Paella, Filipino Style for Christmas or Noche Buena

My daughter Lauren was dying to cook paella for our Christmas Eve dinner over 10 years ago. I bought all the ingredients in the morning but I wanted to cook it already while the seafood was still fresh. My recipe for paella is one where I can pre-cook everything and place it on the pyrexRead More

Lapu-Lapu (Grouper) Escabeche (Sweet and Sour Sauce)

The lapu-lapu is always a special dish. Childhood memories of our family dinner involves a feast of lapu-lapu topped with sweet and sour sauce known escabeche. Escabeche has a slight ginger taste to it unlike the Chinese version of sweet and sour sauce. I am not sure if this is a Cebuano version of theRead More

How to Cook Singapore Chilli Crab

Tsiju Culinary Arts shared this Singapore Chilli Crab recipe which is one of the most popular dish in Singapore hawker centers. It is sometimes known as Singapore’s unofficial “national dish” which had its humble beginnings in the country itself. In the 1950s, Madam Cher Yam Tian had a hawker stall right on the seashore, andRead More

Pateros Express: mixed sautéed seafood in salted egg sauce.

An XO46 original dish of mixed sautéed seafood in salted egg sauce. Bicol Express is not alone. There is an original dish called “Pateros Express” from XO46 XO 46 Bistro Filipino. The dish is made of mixed sautéed seafood like shrimps, squid and fish in salted duck egg sauce. The dish was recently featured inRead More

Fresh Smoked Fish Spring Rolls

One of my favorite dish at Sentro 1771 is Fresh Smoked Fish Spring Rolls. I am delighted that Vicky-Rose Pacheco from Sentro shared this recipe of fresh lumpia made of tinapang bangus, salted egg, mustasa, onions and tomato during a demo at the Maya Kitchen. It is the smoked tinapa that gives the tasty flavorRead More

Umbuyan, tinapa flakes wrapped in pechay leaves

Umbuyan is tinapa flakes sautéed in olive oil and wrapped in pechay leaves . Its origins in Manila is found in the place where Andres Bonifacio was born. When I looked for the definition of “Umbuyan”, I could only see “fish smoking house worker”, Tinapa is smoked fish so I understand the rationale behind theRead More