To my fellow overseas Pinoys, here’s a treat to keep the homesickness at bay. For the others, a breakfast/lunch/dinner suggestion, if you may.

While the marinade does its job,

why don’t you fry up some leftover rice and sunny-side up egg to complete your ToSiLog (Tocino-Sinangag-Itlog) ensemble!

Happy cooking!

Post from: Blisstree

Meat-lovin’ Mondays: DIY Tocino

Ingredients:

1 large fish
1 large onion
2 large green and red sweet pepper, cut into strips
5 tbsps soy sauce
5 tbsps vinegar
4 tbsps brown sugar
2 tbsps cornstarch
vetsin to taste
pinch of black pepper, pounded

Directions:

1. Clean and fry fish and set aside. Fry garlic, onions, and sweet pepper.
2. Make a medium thick gravy from the mixture of water, vinegar, soy sauce, and cornstarch. Add the fried garlic, onions and sweet pepper, and boil for 3 minutes. Season with vetsin.
3. Place the fish on a platter, pour the gravy over it and garnish with onions and parsley. Serve hot.

Good for 6 to 8 persons.

Happy cooking!

Source: Philippine Fiesta Recipes
by Leonarda R Belmonte and Perla B Del Mundo

Post from: Blisstree

Seafood Sundays: Fish Escabeche Macao

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:

1/2 kg large shrimps, shelled and deveined
1/2 kg fresh mushrooms, sliced
4 tbsps lard
3 tbsps cornstarch
1/2 tsp powdered ginger
2 tsps soy sauce
salt

Directions:

1. Sprinkle cornstarch, soy sauce and powdered ginger over shrimps. Mix very well.
2. In a skillet, heat lard and stir-fry vegetables. Set aside.
3. Heat remaining oil in skillet and stir-fry shrimps in it for about 3 minutes. Add cooked vegetables to shrimps and combine very well. Add seasoning. Serve hot.

Happy cooking!

Source: Philippine Fiesta Recipes
by Leonarda R Belmonte & Perla B Del Mundo

Post from: Blisstree

Seafood Sundays: Fried Shrimps with Mushrooms

Ingredients:

250g beef sirloin, cut in 6 slices
1 tbsp kalamansi or lemon juice
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp ground black pepper
3 tbsps oil
1 onion, sliced into rings

Directions:

1. Marinate the beef in kalamansi or lemon juice, soy sauce and pepper.
2. Heat the oil and pan-fry the beef until medium-rare. Transfer to a plate. In the remaining oil, saute the onion until tender. Garnish the beef with the onion rings.

If you want perfectly cut and thinly sliced beef, ask for beef schnitzel from your butcher or get them pre-packed at the supermarket. Click here for more cooking tips.

Happy cooking!

Source: The Food of the Philippines
by Periplus World Cookbooks

Post from: Blisstree

Bistek Tagalog recipe

Welcome to Trouble-free Thursdays!

Pardon my loyalty, but this dish is always a number-one choice of mine when it comes to quick and easy cooking. The recipe below is the version I learned from my mom. Another version I featured before in this blog was Travis’. Have a laugh and watch his cooking demo!

Ingredients:

500g chicken portions/nibbles (and/or 500g pork slices, cubes)
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tsp black peppercorns
1/2 cup vinegar
2 bay/laurel leaves
1/4 cup soy sauce

Procedure:

1. Boil chicken portions in garlic, peppercorns, vinegar and bay leaves.
2. Once the chicken is tender, remove the broth and set aside. Add the soy sauce to the chicken and stir well. Once the chicken portions are well-coated in soy sauce, add in the broth. Simmer for 5 minutes. Serve with steamed rice.

Happy cooking!

Post from: Blisstree

Chicken Adobo recipe

Way back then, I remember my cousins and I were very eager for the mass to end and be the first ones to walk back to my aunt’s house from the church. As soon as we get there, we would immediately head for the kitchen to check out the food. Before you know it, our relatives have already formed a queue to the buffet table, where there’s lechon, pancit, barbecue, lumpiang shanghai and leche flan. My mom’s specialty that she always cooks for Noche Buena is her bestseller, Mechado.

I know I could easily afford to cook whatever they’re having back in the Philippines at this time of year to keep the homesickness at bay. But nothing beats being there, not only for the food, but for friends and relatives I’ve sorely missed.

Image note: Pictured above is our buffet last Christmas.

Post from: Blisstree

What’s for Noche Buena?

Asia’s first recognized guide to the best restaurants, The Miele Guide, placed Antonio’s Fine Dining 10th (among 20) in their list. The chef and owner, Antonio Escalante, must be very proud to be the only Philippine restaurant to top the list. I know of a lovely married couple, close to my husband and I, who got engaged there. The cuisine and the ambience must really be that good!! I must remind my hubby to take me to Tagaytay for a romantic dinner if we ever make plans to come home for a well-deserved vacation.

Image credit: Our Awesome Planet’s Flickr photostream

Post from: Blisstree

The Philippines’ best

This recipe is for Ruth, who requested Filipino buchi. Ruth, there are variations to this; what I’m giving you right now is the simplest one with the shortest ingredient list.

To make 12 sesame balls, you need:

1 1/2 cups sweet rice flour (a.k.a. glutinous rice flour or Mochiko)
more or less 3/4 cup water, plus more for moistening your hands
1/4 cup sweet red bean paste (homemade or store bought)
about 1/2 cup sesame seeds, for coating the balls
peanut or other high-heat oil for deep-frying

Put the sesame seeds in a platter or bowl. Form 1-level-teaspoonfuls of the bean paste into balls. Set aside on a plate.
Combine rice flour and water (a bit at a time) in a bowl, stirring with a wooden spoon until homogeneous. The dough will not come together like bread dough, but will be rather crumbly. If you can take a small amount in your hand, squeeze it and it stays together, then you know you’ve got enough water in there.

Take a heaping tablespoonful of the dough and form it into a ball in your palm, about an inch in diameter. Make an indentation in the middle with a round implement or your thumb — I used the handle of a baby spoon — large enough to accommodate the bean paste ball. Drop the ball in and enclose in the dough, pressing gently to make sure none of the bean paste peeks through. At this point you may find it helpful to moisten your hands while you continue to form the dough into a ball shape. Make sure you seal all fissures or cracks that appear in the dough. You will have a ball about 1 3/4 inch in diameter.

Moisten the balls, if they appear to be dry, with some water, then dip into the sesame seeds and coat well. Preheat the oil in a deep-fryer or wok to 350°F.

Deep-fry the balls, 2-3 at a time, carefully dropping them into the hot oil so they keep their shape. If necessary, shape them with two wooden spoons. It is essential to do this in the beginning stages of cooking before the dough hardens and crisps. Cook the balls until the dough is cooked through, ball has puffed a bit, and sesame seeds are golden, about 3 minutes total. Remove with a slotted spoon or Chinese skimmer/strainer. Drain on paper towels and serve warm.

Try it and let me know if you like it!

There are many variations to jin dui. You can add mashed sweet potatoes or taro to the dough, about 1/2 cup mashed taro or sweet potato for every cup of rice flour you’re using — add water judiciously. This will give you a nicely-textured dough that’s a bit easier to work with. If you want the dough to be crispier, replace 1 tablespoon of the water with vinegar. If you want a puffier buchi, use cooked sugar syrup (made with equal parts sugar and water) instead of just water. Or, if you want, use half-coconut milk-half water to make the dough. If you are feeling particularly industrious, make the dough from scratch using glutinous rice soaked overnight, then grind in a food processor. If you have a grinder, you may also want to try grinding sweet brown rice into flour and use that instead of storebought rice flour.

Other fillings can be used instead of the customary bean paste, such as chopped up peanuts. You can add chopped “baby coconut” — Philippine buco — to the bean paste filling, or even macapuno, or those things by themselves, minus the bean paste. (Buco is available in Asian stores in the frozen section, and macapuno is available preserved in syrup in jars, also in the Philippine section.) You can also use char siew. Or try the the filling used for Filipino Brazo de Mercedes! The biggest and yummiest sesame balls I ever ate were on a Japanese ship — they were 3 inches in diameter, and filled with a ground pork mixture.

Here are more Jin Dui/Buchi recipes for you to try:

Lily Ng’s Jin Dui
Jas’s Jin Dui
Kai’s Baked Buchi

Post from: Blisstree

Reader Request: Buchi / Jin Dui / Jien Duy / Lek Doi /Bean-Filled Sesame Balls

April 30, Berkeley, CA: Berkeley International Food Festival
May 5, Cheung Chau, HongKong: Cheung Chau Bun Festival
May 5-9, Boseong, Korea: Boseong Green Tea Festival
May 6-7, Nacogdoches, Texas: Multicultural Festival
May 10-13, Shanghai, China: China Wine and Liquor Expo
May 12-14, Pasay City, Philippines: IFEX Philippines
May 12-14, Guangzhou, China: Interbake China
May 12-14, Guangzhou, China: Ice Cream China
May 12-14, Guangzhou, China: Coffee Festival
May 13, Des Moines, Iowa: CelebrAsian
May 14-15, New York City: Ninth Avenue International Food Festival
May 17-19, Shanghai, China: Bakery China
May 18-21, Hadong, Korea: Hadong Wild Tea Cultural Festival
May 18-22, Bangkok, Thailand: ThaiFex
May 20-21, Mississauga: “MOSAIC” Mississauga’s First South Asian Heritage Festival
May 23, 24, 25, HongKong: VinExpo

Post from: Blisstree

Asian Food Festivals and Exhibits Coming Up