Unfortunately, living away from home forces you to DIY — from chores to errands to baby-sitting to food! Thanks to Manang, I discovered how to make my own. I didn’t actually make Taho from scratch. It’s more like a discovery of its whereabouts.

As for the sweet sugar-y syrup, my mom surprisingly knows how to make arnibal. She caramelised brown sugar in a pot then poured 1 cup of water until the sugar is dissolved.

As for the chunky, chewy sago, all you need to do is boil the tapioca pearls for 5 minutes or until they float to the surface and become crystal-like in appearance. Drain in cold running water.

and presto!

Happy cooking!

Post from: Blisstree

Taho, a streetfood fave

Here’s a tasty, homemade twist to the canned kind. My picky 1-year old liked it and so will you!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup glutinous rice
1 cup sugar
2 cups water
1 can whole kernel corn or 2 cobs of fresh corn, scraped
2 cans coconut milk

Directions:

1. Combine glutinous rice, water and sugar in a deep sauce pan and keep to a boil.
2. After 5 minutes of boiling, add the coconut milk and corn stir well. If rice is tender and soup becomes thick, put off stove. Add a little water if it becomes too thick. Serve hot.

Ahh.. nothing beats a taste of home. Definitely brought back memories of my childhood days, aww.. =) My sincerest thanks go out to my Mom for this lip-smacking recipe! Keep those delicious food ideas coming!

Happy cooking!

Post from: Blisstree

Ginataang Mais (Coconut Cream Style Corn)

Ingredients:

1 cup sweet rice flour (Mochiko is a popular brand)
3 cups water
3 cups grated fresh coconut
2 cups toasted sesame seeds
2 cups sugar

Directions:

1. In a mixing bowl, combine the sweet rice flour and water to make a smooth dough. With floured hands, shape the dough into small patties, 3 inches in diameter and 1/2 inch thick.
2. Bring water in a saucepan to a boil and drop in the patties. When they float to the top, scoop them out and coat with grated coconut. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and sugar and serve immediately.

I didn’t know anything about Mochiko until I chanced upon Feather’s blog. The fried chicken in the photo looks so tempting, I couldn’t wait to try out the recipe. So, I headed for the Asian grocery but got hold of a different brand. I’m not sure if it tastes the same or better than the Mochiko brand. One thing’s for sure though — your purchase of sweet rice flour won’t go to waste with these two lip-smacking recipes!

Happy cooking!

Source: The Food of the Philippines
by Periplus World Cookbooks

Post from: Blisstree

Signature Saturdays: Palitaw (Rice Patties with Sesame and Coconut)

As per my last entry, today is Feedback Friday. Now is your chance to have your say! Whether it relates to the posts I have so far shared with you, or perhaps recipes you’d like to see more of, or maybe improvements you can recommend to make your visit to this site a more pleasurable one.

If you want to keep it confidential, feel free to drop me an email.

Post from: Blisstree

What say you?

Ingredients:

1 cup sago
3 cups water
1 cup lightly packed soft brown sugar
1 cup water, extra

Procedure:

1. Soak the sago in the water for 1 hour. Pour into a pan, add 2 tablespoons of the sugar and bring to the boil over low heat, stirring constantly. Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 8 minutes. Cover and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until the mixture becomes thick and the sago grains are translucent.

2. Half-fill 6 wet 1/2 cup moulds with the sago mixture. (I used a muffin tin as the mould.) Refrigerate for 2 hours, or until set.

3. Combine the remaining sugar with the extra water in a small pan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar dissolves. Simmer for 5 to 7 minutes, until the syrup thickens. Remove from the heat and cool. To serve, unmould the sago and top with a little of the sugar syrup.

A simple, easy-to-prepare treat to beat the Christmas summer heat!

Happy cooking!

Post from: Blisstree

Let’s go, Sago!

What’s your version of the fruitcake in your part of the world?

Post from: Blisstree

My holiday fruitcake

There seems to be a thing about Nama food in Japan.  From what I can work out Nama is either fresh or alive and so it is natural that every food producer wants to get on the bandwagon promoting their product as Nama.  Although I draw the line at Nama Caramel icecream that is so blatantly not fresh or alive that it makes it all a joke.  Although it tastes good and is definitely worth eating I feel like boycotting the product simply because of the misleading advertising (not that I really believed it in the first place).

Post from: Blisstree

Fresh Caramel Icecream

Another classic product of the Sapporo beer factory in Hokkaido is their beer ice cream.  It looks white and ordinary like vanilla but as soon as you get it near your nose you can smell the beer.  The taste is not overpowering and actually surprisingly pleasant.  Nothing like a beer spider and if you’ve ever tried one of those you will be glad to hear it.

Post from: Blisstree

Sapporo icecream

In the front of the picture is a ginger ale ice cream.  A bar of vanilla ice cream surrounded by frozen ginger ale.  In the back of the photo is my kanji study.  One is easy to forget, the other is unforgettable.  I’ll let you guess which is which.

Post from: Blisstree

Ginger ale iceblock

It looks surprisingly docile when you open the packet but there is nothing like a sickly sweet blast of strawberry ice cream to make you realise that this is some seriously sweet food.  It is just 2 sweet pancakes (pikelets, hotcakes depending where you are from) sandwiched around strawberry ice cream.  I am not sure what I was expecting but it wasn’t this.

Post from: Blisstree

Ichigo ice cream pancake