Balut is the street food equivalent of Animal Farm – the porno version you saw as a teenager. It’s a fertilised duch egg, complete with embryo. – Tom Parker Boyles (Esquire UK Aug 2011) I can’t wait to get my copy! To read the article visit DaphneP blog post here
This year I found several Pinoy food bloggers around the world which led me to a group called Kulinarya Cooking Club which aims to promote Filipino Food. This month’s theme hosted by Adora from Adora’s Box and Diona from Tita Flips is “White Food.” For my first Kulinarya entry I chose something that I haven’t prepared before and a dessert that I’ve craved since last month – Ginataang Mais. Ginataan means food cooked with gata (coconut milk) which is extracted from grated coconut milk mix with warm water. You will find various Filipino desserts made with coconut milk ginataang bilo-bilo, ginataan halo-halo, Bicol express, and adobo sa gata to name a few. This dish suits the bed weather Manila is experiencing right now because of Bagyong Egay. Ginataang Mais is best eaten warm. Ginataang Mais (Corn and Sticky Rice Pudding with Coconut Milk) Ingredients: 1 cup glutinous rice 4 cups water 1 can whole corn kernel, 150 fl.oz. 1 can coconut milk, 14 fl.oz or 3 cups fresh coconut milk 1 can …
When C got his job offer to Qatar one of the question was is pork sold there? Nope it’s not. And when we all move to Dubai that question pop up once again. Yes it is available in selected stores here. I think one food/dish that’s included on the list of things we miss back home is Lechon (Suckling Pig). Did you know that the Philippines is #1 on Anthony Bourdain’s Hierarchy of Pork List? Imagine our hunger after watching the shows feature of our home country at 11pm. That led me to prepare our very own version of lechon away from home. Pork belly is boiled with different spices and then baked for 3 hours to achieve that crunch that sends us back home. Little V easily proclaims this crunchy as his favorite! I can put him on the table with a cup of steamed rice, Mang Tomas Lechon sauce and the crunchy pork skin happily praising me “this is yummy mommy. V’s favorite.” To prepare bake lechon: boil pork belly with 2 laurel …
An empty refrigerator always make me smile. why? It means I have not wasted what we bought and I have actually managed to cook for three. Cooking for us three has always been a struggle, I always somehow have a whole lot of leftover which tends to be forgotten and disposed at the end of the week. Also for last week we do grocery shopping every two days cause I need the space for my cakes.Before C left for his basketball game I told him to buy takeOut for lunch, by 11am he still no call so I decided to make use of what’s available and darn yesterday’s dough is in the freezer bread was out of the menu. The only available ingredients: Tomato, onion, garlic, ginger, ampalaya (bitter melon), talong (eggplant), kalabasa (squash), okra and crispy chicken skin (chicharon). V asks what are you cooking mama? I want soup miso weed. As a kid I hated eating vegetables I remember being bullied by my cousins. They would put a whole chunk of veggies …
I love mornings. I have my quiet time while preparing breakfast @ 5:30am. Enjoying the early morning music of boiling water for my coffee. Fresh brewed coffee makes me start my day with a smile on my face. C and I get to enjoy quality time eating breakfast. Talking about what his day will be and me asking and planning dinner with him. It’s just breakfast and we’re talking about what to eat for dinner. Today’s breakfast I prepared Garlic Fried Rice, Sunny-side-up Egg, and Ham. All fried in my trusty wok. Filipinos love a heavy breakfast and would almost always require an egg. We have a lot of “*silog” breakfast menu: TapSilog – beef tapa, LongSilog – longganisa (sweet pork sausage) , BangSilog (daing na bangus), HamSilog (ham). *”Silog” stands for Sinangag na Kanin (Fried Rice) and Itlog (Egg). If you have notice we use the first 3 letters of the main meat that goes along rice and egg. How do you crack your eggs? I used to crack my egg on the side of a bowl or …
Kutsinta is one famous kakanin (local dessert) in the Philippines. My Mama would always bring home different kinds of kakanin for us after visiting the palengke (fish market) every Sunday. The result of my first kutsinta was not perfect, it tastes good but it was a bit hard. Texture should be soft and firm. Friends who got to taste my first batch suggested to cook it at a lesser time (first batch was steamed for almost an hour). My mom’s bestfriend uses the plastic mold in making Kutsinta but Mama refused to let me use those and instead sent me muffin like tin cans similar to what she was using. Btw, see that stain on the second photo of my steamer made me sad because I just spent 1 hour scrubbing the whole oven. Above photo is my attempt to be creative. I even used C’s D80 to learn basic photography for an upcoming class. I spent more than hour editing photos in picnik a much more simply program compared to photoshop. Finished cooking the whole batch for 1 hour …
Cuddles and Crumbs 