TOASTED SIOPAO

Was introduced to this rice bun variation by a couple of friends who dropped by at work.

When I found the bakery behind National Bookstore in Quezon Avenue, I dropped by and bought a dozed not toasted buns. I had to wait as the other customers were buying the Toasted Siopao by the box. Selling at P8.00 each, the buns are filling and goes well with other chinese dishes we usually eat with Siopao- like beef mami or pancit.

It really tastes like Asado rolls. Soft, shredded pork in a thick, sweet-tangy siopao sauce. The Buns are best eaten hot, fresh off the oven.

Address: 106-A Panay Ave., South Triangle, Quezon City
Telephone: (0917) 840-7332

KITCHEN QUICKIE- CRISPY MOLO WRAPPERS WITH PARMESAN

Found myself cooking Pancit Molo last weekend. After wrapping all the shrimp and pork molo meatballs, I still had half a pack of molo wrappers left. Thought of fried dimsum and decided to make a nice snack out of the leftovers.

INGREDIENTS:
Molo wrappers
Cooking oil
Grated Parmesan

PROCEDURE:
Heat the oil.
Cut the molo wrappers into 1- inch strips. Separate.
Dip the strips into the hot oil. Remove when they turn golden brown.
Place the fried strips on top of table napkins (to absorb the excess oil).
Plate the strips and generously top with grated parmesan.

Dinner- Blue Marlin

Just want to share... tonight's dinner pan-grilled Blue Marlin  ala Pobre (with Lemon Butter sauce and crispy garlic flakes).

FOOD FIND: Bangus Tocino (Sweet Cured Milk Fish)

Saw this in the Supermarket... Century Tuna's Bangus Tocino.

 Tried it today. it thawed easily enough and though the fish meat looks a little too brown for comform once it's thawed, it does cook well. Of course, just not as pretty as the fish cuts you see on the packaging.

 The fish takes some time to redden (smaller amount of salt peter or salitre than the pork tocino variety, I suppose)  and caramelize but it tastes just like tocino. It's not malansa (fishy) but you do get to taste the bangus (milk fish) after all the sugar has melted away in your mouth.  For a tocino, it's not  dispapointing.

And nope, this is not some paid blog.

FOOD FIND: Rosy's Pancit Malabon

I lived in Malabon for around 4 years and I have eaten Pancit Malabon at every special occasion. Of the many "original"  pansiterias that have been selling this rice noodle recipe is 'Rosy's Pancit Malabon' which has been open since 1940's.

Almost 15 years after leaving Malabon, I got the chance to finally set foot in this famed eatery.

We ordered a big bilao good for about 20 persons and cost us about P1,000.  Which wasn't bad considering it was abundant with fresh shrimps, meat slices and eggs.

 
I was booted out of the kitchen even before I could take any more photos.

I had to wait for our bilao to be taken out of the kitchen before I could take any more photos.

I NEED SOME HEAT- MY VERSION OF THE SAMBAL SHRIMP

I had been to Indonesia only once and that was to get treated to a nice day at the Banyan Tree  at the Bintan Island. And that is as far as my affinity to Indonesia goes.

I tried my hand  at making Sambal Shrimp, but realized quickly that I had to innovate given that my blender has stopped working for weeks now (making it impossible to make the Sambal paste). So here it is...

BLENDERLESS SAMBAL SHRIMP

Spice paste 1 tbsp ready-to-serve crispy red chilies
1 red onion, finely minced and pounded
2 tbsp bagoong

Sambal Sauce
3 tbsp cooking oil
250g shrimp (shelled and deveined)
1 cup water
1 tbsp tamarind paste (mixed with 1/2 cup water & strained)
2 dried kaffir lime leaves (crumbled)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp brown sugar

Mix all spice paste ingredients.

Heat up the oil and stir-fry the spice paste for a minute or so.

 Then, Add the shrimps and stir-fry for about 2-3 minutes.

Once the fragrance of the sambal pastes fills the room, add in the  water mixed with tamarind paste and bring  to a quick boil.

Add in salt, brown sugar & kaffir lime leaves. 

Serve hot.

Oops, I Did It Again... Binagoongang Baboy with Tsokolate Tablea

There are things  I had done once and will probably never do again...spelunking for five hours in Sagada, rappelling in the rain in Batangas and ramming an RV into a pyre of burning trash in Boracay ... unless it involves a nice early retirement package.

And there are things that I dream of doing at least once...skydive in Australia, fly the Zero-G plane in Florida and wash the windows of the 100th floor of the Empire State Building  in New York.

I am not exactly an extreme sports kinda gal but I do like taking risks that make me feel like I am laughing in the face of death (even if it's just really lame stuff).  

When it comes to gustatory delights, though, I believe in a no holds barred policy. I like to live my life dangerously, at least in the dining table.

This food freak wants to have tongue wrestling with a live baby octopus in Korea, make an oven out of yak carcass  in Mongolia and, eat blowfish in Japan.

One thing that I don't understand, and it just irks me sometimes, is when people who have very low BMI or body mass index (also known as 'thin people') often ask me why I like eating fatty. I hate it when they make it sound like I'm committing suicide. asking me in an incredulous tone while they hungrily look at the dripping salty, oily mess I am biting into.  I retort that I want to die happy. If you have a perfectly grilled piece of fatty meat in front of you, and an earthquake happens or you see an errant vehicle about to crash into you, you wouldn't want your last thoughts to be, "Oh fuck, I should've eaten that barbecue!", would you? Such silly last words will never be heard from me.

And on that note... Here's one of my favorite salty, fatty recipes, not for the faint of heart and those who want to achieve unbelievably low BMIs.

BINAGOONGANG BABOY NA MAY TSOKOLATE

Ingredients:
0.75 kg country style pork liempo, cut into 2-inch thick strips
1 cup Shrimp Bagoong from Malabon (salty baby shrimp paste with a hint of sugar and spice)
1/ 4 cup cooking  oil
1 head garlic, peeled and finely minced
1 onion,  sliced into rings
3 cups water
2-3 pieces grated Tsokolate Tablea
1 Long pepper (Siling-haba)

Using 1/2 cup of water, boil the pork.

 When the water has evaporated, lower the fire and sweat the pork until it produces some fat, Add the cooking oil and  sautee the garlic as you brown the pork.

Once the pork is browned, add the bagoong. Add the remaining water and let the concoction simmer. Mix every once in a while so the bottom of the pan does not burn. When the pork is tender,but the sauce still watery, add the siling haba and onion rings.

This will give the dish an undertone of heat. Once the dish reaches a sticky consistency, add the grated tsokolate tablea. The bitter sweetness of the tsokolate  will temper the heat and bring out the saltiness of the bagoong. Mix and let it simmer for 1-2 minutes.

Separately, you may choose to blanche vegetables like okra, kangkong (water spinach), sigarilyas (winged beans), sitaw (string beans) or talong (eggplant) to serve with the binagoongan.

Serve with piping hot rice.

UPWARD MOBILITY AND ANGELO'S VERSION OF THE UPLAND DRESSING

I was once told that, "It's just a job."

I heard this line after one TV show I was writing for had stopped airing. I am a newbie at TV writing and I left my corporate life so I could write...

...about food like  kalabaw lugaw (porridge with water buffalo meat) sold  from the lowly karinderia (street food stall) and the expensive Wagyu Beef cooked on volcanic rocks served in upscale restaurants.

I just want to write.

About kids with learning disabilities and how the world treats them like they will never be able to contribute to society.

I just want to write. 

About all the crazy shit stuck inside my head, from the crazy tikbalang afraid to make friends to the two menopausing women conversing about abortion on their way to Quiapo to the sub-atomic sized letters that make up a world brought alive by the continued narrative told by these letters when they are linked. 

I really, really just want to write.

My days of upward mobility are gone. Job titles don't appeal to me anymore. Doing a good job and contentment in what I do are what's important to me now. This is something I tried to share with my younger brother, Angelo, when we were discussing his career path in the culinary and hospitality industries. He couldn't quite picture what I meant when I said job titles shouldn't matter. But I guess that's him being a product of the era of labels, the time of technology.

Good thing that he has his own passions. Cooking being one of them, I tried to explain my new work philosophy to him using the cooking analogy.

One of the lowest positions in the modern kitchen is that of the garde manger or pantry chef who is in charge of the cold foods including the pates, cold appetizers and salads. But when a meal starts with the salad, it becomes the garde manger's job to make sure that the meal becomes a success right from the start. A badly dressed salad can make a meal the epic fail that you don't want it to be.  

Whatever your station is in life or the kitchen line, it's always important to do the best work, one that you can be proud of.

So after sharing that analogy, we went on to make a dressing based on Cafe by the Ruins' upland dressing. My brother made some adjustments to suit his taste. So, here it is.

UPLAND DRESSING
1/2 cup lemon juice
3 tablespoons patis (fish sauce)
2 tbsp honey (or brown sugar)
1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
2 tsps finely pressed garlic (or finely minced garlic)
1/2 cup corn oil (the aroma of any other kind of oil does not go well with this patis flavored dressing)

 Toast the sesame seeds. Mix in the lemon juice, patis, honey and garlic. Incorporate corn oil by pouring it as you whisk the liquid briskly. (If you want to do it faster, pour all the liquids in an airtight bottle, and shake vigorously). Add the sesame seeds just before serving.

 Serve with lettuce, arugula, halved seedless grapes, tomatoes and cucumber. I find that this goes well with salads that don't have any meat in it.

Today

...was terribly unproductive. The most that the universe got from me was 6 hours of reading fan fiction filled with juvenile angst, 15 minutes of making dinner (omelette and mango shake) and 10 minutes of dish washing. 


So to make it up to the universe, I decided to put up this blog. Now.

I don't think anyone will actually be reading my blogs but if you are, here's what you can expect:


NO OBSESSING This is just some place to write my experimental recipes, different ways of cooking one dish and making use of left overs so don't expect me to go all Julia Powell, though, and obsess about some other person's recipes.

SALT, FAT & CARBS I live with my partner of 17 years, A., so most of my recipes cater to his palate which tends to favor salt, fat and carbs. I do make healthy stuff once in a while if I can avoid making them taste like cardboard or some other pulp that was intended for writing on and not mastication.

LOW-TECH I only have the simplest of kitchen equipment in our modest two-bedroom apartment. So most of the cooking process will involve them as well. If your equipment is hi-tech then good for you but don't go asking me about how to operate them.

NOT FOR TWO We also invite friends over at least once a week so the recipes will mostly be good for four people. The title of the blog is Cooking in Small Spaces, not cooking for two.

A BIT OF THIS AND THAT I also like to go to the wet market, eat out and travel so expect a few reviews here and there.

I SUKC AT TYPING I am not an English major and I suck at typing. Please feel free to point out my mistakes so I can correct them.

NO TO CENSORSHIP I am an advocate of freedom of expression and you can type in any shit you want about my blogs but expect me to type back shit at you.

SHARE If you want to share yours or help me improve mine, feel free to do so. Any recipe culled from a book or provided by a person other than me will be acknowledged.

So now that's been said, my imaginary reader. Let me go onto my next blog and first recipe.