If you happen to fancy eating fillet Fish, try baking either Salmon, Tilapia, Bangus or even catfish!!!

Season your fillet o fish with your favorite spices and bake it!

NOW - have you tried substituting your rice with GABI (or TARO? ... it can be very good with your fish too!

I scooped up the gabi meat into little balls and stir fried it with fresh garlic, olive oil and butter.Sprinkle a little bit of worcestershire sauce (or any soy sauce)... Then for a little drama, use the gabi as a bowl - you can "hide" the rice in it if you still want to eat the fish with rice.

OBSERVE and SAVOR the creamy flavor of the gabi with the fish... OMG! ...you will discover the goodness of TARO meat!!! (I love it!)

TENDER BEEF ADOBO Breakfast

Tender Beef Adobo for breakfast (left over nilagang baka)...

Second wind is also good!!!

The - already boiled and tender beef chunks converted to beef adobo...

In a frying pan, put oil, crushed garlic and the beef chunks to trim to little pieces. Pour on about a teaspoon on vinegar, 2 tsp of soy sauce, laurel leaf, salt and pepper. Good for breakfast without thinking it's a re-run.

Serve with scrambled egg and fried rice, fried in the "pinaglutuan ng beef" pan. Top with deep fried garlic and garnish with your favorite herb!

Minudillo con Pipino

I had one piece of carrot, 2 potatoes a cucumber and a pound of ground pork... ergo, minudillo con pipino!

Just cook it the old usual way, sauteing garlic and onions, stir frying the ground pork, add in the potatoes and carrots, spice up with salt n pepper n patis for that 'pinoy' savor... and finally, the achuete.

But guess what!!!

Try putting the minudillo inside a cucumber that had been bathed in pickle sauce. We would normally have the pickled pipino on the side as we eat the viand with rice, but this time, try eating it differently - ala Hors d'Oeuvres (pa-sosyal tayo ng konti paminsan minsan)...

Mix the vinegar, sugar, pepper and salt to bathe the cucumber - and the little twist gives that new taste that fresh change!

Although we know that we will not deviate from eating this with rice, so... just enjoy it!

Pork Paksiw with Lily Flowers and rosemary

Paksiw na baboy is normally cooked using pata (pork upper leg). But we want to minimize our cholesterol intake, such that we can use pork butt or any part we prefer devour.

Similar to adobo, we have the soy, laurel leaves, garlic, pepper corns, but with paksiw, a lesser amount of vinegar and we add brown sugar and star anise for that distinct paksiw na pata flavour. Let us not forget our dried "Lily flower", or the "bulaklak ng puso ng saging". I also added rosemary to join the whole gang.

I cut the pork horizontally, instead of cubes to give a different look to the plating. This means therefore that the pork will have to be tenderized as a whole (uncut) meat.

Anyway, here is how to cook this (The way I did)...
Boil the pork to your preferred bite and set the meat on the side when done. Bring the pot of pork stock by the sink, having another pot and strainer to separate the pork stock from the fat.


This time, bring the new pot (free of excess fat and oils) and put in all the ingredients to simmer with the pork stock. Let it boil to let the sauce thicken - when you "almost" get the right saucy consistency, put in the dried "lily flower". At the same time, put back the pork meat in, for it to sip-in the flavour of the paksiw... distinctively, the star anis, garlic, brown sugar, soy sauce and laurel.

NOTE: I know patis is a common condiment we always use, but do NOT add it because this will counter act the brown sugar aftertaste we need for the paksiw. If you need that salty taste, add SALT or soy sauce instead.

To serve, bring back the whole meat out (you may bring it out of the sauce sooner to avoid over-tenderizing the pork), and cut horizontally in strips and arrange on a plate.

Use your Lily flower and laurel leaves to decorate your plates (you may use new leaves instead of the ones in your pot). The star anis is also a good visual touch. Finalize with a fresh bunch of rosemary. Again, serve with a separate 'platito' of sauce. ...if you noticed, I added a small peice of raw garlic to give that fresh garlic scent when you serve the plate.

I also served this with a fresh guyabano refresher drink... it will take the garlicky flavor from your mouth after the meal.

Oct 24 is United Nations' Day... do you see the Philippine flag in my flag of flags behind the plate?

ENJOY your meal!!

SAVORY SUMAN: Ginataang Hipon at Puso ng Saging

I was contemplating on calling this suman or tamales. The Mex/Spans call their version "tamales", using corn and whatever stuffing they use: pollo, carne... and corn husks used to wrap it up. Savory!

Our suman is normally 'sweet' with gata, and we use sticky rice and sometimes eat it with sweet yellow na kinalabaw mangga (HINOG, ok?)! Then we wrap it with coconut leaves twirling it around and putting the ginataang sweet sticky rice in and steam for the longest time.

Well, this is a cross between the tamales and the suman.

Our local "puso ng saging" is normally cooked with coconut milk - with all the recados for flavor of course - I saute'd garlic, onion, shrimps, put in the gata, simmered it, and added parsley - patis to taste and pepper). I love this especially when it is cooked in clay pot and uling; typically the method used to cook in the "once upon a time" youthful years of mine.

After the ginataang hipon at puso ng saging was cooked, I set it aside and I took a portion of it put it in a blender. I mixed it in - half and half rice and malagkit. I added more gata sauce for more savory flavor. Then I used a few pieces of whole puso layers and use it to hold the flacoured rice, then and microwaved again. (You don't have to microwave - you can just continue cooking ii in the pot you used for the ginataan.)

To serve, it is always good to set more gata sauce on the side as the rice tends to absorb the gata sauce which will make the rice seem dry. Then adding more sauce will give you a better taste of the sauce and savor the flavor.

While we sometimes take this "ulam" for granted and perceive it to be "un-presentable" especially in handaan, well maybe we can reconsider, if we think of a nicer way to serve it.

Enjoy my "savory suman"... the ginataang hipon at puso ng saging!

CHICKEN LAING WITH PEPPER FLAKES

CHICKEN LAING PLATE

We sometimes hesitate to cook the Bicol-style binalot na "Laing" as it is sooooo meticulously time consuming.

We let's do it the easy way!!!... get a pie plate, and lay out all the ingredients in, layer by layer and microwave it!!!

Here is how:

Blend a can of coconut milk with raw garlic, onions, pepper and of course - the bagoong. You may use the traditional DAING or any pang-alat you want!.

Lay them one at a time alternately with chicken while pouring in the blended gata, as many layers as you want! Add patis to give that pinoy taste.

Then wrap the pie plate with seran wrap and microwave the layered chicken and gabi leaves for 5 minutes... wait for 3 minutes and add another 5 minutes.

Open the microwave and remove the seran wrap (carefully - it's HOT!). Let it rest so that watery gata liquid evaporates.

Then microwave another 5 minutes (without wrap)... check if you have the right darkened color of the 'gabi' leaf the way we are used to seing gabi/laing as it is. Sometimes you have to overcook the gabi leaves as that is the traditional way, but however you like it, then that's it!!!

You have just made LAING, binalot style in taste, without the knot tie-ing effort and spilling of gata all over the floor! I garnished with heart shaped tomato on the side with pepper flakes on the side.

You will see the pie plate laing on the next picture...

KAIN na!!

Call me if you are interested...

415.806.1934