a TwEAT up

We call her Ninang. That means "godmother" in Tagalog. She's the godmother of our group, which we call Berks (a term short for "barkada," the Tagalog word for "group of friends"). Our Berks is spread across the globe, a friendship forged online, so we've been keeping in touch mainly through Twitter. But for those of us who live in So Cal (Caroline and Remil), we've started tweat-ups -- meet ups with our twitter buddies -- regularly. So while I was in the Bay Area last week, I knew it was the right moment to have a tweat-up with Ninang. 

"Let's meet at the Ferry Building, Malou! You'll love it there," she suggested.  Although it wasn't my first time to visit San Francisco, a city that I find so endearing that I could see myself living there, it was my first time to go to the Ferry Building. Ninang's choice was perfect for food bloggers, since the Ferry Building is like a mecca with all of its shops and markets.  

I was standing by the pier when Annapet came from behind me and she surprised me with an excited "boo!".

Reeling in from the surprise, I asked her how she knew what I looked like, since this was our first time to meet in person. She laughed and reminded me that I had tweeted a picture of me waiting by the Transbay bus that brought me to San Francisco. Since my daughter lived across the bay, she was worried about me and the bus trip over to the city. So she took my picture with my outfit that I tweeted "just in case". I looked (and felt!) like a little school girl headed for a field trip as I stepped unto the school bus, while my daughter and her boyfriend looked from the sidewalk, waving goodbye to this bus. Talk about role reversals; my daughter was being so protective.

Annapet's greeting had set the mood. This was not your usual meet-up, as first time friends should meet. I felt like we were long-time friends coming in for a reunion instead of twitter friends meeting up in person for the first time. Stories flowed so naturally and we laughed so much. She also handed me this box...

When someone hands you a box wrapped so nicely like this, what would you expect?

Chocolate truffles, maybe? Or perhaps, since she is known as the Queen of Macaroons, a box of those cute, delicious little French pastries? But boy, was I wrong! Instead, she gave me this:

Look closely. That's home-cured pancetta! And it's mangalitsa pancetta at that. How could I have missed it? When you visit my friend's blog, The Daily Palette, you will have all the clues that hint at what she loves. She loves gardening and cooking; she loves mangalitsa pork and who is into charcutepalooza.  It may sound like I'm talking Greek, but drop by The Daily Palette and you will understand what I mean.

This is the Ferry Market Building -- the site of our rendezvous.

It was a gastronomical delight, with diverse choices.

There were artisans and crafters selling their work of art... There were mushrooms and fresh cheeses.

Farm to table products...

Gourmet food galore...

When you step outside, the city bustles with buildings and cabs. The landscape is so different from the inside, which looked more like a Farmer's Market.

And it was so magical to see the Golden Bridge right outside.  I was enthralled. It fed my soul like no other. It made me remember how I felt the first time I set foot in this city more than 20 years ago. My heart felt like singing Frank Sinatra's rendition of "I Left my Heart in San Francisco" as if it was the first time I visited this wonderful city. At that moment, I realized that I wanted to live in San Francisco again. But for now, I am comforted by the thought that I have a new friend in Annapet who lives there.


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Since Annapet is an active member of Kulinarya Cooking Club  and Chartucepalooza, I made this post to hit two birds with one stone. This month's theme for Kulinarya is Flores de Mayo (flowers of May), and to incorporate her chartucepalooza project of pancetta, I made a plate of Palabok Pancetta.

Palabok is a noodle dish with shrimp sauce whch has layers of garnishings.  Traditionally, one may use gound pork or beef, but I replaced that with pancetta instead. I hope you enjoy this dish that's inspired by a new friendship and a new taste!

Palabok Pancetta


Ingredients
Slices of Pancetta
Prawns or Shrimps
shrimp broth (boil shrimp heads, crush the head or use an Osterizer, then drain)
1 tsp annatto powder
2 gloves garlic, minced
1 medium onions chopped
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp cornstarch disperesed in water
1 package of rice stick noodles


For toppings
Tofu
green onions
toasted garlic
boiled eggs


Procedure:


For the sauce:
Fry pancetta slices.  Drain and set aside.  Reserve the rendered fat from the pancetta.
On the same pan, sear prawns on both sides. Set aside,
Pour rendered fat on the pan.  Saute garlic and onions with oyster sauce.  Add shrimp broth.  Let it simmer.  Season with  fish sauce.  Add cornstarch mixture to thicken the sauce.  Crack a fresh egg and give it a quick stir.


For the noodles.  
Boil water in a stockpot,  Add noodles and let it stand for 5 minutes.  Drain.  Add 1 tbsp of rendered fat and toasted garlic.  Toss  and set aside.


To assemble:
Put noodles on a plate.  Ladle up a scoop of the shrimp sauce.  Garnish with shrimp, boiled eggs, green onions, pancetta and tofu. 

The saltiness of the pancetta together with the shrimp sauce,  the prawns and eggs will create a wonderful chorus in your mouth...hmmmm...  YUM!


P.S.
Thank you Sefie of Sefie Eats and Connie of Home Cooking Rocks  for the Flores de Mayo theme for this month's Kulinarya Cooking Club theme.

Click here to check out the rest of the KCC members

Bravo Taco Adobo Para Cinco de Mayo

The sun's rays seem brighter than usual, as I get a first taste of summer.  I actually stepped out of the house in flip flops. Yep,  it's sandals and flip flop season again. as we say hello and welcome to the merry month of May.

Another celebration that's in the air is Cinco de Mayo.  In Los Angeles, where the largest street fair is held to celebrate Mexico's victory over France in 1862, people will still celebrate the festival in their own special way.  

Here at mi casa, we have my own version of a Mexican favorite.  I have combined the taco with our ubiquitous Filipino adobo.  Here in the spirit of Cinco de Mayo, I'd like to share with you ... Bravo Taco Adobo.

Bravo Taco Adobo

I knew I was going to make my Bravo Taco Adobo for an easy to prepare lunch for the weekend, so I went ahead and cooked a big batch of pork adobo ahead of time.  So let's begin:

The basic ingredients of adobo:

2-3 lbs. pork (cubed)

3/4 c vinegar

1/2 c soy sauce

pepper

4 cloves of garlic (minced)

3 bay leaves (crushed)

In a saucepan, combine all the wet ingredients and crushed garlic together. Let it simmer. Add black pepper and crushed bay leaves. Allow the ingredients to fuse together for a few more minutes, then you are ready to add the  cubes of pork. Cook for about 30 minutes or until the sauce is totally reduced. You could stop here for the adobo dish. But for this particular taco, I wanted the meat to be rendered.  When you hear the pan sizzle due to the grease rendered from the pork, put your fire on low. Let it sizzle a little more until it is brown and stir again to cook all sides.

For garnishing

Plantain: Slice plantain and fry each side.  Let it brown on the surface.  If you want it crunchy, fry further but I wanted mine to be crunchy on the outside but still soft on the inside.

Crumbled Boursin Cheese

Green Onion leeks

Toasted Garlic 

To Assemble:

Heat the tortillas on an open fire on the stove.  Make sure to use tongs.  

On a flat surface, lay the hot tortilla.  Add the cubed adobo.  Layer it with fried plantain, cheese, green onions and top it with scrambled egg.  

Optional: You may want to add white rice and tomatoes. My son loved it when he did.

riding the charcutepalooza wagon

When my friend  Annapet of The Daily Palette suggested that I should join Charcutepalooza,  I agreed instantly, even if I didn't know what the challenges lie ahead nor how to pronounce the word CHARCUTEPALOOZA... char what?

So I tiptoed to the the sites of the creators Mrs. Wheelborrow's Kitchen and The Yummy Mummy to figure it out. These two wonderful ladies are bringing back the old-fashioned way of curing, salting and smoking meats. Something that I've never done before, and quite frankly, I was intrigued... so here I am stepping up, joining the challenge they have set up.  To know more about the fun challenges, you could click here.

The March challenge is brining,  There are different options to choose from, so I opted to make corned beef. Oh yes corned beef... that red looking beef brisket that is usually in a sealed bag at the grocery store or the ones that you buy from a deli  or for us Filipinos, the one that is canned! While making corned beef,  I never thought it would be that easy.  Who would have thought?  The most difficult part really is the waiting game (as you brine the beef brisket for 5-7 days).

How fortuitous that the challenge this month is corned beef?  What with St. Patty's Day just around the corner.  Or maybe that's what the hosts had in mind for this challenge.

I first did my version of an Irish jig more than ten years ago when we migrated here in the US.  I don't particularly remember any similar kind of celebration in my home country.  All I can remember is that my first year here in the U.S., I dressed my kids in green outfits and shamrock necklaces.  I did such a good job dressing them up that it convinced my second daughter she was part Irish.  And for dinner, I remember quite vividly how my father-in-law introduced me into eating corned beef.  He had a big slab of red beef sliced thinly on a big white platter boiled to perfection with brussel sprouts and potatoes.  It was my first corned beef meal beyond the canned corned beef that I was accustomed to back home.

"Eat this with horseradish" said my father-in-law  Oh boy did I love it.  From that time on, everytime I cook corned beef, I would perfectly do it exactly as how he served it to us more than a decade ago. Corned beef with brussel sprouts, potatoes and horseradish on the side.

But for today's challenge, I wanted to stamp a Filipino badge on my dish, a unique take on a common Filipino food.  Instinctively, I imagined corned beef as a breakfast staple.  We usually have it for breakfast, either with our pandesal (literally means salt bread) or with sinangag (fried rice) but I'm going on a new adventure - so I'm taking this Irish staple to a trip to the Far East.

Inspired by what I had in my pantry I made Corned Beef Sinigang  (Corned Beef in Tamarind broth)

Sinigang is a sour  soup.  Traditionally, pork and shrimp are the main ingredients for the soup.  Tamarind or guava are usually the souring agents.  I never get tired cooking Sinigang as it is comfort food for my family, as I usually cook this when my girls come home from their school break... and after each sip of the soup, I could almost hear them say "I'm home!"

Now the vegetables that you see here are okra, radish and eggplant.  You could also add long beans.  I sliced my corned beef as cubes to follow the template of pork sinigang, complete with a thin-layer of fat ala "liempo".

  

Believe me, the Irish meat blended so well with the unfamiliar ingredients surrounding it. So let me share with you my recipe for Corned Beef in Tamarind Broth.

Ingredients:
3 lbs. Corned beef (sliced in cubes)
2 pcs. radish (thinly sliced)
2 pcs. eggplant (thinly sliced)
1 pack okra
3 medium tomatoes
2 pcs. onions (quartered)
1 pack tamarind soup base
fish sauce (optional)

Other vegetables that you could add on include: taro, bokchoy and chili to give this dish a kick.

In a pot, boil rice water (water used for washing rice) onions and tomatoes.  Add the corned beef.  Cook until tender.  Add the vegetables and the souring agent.  You may want to add a small amount of the souring agent first then see from there.  Season with fish sauce or, if unavailable, with salt.

cravings

Oftentimes, food cravings can be a great source of inspiration for a new dish. 

Today, I had an intense craving for daing na bangus (marinated milkfish) with tomatoes on the side.  I knew that I had milkfish in the freezer.  I patiently waited for it to thaw then prepared it the traditional way: marinating it with vinegar, fish sauce, garlic and pepper, then hurriedly fried it.  

I was ready to enjoy the freshly fried fish with a heaping bowl of fried rice when I realized that I didn't have tomatoes.  "How could I not have tomatoes?" I quizzed myself.  My disappointment caused me, albeit temporary, to suffer severe mental anguish, hahaha.  I stood there staring at my fridge, trying to find my tomatoes (I was in denial, haha!).  A bottle of sun-dried tomatoes glistened on the side of the fridge as if saying "get me" instead.  It was like ideas flew out of the bottle...  a gift of improvisation I guess??? ... I decided to make sun-dried tomato sauce instead.

The dish was a winner. It totally made me forget about my initial craving for fresh red tomatoes.  Indeed, I had quite a delightful meal.

Daing na Bangus with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

Milkfish (deboned, butterfly cut)
Marinade
1/4 c Vinegar
1 tbsp Fish Sauce
Pepper
2 cloves Garlic (minced)

Mix vinegar and fish sauce together with garllic and pepper.  Marinate the milkfish.  Drain and fry it on a large skillet for about 5 minutes or until golden brown.

Sun Dried Tomato Sauce

2 tbsp sun dried tomatoes
1 tbsp green olives
2 gloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp monterey seasoning  (or you could use seafood seasoning)

Procedure:
On another skillet, add olive oil.  Saute the garlic.  Add sun dried tomatoes and green olives.  Season it with Monterey seasoning.  Pour it over the fried bangus.  Enjoy!

an ode to a birthday

I thought long and hard about Kulinarya's cooking challenge this month.  Instead of a typical theme, the hosts (thanks Jen, Maribel and Tressa) had posed a fun question:  What Filipino dish would you cook for your birthday?  I must admit, I don't do anything for my birthday.  It is the one day in the year that I get a free pass... as in no cooking, no chores, no work, as I get the "queen of the day" title. We all need a break and there is no better day to celebrate - when the clock strikes 12 you are the queen, or king, for the next 24 hours.

My birthday comes right after my hometown's fiesta in August.  My dear Mama would reserve food for my party... in fact she would reserve most of the food for my birthday, haha!  As a little girl, I have fond memories of inviting  the whole class and my teachers to my party.  Lechon always topped the list, if I was lucky it was a whole roasted pig.  But if not, I was content with the leftover lechon, I remember vividly how my Mama instructs our cook to freeze the rest for "Malou's birthday" to make Lechon Paksiw.  This is leftover lechon stewed in a sweet and sour sauce of vinegar and liver sauce to be served on my birthday.

Since at this time I cannot roast a whole pig, I decided to prepare a dish based on Lechon Paksiw.  But somehow "paksiw na lechon" may not look appealing, so I took it as a fun challenge.  I had much needed help with this challenge.  So together with my best friend Teyene, our culinary experiment began.  To be quite honest, this has been so far the most challenging, but yet most fun Kulinarya challenge. I got to spend time with my friend, whom I love dearly.  And was all smiles even as I splattered oil over the oven top and her fire alarm kept on shrieking due to the smoke created by the splattered oil - much to the chagrin of her husband who was taking a nap at the time.  It was good times indeed, good times.

Deconstruction of Lechon Paksiw, aka Pork Belly, with a tamarind glaze and laced with liver sauce

I got the inspiration to make this dish from Bouchon, Thomas Keller's French bistro in L.A.  My family recently dined there and one of the dishes we ordered was pork belly with cherry marmalade, which quite frankly was comparable to our lechon kawali.  So I am adding my flare to the dish, adding a Filipino touch best described as a deconstructed Paksiw na Lechon.

Please see my Crispy Pork Belly  recipe. 

For the tamarind glaze:

4 pcs sweet tamarind pulp with seeds

1 cup water

1 tbsp sugar

salt to taste

Boil the water together with the tamarind.    When the tamarind is soft and pastey remove the seeds.  Add sugar and salt.  Reduce the sauce until thick.

Liver Pate gravy:

1/2 cup liver pate

3 cloves garlic,  minced

2 tbsp  honey

3 tbsp apple cider

1/2 cup broth

1 tbsp olive oil

In a saucepan brown the garlic with olive oil.  Add the rest of the ingredients.  Let it simmer until it beomes thick and gravy like, adding more broth if needed.

Lace the pork with gravy and pour the tamaraind glaze on the pork.  Top the pork belly with avocado slices. 

The flavors maybe varied but it will blend together.  The avocado is not included in the traditional Paksiw na lechon.  I added it as it brought an interesting texture and gives a surpising twist to the crunchy pork belly.

Enjoy!

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This is my contribution to the Kulinarya Cooking Club . Check out other members on our website Kulinarya Cooking Club

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