard greens and gabi. I don’t necessarily put everything all together but there are few combinations that I really like. I also love gabi as it gives a thick and creamy texture. I like crisp sitaw and kangkong. I like crushed tomatoes in it. I like okra but too bad i can’t find them here. One more thing, I like it real sour but not astringent. Hindi yung basta naasiman lang.
Here is the recipe for the 1st photo shown above. 2nd photo shown is sinigang without gabi, aubergine and green chili pepper but with sitaw. 3rd photo is buto-buto (bony parts) with sitaw and kangkong. Notice the color of the soup when it has no tomatoes as shown in the last photo.
On my way to pick up my son from school this afternoon, I passed by a supermarket, bought lapu-lapu (grouper) and saw this pack of fresh fish roe. (I believe they are grouper roe.) I thought instantly that fish offal also qualifies as lamang loob so I bought few grams and decided to make another Lasang Pinoy 9 entry.