Food articles posted in Dec 2007

Ernest’s pancit canton with bacon-cut pork

That large platter of pancit canton in the photo (and that was only about 3/4 of the entire batch) contained only 300 grams of pork but, with the thin slices, there were more pork pieces than there would have been ordinarily had the meat been cut in bigger pieces. It’s a trick I learned from Stephen Yan. When there’s little meat, you stretch it — literally…

Adobo, quail eggs and rice

The first time I cooked this adobo, quail eggs and rice dish, I dropped the shelled hard boiled quail eggs into the adobo sauce and simmered them for a few minutes so that the eggs became light brown in color. I used chopped onion leaves for garnish.

The second time I cooked the same dish, I did not add the quail eggs until I was assembling the dish…

Baby back ribs and mushrooms a la teriyaki

When Kenny Rogers Roasters came to the Philippines, baby back ribs became an instant hit. I don’t know why it should be anything new. I had been eating barbecued pork ribs since I was a kid. Whether it was a fashion thing or not, all of a sudden, people were saying baby back ribs in lieu of the usual spare ribs and many pork vendors tried to pass off just about every kind of pork ribs as baby backs. They aren’t the same and it isn’t just a difference in terms — baby back ribs and spare ribs come from different parts of the pig. Amazing Ribs has an illustration.

Fresh tropical fruits salad

There are no hard and fast rules as to what fruits can go into the salad. My family’s preferences include mangoes, melon, bananas, seedless grapes and apples. Papaya and pineapple are good choices too. You can even add buko to your fruit salad.

I recommend chilling the fruits (in the fridge, not in the freezer), as well as the cream and sweetened condensed milk, before preparing the salad…

Rellenong manok (stuffed deboned whole chicken)

The more traditional way of cooking stuffed deboned whole chicken is to leave only the bones in the wings. The thighs and drumsticks are deboned and stuffed as well. But that’s too much for me. I deboned the carcass, and as far as the thigh, but stopped there. BUT unlike most cooks who cut through the chicken breast to make deboning easier (they sew up the chicken during the stuffing part), I did no such thing…

Smoked duck from Shuin

We’ve bought green tea, mochi, peanut oil, frozen dumplings and even some very cool tea cups from Shuin. Finally, yesterday, we got to try Shuin’s famous smoked duck. My husband had to pre-order it two days ahead and it just had to be picked up for last night’s dinner.

Smoked duck is not the same as the roast duckling I’ve cooked at home in the past. For one thing, the skin of the smoked duck wasn’t crisp…

Kalabasa (squash) and potato soup

If you’re planning on roasting a whole turkey, a jumbo chicken, a duck or a goose for Christmas and you’re worried about what to do with the leftovers, you can simmer the bones with herbs and spices, cool and freeze the broth. Then, when you start craving for something really simple after you’ve had your fill of the uber rich food on the Christmas dinner table, you can cook this hearty kalabasa (squash) and potato soup…

Cream style corn in my pancakes

Last Sunday was the first time I was going to make corn dogs using cornmeal instead of the usual pancake mix. I used a recipe from the Food Network, one by Alton Brown, and the result was not even mildly satisfactory. The inclusion of cream style corn in the batter was an unnecessary complication, as far as I was concerned.

Anyway, since I didn’t use the contents of an entire can of cream style corn, I kept the remaining half in the fridge. It went to good use yesterday morning — pancakes with cream style corn.

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