Pansit Canton

Bihon or pansit?  Ask my family and for sure, they’ll always vote for the former. I guess the latter is perceived more common over the other hence the preference to serve bihon whenever there’s an occasion.

Personally, I find pansit noodles tastier compared to bihon, so whenever it is just self-craving I need to satisfy, I go for pansit!

For me, making this dish involves two steps - cooking the veggies ala chopsuey and cooking the noodles – combine all together and there you’ll get a mixed pansit noodles!

Ingredients:

• 1/4 kg chicken breast
• 1/2 kg packed pansit noodles
• 1/8 kg cabbage, cut roughly, discarding the tough stem
• 50 grams green beans, cut into about 1-1/2 inches length
• 50 grams snow peas
• 1 medium carrot, julienne
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• salt & pepper to taste
• 5 tablespoons soy sauce (add more if darker noodles is preferred)
• 5 tablespoons vegetable cooking oil
• lemon slices
• You may add:  deveined shrimps, broccoli or cauliflower.

Cooking direction:

1. Boil the chicken for about 10-15 minutes or till tender.  Remove the chicken from the broth, let it cool a bit and tear into pieces, discarding the bones.  Set aside the chicken broth.
2. In a hot wok, add cooking oil and sauté onion till translucent.  Add the chicken (and shrimp if you have) and stir fry for about a minute. Drop in all the vegetables except the cabbage.  Add soy sauce, season with some salt & pepper.   Add the chicken broth, bring to a boil, then drop in the cabbage and continue cooking till veggies are half-cooked through and still with crunch.  Remove the vegetables using a slotted spoon and set aside.
3. In the same wok, bring to boil the broth (add more water if necessary). Adjust the flame to low-medium heat.  Drop in the noodles,stir occasionally until all the water is absorbed.  Add hot water if more liquid is needed to cook the noodles.
4. Once the noodles are cooked, bring back in the vegetables and mix with the noodles.
5. Plate and serve with lemon slices.

Chicken Embutido

While planning the media noche menu, it suddenly popped out in my mind an attempt to make an embutido which I am sure will be something new to share to my sous-chef-hayati.

Way back my high school days, I had seen how my aunt made embutido (which she sold out to the neighborhood and friends as her means of income).  I started to recall the ingredients bearing in mind two things: (1) I will not be using pork meat, but will use chicken as a substitute; and (2) baking instead of steaming procedure.  By the way, I always make sure that all ingredients I use for cooking is labelled “halal” so I can share the dish with hayati.

Complete ingredients I used for this dish are:

• 1/2 kg ground chicken
• 1 cup chicken vienna sausage (I actually used only 3 pieces as I got the spicy flavored sausages)
• 1 small size carrot, chopped (I find it easier to just grate the carrot)
• 1 medium size onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced (you may use 2-3 cloves if you don’t have any issue with garlic, I just don’t like my foods to be garlicky)
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 2 tablespoons pickle relish
• 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
• 1 egg, beaten
• salt & pepper to taste
• 8 pieces hard boiled quail egg (I wasn’t able to find quail eggs so I used instead 2 pieces of hard boiled eggs, sliced into quarters)
• 2 tablespoon vegetable cooking oil

Direction:

1. Except for the last three ingredients listed, put all the other ingredients in a big  bowl and season with pepper & salt (taking into consideration the saltiness of the cheese).  Mix till all the ingredients are thoroughly combined.
2. Divide the mixture in 2 portions. Put one portion in the center of an aluminum foil and flatten the mixture.  Arrange 4 egg slices in the bed of the mixture and fold both sides of the mixture up to completely cover the egg slices. 
3. Roll the aluminum foil to form a firm log of about 2.5 inches diameter.  Twist both ends of the foil to seal the whole log.  Do the same step for other portion of the mixture.
4. To be able to save gas, I baked the logs while roasting a chicken at 200 degrees for about 1 hour and 30 minutes.
5. When cooked, let it cool for about 15 - 20 minutes.  Remove the aluminum wrapper.
6. Heat the 2 tablespoons of oil in a non-stick frying pan and sear all sides of the embutido till it turns slightly brown.
7. Slice the log diagonally into desired thickness. Plate and serve with catsup.

Roasted Chicken

My media noche menu was planned only 2 days before the occasion.  Roasted chicken was part of the list which I initially thought of buying a ready cooked one. But then…I felt hayati prefers roasting our own chicken so I took out my apprehension of ending up with an awful dish.

It was not my first roasting experience but my first attempt to roast a whole chicken… I was so delighted with the outcome – a tasty, juicy perfectly roasted chicken! Glad I changed my mind and decided to cook instead of buying a cooked one.

Ingredients:

• 1 kg whole chicken
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, at room temperature
• Salt & ground black pepper
• 1 medium onion, cut into quarters
• 1/2 lemon
• 3 cloves garlic,peeled
• 1 teaspoon thyme (use fresh thyme if available)
• 2 medium size potatoes, cut about 1-1/2 inch cubes.
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Direction:

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
2. Clean the chicken, removing the giblets and excess fat from the cavity. Wash thoroughly and pat dry with paper towels.
3. Sprinkle generous amount of salt & pepper, both outside and in the cavity.
4. Spread the softened butter over the entire surface of the chicken.  Lift the skin to separate it from the breast meat, then rub butter in between. 
5. Put in the garlic cloves and slice of lemon in the cavity.  Make an incision on the skin covering the cavity and tuck in the legs crosswise.  Sprinkle some more salt & pepper.
6. In a roasting pan, arrange the onion and potatoes. Add salt, pepper and olive oil.  Place chicken in the roasting pan, over the bed of onion & potatoes.  Cover with aluminum foil and bake for half an hour.  Uncover and roast further for 1 hour until the skin turns golden brown. The chicken should be done if the juice runs clear when pierced.
7. Let it rest for 10 minutes before cutting.

And there we had a perfect roasted chicken served in our media noche table!!!  Happy New Year!

Kare - kare

I have the impression before that this dish is quite complicated so I never dared to prepare one. Actually it’s the mixture that I find complicated. I asked my friend for the recipe and tried it.  I have to modify though some of the ingredients, mainly the pork was substituted with beef.

Ingredients you’ll need

View Full Album

• 1/2 kg beef tripe (tuwalya), with some laman. You may use also oxtail. 
• Mama Sita’s Kare-kare peanut sauce mix.
• Barrio Fiesta Sautéed shrimp paste (bagoong alamang)
• Vegetables (eggplant cut into quarters, string beans cut into 3” length). You may add banana heart (puso ng saging) and pechay. I did not add more as it will be way too much for me & kuya.
• 3 cloves of Garlic
• 1 onion sliced
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil
• 6 cups water

 

 Step by step cooking

1. Cook the meat for 30 minutes in a pressure cooker just until tender.
2. Dissolve the Mama Sita’s mix in 1 cup of water.
3. Sauté garlic and onion in the oil until cooked and translucent.  Drop the meat into the pot and stir-fry.
4. Add the dissolved mama sita’s mix. Add the remaining broth from the cooker. Stir and simmer until the sauce thickens.
5. Add the vegetables (if you are adding peachay, leave it at the end). Cook for another 3 minutes.
6. Lastly, drop in the pechay and cook for 2 more minutes or until the vegetables are cooked. 
7. Serve while hot with bagoong and rice.

After I finished preparing, I realized it wasn’t at all hard to cook this dish.  Of course, except looking for the achuete ingredient in this country (the reason why I used the Mama Sita’s mix).

You will never go wrong with this dish, I mean it will never be a fail as you don’t even need to season it with salt.  It’s just a matter of mixing the meat, the sauce and the veggies and you’re done! The bagoong will complete the dish!

Salmon with roasted vegetables

Still can't get out of mind the salmon I ate in the weekend at Carino’s. So here I am trying to cook a salmon..my first ever salmon dish with the guide of Hamlyn’s cookbook.

Checked the pantry. Sad..something is missing. It’s the balsamic vinegar. Lazy to go out I decided to replace the balsamic with just lemon juice. We’ll try..maybe it will work?

Ingredients:

• Salmon fillet
• 1 garlic clove (minced)
• 2 tomatoes (quartered, deseeded)
• Cauliflower florets
• Green beans
• Spinach
• 1 Lemon
• 4 tablespoons Extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO)
• 1 tablespoon clear honey
• Salt & Pepper to taste

The procedure:

1. Cut the salmon into two parts. Season deliberately with salt & pepper. Squeeze on top the juice of half lemon. Set aside.
2. Get a small jar.  Combine the EVOO, minced garlic, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, honey, some salt & pepper. Close lid of the jar and shake to combine thoroughly the mixture.
3. Pour the oil mixture into the vegetables (excluding the spinach) and toss to coat well.  Put in a baking sheet..In to a pre-heated 220 degree oven for about 10 minutes.
4. This is not one in the cookbook direction.  Heat a little olive oil in a non-stick pan and sear the salmon on both sides. I wanted a bit brown drama effect on my salmon hence I thought of doing this.
5. Add the salmon on top of the vegetables and cook for another 12-15 minutes.
6. Add the spinach. Put back into the oven, cook just until the spinach wilts.
7. Arrange on a plate, salmon on bed of veggies. Serve with a slice of lemon.

Grilled Citrus Balsamic Salmon – choice of the day

Last Thursday, I met my former colleagues in my first company here in Dubai and had an Iftar with them at Carino’s Italian in Dubai Festival City.  Lots of chit-chats and updates as it has been quite a while (actually like already 2 years) since the last time we gathered. Blame me, I’m not always available (as they said).

I don’t know whether its the location of our table (I think it’s partly hidden) that not any of the waiters approach us and get our orders. Or maybe they are giving attention more to the customers that they believe are fasting (I admit not one in my group fast that day). With hungry tummy, we jokingly said..when a person is hungry, he/she cannot think that well. Would they want another hostage drama from a Filipino?  The waiter serving the other table must have heard of the joke and he called a waiter to assist us. 

So we gave our orders and all of us we wanted to order same meal! It’s the Grilled Citrus Balsamic Salmon!  Looks so delicious that all of us wanted to try its goodness. But at the end we agreed to just order 3 of this dish and we’ll get another on the selection to share. The salmon was so impeccably tasty that I am still eating yet already thinking of replicating this dish minus the pasta of course as I prefer to have it with rice.

Ended the meal with a dessert - chocolate cake with ice-cream on top. Yum yum! But after couple of bites, we felt we needed something to balance the sweet taste so we ordered for an American coffee.  Happy tummy!

Ramadan 2010: Iftar meals

Ramadan, the holiest month in the Islamic calendar, the month of fasting.  Whenever we are both free, me & Hayati meet for the fast-breaking meal called Iftar.  He used to buy food from a restaurant before, comes in my place and there will eat together. But now it changed as we prefer to cook at home and enjoy the fruit of our labor.

Yesterday, we had another cooking session (Ramadan Special). I decided to fast as well so I will feel what hayati feels whenever he’s breaking his fast. Thought was easy but the smell of the food in the kitchen was so tempting. Wanted to get a piece and have a taste of what we are cooking but I have to stop myself. My body was shaking because of hunger yet I patiently waited for the Maghrib prayer time signaling the end of our fast. We cooked for nearly 4 hours without tasting the food…ingredients are all by approximation. Below are some of the dishes we made.

DESSERTS – All bought pre-mixed (RTC- ready to cook) and just cooked as per instruction in the package.

The caramel cream turns out a success.The jelly while settling seems okay...but we had difficulty unmolding it. So I suggested to hayati to dip the molder in a hot water. We counted 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10! And the jelly easily slipped out of the molder. But it turned out a bit watery :(  We have dipped it for quite long in the hot water..we learned that maybe 3 counts should have been enough.

THE DUMPLINGS/ PIKA PIKA FOODS  – as starters. Again mostly pre-mixed and RTC.  This is the most we can do I guess as newbies in cooking.The dumpling was prepared as package direction.  Hayati patiently mixed it with a carefully measured amount of water (don’t want to go wrong with this)until he arrived with a smooth mixture, then covered it with moist damp cloth for about 45 minutes for it to rise.We formed a small ball from the batter and fried in hot oil. Drizzled with a bit of honey and ready to be eaten.  I am in doubt though..should this be classified dessert or starter? We also fried other vegetable fritters: samosa, pakora (potato dipped into a batter then fried) and mashed potato with some parsley formed into small balls (the round ones in the below picture). Of all the fritters, my favorite one was the potato dumplings.

 THE MAIN DISHES

He is craving for something sour..hayati experimented on this dish. He sautéed onion in about tablespoon oil, added the drained chickpeas, then about 1/2 teaspoon of the mixed masala & pinch of salt. Cooked for about 5 minutes under low fire. Then he dissolved tamarind in a small amount of water and mixed in the dish. He liked the outcome of his experiment and finished everything in the bowl.Lastly, the dish that up to now I could not believe he prepared…

Hayati doesn’t like the smell of fish. In our years of relationship, I never saw him eating fish dish except when I forced him to have a little bite on my fish sandwich. He claims that in his entire life, that was his first taste of fish food.

Surprisingly, he asked me to buy hamour fillets when I went in the supermarket. When he said he’s going to cook it, I was so hesitant as never he had experience in cooking fish and thinking he might just ruin the fillet and will end up in the garbage bin. I kept on reminding him that this is an expensive fish and he kept on answering me with “no worries, it will be a good dish”. So I entrusted to him the fillets..but of course I did the slicing and slitting.

Nothing so fancy he did on the fish..just seasoned with salt, pepper and squeezed juice of a half lemon in the fillets. Then in a non-stick pan, he heated around 3 tablespoons of cooking oil, fried both sides of the fish till browned. Then transferred into a baking tray and put in a pre-heated oven (temperature set at 150 degrees) to continue cooking  for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, in the same pan used for frying the fish, he sautéed 1 chopped onion, 1 chopped tomato, added tomato paste, then dropped 1 can of drained mixed vegetables. Seasoned with 1/4 teaspoon masala, dash of salt & pepper and cooked for about 5 minutes in medium heat.

Served with love the hamour in a bed of basmati rice with vegetables. Plus a bonus of one boiled egg :)Hayati’s first fish dish was not that bad..in fact, I can say it was perfectly done and the fish was so tasty (maybe the reason why hamour is so expensive).  For that I am giving him a rate of 9/10!  Also, just the effort of cooking this dish thinking he dislike the smell is already a ++ points for him…and that’s why ahabek hayati.