I am the only one in the family who loves dishes cooked in coconut milk. It isn’t often that I cook this but I like variety in our weekly set of dishes. I’ve shared Chicken Adobo with Coconut Cream that I often ate as a little girl in my hometown Cebu. I thought it was a Cebuano dish. What I didn’t know was that the Tagalog Chicken and Pork Adobo is made of coconut cream too. Perhaps, it was my dad born in Sariaya, Quezon who prodded my mom to cook this dish.

Let me share another simple recipe.

Ingredients
1 kilo chicken cut into serving pieces
1 kilo pork liempo, cut into cubes
2 cups water
1/2 cup vinegar
1 head garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups thick coconut cream (How to make coconut cream)
salt and black pepper to taste
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Posted: September 4th, 2010 under Coconut Milk, Recipes, chicken.
Comments: 2

I never tasted Laing Pasta until I had it at Goldilocks. I thought it was such a novel idea, similar to the pesto pasta that we often prepare at home. It is our own version of pinoy pasta. When I tasted it though, it wasn’t that delicious as I imagined it to be. I think the laing was too dry, lacked some meat and “keso”. I imagined eating laing with “kesong puti”. So here is what I prepared at home and made my own pasta laing a bit moist and added “kesong puti”

You will need:

1. Laing- To prepare laing, read my laing recipe and skip steps 4 and 5. Reduce the laing until you have the right consistency for the pasta. I am sure you have an idea on the consistency of your pasta mix.

2. Boiled Pasta noodles.

3. As a twist, use shredded “kesong puti” or cottage cheese instead of the usual cheddar cheese or parmesan cheese.

4. When serving the Laing pasta, serve the laing and pasta separately so one can choose to decide the amount of the laing or pasta.

Posted: September 2nd, 2010 under Coconut Milk, Pasta, Recipes.
Comments: 2

Hainanese Chicken Rice is one of the primary specialties of Singapore and is often considered the country’s national dish. Filipinos love it for its flavorful, uncomplicated taste. Every time I am in Singapore, I always order Hainanese Chicken Rice. Mixing the chicken meat with the dip with the rice was just so heavenly. It must be the ginger and garlic flavors that brings out the flavors.

A Singaporean describes it this way: Part of the whole ritual in eating this dish is smothering your cream-coloured chicken fat laced rice with ribbons of sweet dark soy sauce, chilli sauce and pounded ginger and to mix it all together, matching flavour for flavour.

Let me share this simple recipe which I am sure you will enjoy cooking.
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Posted: August 27th, 2010 under Asian Cuisine, chicken.
Comments: 1

I never knew how to make ginataan until I became a mother. I recall eating ginataan as a child but never took the time to cook it as I was growing up. Even when I took up Principles in Food Preparation in UP Diliman under the late Matilde P. Guzman and learned the technique of Extracting Coconut Cream and Coconut Milk, I still didn’t take time to cook a batch of this yummy filipino merienda fare. Anyway, by the time I became a mother, I decided to cook it for my kids. Here is my recipe.

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Posted: August 18th, 2010 under Coconut Milk, Filipino Delicacies, Noche Buena, Pork, Recipes.
Comments: none

My husband is fond of buying me recipe books or any books about food. One such book is The Adobo Book (Traditional & Jazzed Up Recipes) by Reynaldo Gamboa Alejandro and Nancy Reyes-Lumen. Not only do you get recipes of various authors but trivia and essays on adobo. The Personal Styles reflect the cook’s preferences. You should read the more than 100 adobo recipe variations ranging from Pork Adobo in Buco Juice, Adobong Tsino, Microwave Adobo, Fresh Oysters Adobo, Adobo sa beer and so much more.

What I’d like to show from the “Adobo Book” are tips for cooking adobo which is entitled the “10+ Commandments in Cooking Adobo”. I am sure you will learn a tip or two even if you have been cooking adobo for years.

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Posted: August 7th, 2010 under **Tips, Supplies & Preparation, Pork, Recipes, chicken.
Comments: 16

I am not an expert when it comes to making kakanin. I rely a lot of my knowledge from my Food Preparation class back in college. The most basic of which is How to Extract Coconut Cream. However, there are packs of coconut cream that I’ve tested out for maja blanca. Sapin-sapin is a number one request from most of my readers and it took me quite a while to test this recipe but finally here it is. Remember , we will be making 3 layers.

5 cups Coconut Cream (How to Extract Coconut Cream) From 2 Coconuts
2 cups rice flour
2 cups white sugar
1/4 teaspoon powdered aniseed
1/2 kilo ube
Red Food Color
latik (How to Prepare Latik)

Bamboo steamer
Big Pan or steamer

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Posted: August 1st, 2010 under Recipes, kakanin.
Comments: 1

Kutsinta will forever have special place in my heart. It was the first product that inspired my mom’s Sally’s Bake Shop in 1966. She had seen mothers buying kutsinta after a movie. An idea soon hit her. Why not make my own kutsinta? Here is a kutsinta recipe similar to mom’s.

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups rice flour (substitute with all-purpose flour)

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

2 cups water

1 teaspoon white lihia or lye (or potassium carbonate solution)

1/4 teaspoon yellow coloring

2 tablespoons white sugar

Topping: freshly grated coconut or cheese

Directions

1. Caramelize the white sugar with one cup water in a saucepan. Cool.

2. Once the mixture in number 1 is cooled, add the rest of the ingredients except toppings. Mix well and strain the ingredients using a strainer.

3. Prepare muffin pans by brushing with butter.

4. Steam for 20 to 30 minutes or or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

5. Add more water to the steamer if needed.

6. Just before the kutsinta is cooked, add grated cheese on the top (optional)

7. Remove from the muffin pans and serve with freshly grated coconut.

Posted: July 25th, 2010 under Recipes, kakanin, kakanin, suman, native rice cakes.
Comments: 5

What I love about attending the Singapore Food Festival (July 16 till July 24, 2010) are the cooking demonstrations by the chefs. Not just your ordinary chefs, mind you. Mandarin Oriental Singapore hosted a cooking demo with celebrity chef Eric Teo. He is so funny as he interjects wit and humor every now and then to the demonstration. We were so honored with his presence because he is the president of the Singapore Chefs Association. Here is a simple recipe that you can even cook and the taste is so distinctly Asian that you will just love it. Sesame oil is an ingredient I often use in my Asian cooking.

Ingredients:

2 x100 grams. beef tenderloin fillet, season with salt and pepper
100 grams spring onions sliced
100 grams corn oil for cooking
100 grams sesame oil
30 grams sliced ginger
30 grams sesame seeds toasted
50 ml kikoman
100 grams water
50 grams honey

Braised daikon as base (Daikon is a long white radish: a long sweet white radish used in Asian cuisines. )
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Posted: July 18th, 2010 under Beef.
Comments: 1

Crab Omelet is one my favorite omelet dish. With crab meat available in the groceries, it’s easier to prepare now. My mom used to prepare this by boiling the crabs and flaking the crab meat. The top shell is saved for filling in the crab meat. Anyway, this recipe is just plain crab omelet or tortang alimasag. A very simple dish.

Ingredients

1 cup flaked crab meat (you can buy this at the frozen section of the grocery)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon constarch
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon refined salt
2 tablespoons oil
1/4 cup shredded onions
6 cloves garlic, crushed
2 peeled potatoes, finely diced
1/4 cup shredded celery
5 eggs

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Posted: July 2nd, 2010 under Recipes, Seafood.
Comments: 1

Before Jollibee or even Tropical Hut came out with the Filipino version of the Italian Spaghetti, there was Makati Supermarket’s spaghetti sold in their coffee shop in the early sixties. This is probably how the sweetish Filipino spaghetti evolved. A popular American blogger once commented that our Jollibee spaghetti tasted horrible. It must have seemed different from Italian spaghetti since the latter is sour. Filipino spaghetti has sweet sauce.

Filled with vienna sausage, ham strips, ground beef and grated cheese, the sauce of Makati Supermarket’ spaghetti is sweet with a tinge of spiciness. When I was in college during the mid-seventies, my dorm-mates and I would travel all the way from the UP campus to Makati Supermarket in Ayala. The supermarket does not exist anymore. These days you can eat their spaghetti at Cash and Carry Supermarket along , President Osmena Highway (South Superhighway) near Buendia Makati City and Makati Supermarket in Alabang.

A reader pointed out to me that some evidence of an even earlier birth of the “pinoy spaghetti” exists in the memoirs of Gen Douglas McArthur (yes the “I shall return guy”). I am not able to pull the line verbatim but it went mostly like this:

this sauce, so sweet on spaghetti, hardly seems like spaghetti sauce but it is good.

Through the years, I developed my own Filipino-Style Spaghetti Sauce. If you are in a hurry, you can always buy those ready-to-use Filipino Style Spaghetti sauce sold at the supermarket. But let me tell you, there is nothing more srcumptious than cooking spaghetti sauce in your own special touch. Here is my recipe which you can always innovate.

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Posted: June 11th, 2010 under Pasta, Recipes.
Comments: 14

Chicken Adobo in Coconut cream is my favorite adobo of all time. It’s actually a comfort food, a childhood memory. Sadly, I don’t often cook this because two family members don’t really like dishes with coconut milk. This is actually simple to cook. If you don’t have time to prepare coconut milk, just use the ready to mix coconut milk powder at the grocery.

Ingredients

1/2 head garlic, minced
1 medium onion, sliced
1 1/2 kilos chicken cut into serving pieces
2 tablespoons cooking oil (I prefer Pure Olive Oil)
2 cups thin coconut cream (Check on how to prepare coconut cream or buy 2 packs coconut milk powder)
salt and pepper to taste
1 small green papaya (cubed)
1/3 cup vinegar
2 cups thick coconut cream (Check on how to prepare coconut cream or buy 2 packs coconut milk powder)

Procedure

1. Prepare coconut cream or if you are busy, just buy 2 packs coconut milk powder and follow instructions.

2. In a saucepan, saute garlic, onion and chicken pieces in hot oil.

2. Pour thin coconut cream and simmer for a few minutes.

3. When chicken is almost done, add the papaya, vinegar, salt and pepper.

4. Bring to boil and add the thick cream.

5. Cook 5 more minutes until sauce thickens.

Posted: June 2nd, 2010 under Coconut Milk, Recipes, chicken.
Comments: 3

What do you associate puto with? When pork was still part of my diet, I associated puto with diniguan. I dunk the puto on the thick sauce, then eat it together with the pork pieces. Another puto memory is pairing it with hot chocolate drink. Puto is a great pairing food with many of our Filipino dishes. Puto is very easy to make. You can even use all-purpose flour instead of rice flour if one cannot find the latter. In this recipe, we will use all-purpose flour

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour (or better yet rice flour)
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups thick coconut cream (the first press. See How to Extract Coconut Cream or you can use coconut powder and follow instructions to make thick cream)
1 teaspoon aniseed

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Posted: May 19th, 2010 under Recipes, kakanin.
Comments: 5