Lani posted her homemade Pork & Beans recipe and I suddenly remember my Dad’s version – delectable chicken chunks sauteed with canned handful bits of pork and lots of beans. I cooked it right away after reading Lani’s post but my busy working sched never gave me the chance to have it published. And here am I enjoying the meal again with my family sans chicken.
I asked A what he wanted for lunch and he requested something simple like fried pork (yeah here comes the carnivore again) served alongside a vegetable soup. He bought a 2L bottle of Sprite and suggested I cook the pork with it. Hmmm sounds really great and easy. Makes sense as Sprite has a taste similar to that of 7-Up. I am so sure one has heard of 7-Up pork chops or halabos na hipon cooked with this popular lemon-lime flavored carbonated soda. I served it with a simple petchay (a type of Chinese cabbage) soup – basically clear onion soup lightly seasoned with salt and pepper; sprinkled with chopped spring onion.
What do you do with leftover food? Everyday cooking has made me a bit of an expert in calculating how much we can consume and which dish is a hit that I seldom have leftovers. But of course it doesn’t happen all the time. Fine. Yet I don’t think I could throw away a good and decent portion of food without feeling guilty for the hungry street children and leftovers aren’t as appetizing the second time around so a makeover is usually the case. One way of being creative is to camouflage it as an ingredient to a new dish. Usually I cut pieces of meat (like adobo) or vegetables, and use them as ingredient to fried rice the next morning for breakfast. A stir-fry vegetable dish could be toppings to fried noodles. I think of fish balls when there is leftover steamed fish. What’s left of sinaing na tulingan can be made into tuna pasta or tuna omelet. Don’t be surprised that I even made something out of take-away beef rendang!
I could have easily call this dish humba or even hamonadong pata but certain ingredients are missing such as bean curd, tausi (salted black beans), or pineapple and I don’t intend to confuse my readers with regards to the Philippine cuisine. As I am already perplexed with names and what ingredient goes into what recipe, I choose to simply call it – braised boneless pata. With a decent piece of pork leg and staple pantry items, here’s another melt-in-your-mouth dish.
One of A‘s favorite – lechon kawali (crispy deep-fried parboiled pork belly)! Every time I come across a pork dish A loves, the words ‘sinfully delicious’ come to my mind. Oh well so much for man’s carnivorous nature. Ingredients for … Continue reading Lechon Kawali
Whenever we crave for siomai or dim sum, we go to our favorite Cantonese restaurant. Not so fond of Beijing jiaozi (Northern Chinese dumplings) so I was so ecstatic to find Karen’s famous basic siomai recipe. Go check it out. I followed what was written there (except I didn’t have singkamas) including making my own wrappers. Here’s my 1st attempt – not perfect (yet) but I’m posting it anyway. Those in the photos taste good! How come I find them not perfect? 1. I don’t think they look good. I need to know how to wrap them nicely. Did few … Continue reading Siomai and Fried Dumplings
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
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.
I’ve been experimenting with Chinese cooking wine lately since I found a bottle in a supermarket a month ago. So far it’s a hit! This was lunch last Easter Sunday. Those green roses are actually the bottom part of pechay where the stalks meet. We didn’t eat ‘em. They just look pretty next to the spareribs.
Continue reading “Chinese Braised Spareribs (and Pechay Soup)”
We have been quite busy for the past several months and my cooking has been alternately quickies or leisurely-cooking while working. The quickies in the kitchen of course are my stir-fry veggies, quilos, fried meat/fish, halabos (shellfish cooked with salt and from its own juice and no water at all), easy soups and the likes. And when I say leisurely-cooking while working, this is slow-cooking for hours that I always make it a point to set my alarm clock every 30 minutes just so I won’t burn anything and trigger the smoke detector. Of course, leisurely styles of cooking like braising and stewing makes melt-in-the-mouth meals not possible with the quickies.
I checked my stats and the most visited pages are my hamonado recipes followed by sinaing na tulingan, patatim, tocino and skinless longgonisa. My hamonado is actually not ham-cured; like my tocino, it has no curing processes whatsoever to preserve food such as standard longganisa, ham, fish, cheese, sausage, or vegetables. It is just a term my dad uses when referring to a big chunk of meat stewed with sweetener for hours. Frankly, I cook this hamonado at least once a month, of course with variations. It is, for me, like adobo – a versatile dish. I use chicken or pork or even beef. Sweeten the meat with fruit juice like pineapple juice, fruit cocktail syrup, pineapple chunks, apples, raisins or just plain sugar. Serve it with steamed vegetables – potatoes, carrots, beans, snowpeas, or even tomatoes, whatever is available. Don’t be surprised if I tell you I have quite a number of pictures waiting to be published.
So here is another one… apple-flavored!
I’ve just blogged about our native chocolate as well as corned beef made in the Philippines and now I lament for the unavailability of our longganisa (Pinoy-style sausage) here. Chinese chorizo is definitely un-Filipino. What else to do but make … Continue reading Skinless Longganisa
We were so busy thinking about buying our son another birthday cake so we can have our private ‘blowing candle’ celebration. Private meaning just the 3 of us. He already had 1 with our family back home and another one w/ his classmates on his 1st day of school this year. We were almost done w/ eating the cake after an afternoon stroll at the Chinese military museum when I realised it is actually somebody else’s birthday! Good thing I had some party stuff to cook. Lumpiang shanghai and pancit bihon!
Haha! Now I can cook lumpiang shanghai anytime I want to. I managed to find a store that sells the kind of wrapper I need. This is China and I am sure everybody thinks it’s easy to find. I guess all those restaurants make their own wrappers. I normally find the thick type they use to wrap peking ducks (or Beijing ducks).
How did Lasang Pinoy evolve into this ‘beyond Yemagate special edition’? Check it out here. History is here and there. I guess some of the parties involved already knew where I stand in this matter so I’d rather not talk more about it. The bottom line is that I joined LP4.5 (even brainstormed a bit) to support people with such deep love for culture. Four LP events and I have already learned a great deal. A lot more to go, a lot more to learn.
What to say about borrowing someone else’s photo? Like Stef said, ‘the best way is always to ask first and get that person’s permission, which more often than not will be granted.’ Sassy even checked whether she has another photo of the same dish for me to borrow!
Why Pinoy Cook’s photo? Ok, now I have to disclose this. Before I started foodblogging I’ve been struggling to remember dishes that I used to prepare years ago (mahirap masanay ng may tagaluto) and as I am always open to new ones I began searching for recipes on the internet. Mr. A (he’s shy he prefers not to be mentioned) was the one who actually found her site. It must be his way of telling me what to cook (and how it should be done hahahaha). Also, every time I google I always end up reading a recipe from Sassy, the Pinoy Cook.
Why pork steak? Though I am always trying to make any vegetable dish as attractive and delectable as possible to the 2 guys (1 big, 1 small) in my life, here is a dish that has always been a hit. (Is it a case of hereditary preference for meat or just the male hormones?) We just had our medical check-up and good thing we are healthy as bulls so it’s about time to go devour sinfully delicious taba ng baboy.
So do check out her recipe and below is how I did mine. The way I cooked my pork steak is almost similar to the way Sassy did except that I used lemon juice and no Worcestershire sauce.
Continue reading “Lasang Pinoy 4.5 – Pork Steak and No to Plagiarism”
If I didn’t check it out and research a bit on the country’s national dish (which is lechon), I would certainly say that it’s adobo right away. So let’s just say it is the best-known Filipino dish. What more is there to say about it? Well, I just wanna add that it was something I envy every time I had fried galunggong (or mackerel scad) for binalot and my classmate seating beside me had adobo. For a 6-7 year old kid, galunggong wasn’t something I really liked back then.
Mom’s chicken adobo is dry. She lets the sauce dries up and fries the chicken w/ more soy sauce. I love it. It’s really good paired with plain rice. But what I usually prepare now is something different. It’s a combination of mom’s adobo ala-eh style and what I encountered during my overnight stays on friends’ homes during my college days. Oh my near-bohemian archi student days. Some of my friends’ moms cook it with thick sauce and potatoes. And oh by the way, 2 non-Pinoy friends of ours – a local Chinese MA student and a Singaporean Spa Owner/Consultant, love our Philippine adobo.
