Food articles posted in May 2008

Oriental noodles with peanut sauce

If you’re a fan of Vietnamese food, then you should be familiar with the peanut sauce that goes with the spring rolls. It’s a mixture of tamarind paste, peanut butter and hoisin sauce, thinned down a bit with hot water. I love that peanut sauce. I can dip steamed dimsum and lumpiang togue (fried bean sprout spring rolls) in it and not think about how weird it is. I love the Vietnamese peanut sauce so much that I decided to find out if it would work as the sauce base for show mein. The result became yesterday’s lunch.

Carlo’s Pizza

Somewhere between the two home depots in the Ortigas area is a row of restaurants. Some are familiar names, other’s aren’t. We were hunting for lighting accessories yesterday and, after going around the stores in the first home depot, we realized we were hungry. No wonder — it was almost dinner time. There weren’t too many choices; most of the restaurants looked more like watering holes (okay, there is a nearby auto place too selling second-hand cars so I suppose that the male-oriented eateries shouldn’t be surprising). There was Dencio’s (too boring already) and right beside it was a place called Carlo’s Pizza.

Fresh herbs in my lamb curry

We had lamb curry for lunch yesterday and I used only the freshest herbs to go with it. By fresh I mean herbs I picked from my garden. I can’t claim that this is Thai, Malaysian, Indonesian or Indian lamb curry but it is most definitely my lamb curry.

I am posting this entry as a photo gallery to expedite the explanations about the herbs I used. A picture is worth a thousand words as they say and I took the time to photograph the ingredients for my lamb curry.

Yellow fried rice with shrimps and coconut cream

The rice is yellow because of the turmeric. Unlike the mixed seafood rice with turmeric and coconut cream recipe, grated fresh turmeric was used for this rice recipe. Turmeric belongs to the ginger family but it is not as spicy as ginger. If you want more bite to this dish, you can use a combination of grated turmeric and ginger. That way, you get the beautiful yellow color plus the spiciness.

Pan-fried kitang with tofu-egg salsa

Kitang is a fish. What its scientific name is or by whatever other name it goes by is something I have yet to discover. It was the favorite fish of my late uncle Ben who would have grilled kitang almost every day after he was obliged to go on a low-fat, low-salt and low-sugar diet. Kitang is not always available in the market and the times that it is, the price doesn’t make it very attractive. When I found kitang today at Shopwise for P198.00 per kilo, I choose the largest one and cooked it for lunch along with the chicken and misua soup.

Tilapia with shredded corn and coconut cream

One of the dishes we really enjoy at President Restaurant in Chinatown is the fish fillets with corn sauce. I’ve done a chowder version of that dish in the past and I called it talakitok belly and corn chowder. It was good, no doubt, but I discovered that if the flour and butter based sauce is replaced with coconut cream, it’s even better. More than that, if you use shredded fresh corn instead of canned corn kernels, the sauce becomes even thicker and richer because of the starch. If the yellows and whites make the dish look too boring, add some greens and you not only make the dish more nutritious, it becomes more visually appealing as well.

Kesong puti (white cheese) from Rizal Dairy

The obsession over reproducing at home that glorious pesto, tomatoes and kesong puti sandwich that I had at Manna Bakery a couple of weeks ago finally led me to Rizal Dairy where I ought to have gone a long time ago. Rizal Dairy not only makes kesong puti, it also makes mozzarella and ricotta cheeses, plain and flavored yogurt, home-cured ham and bacon, and artisan breads. The main outlet is less than ten minutes’ drive from our house.

When tofu met pesto

It was a whim. A last-minute whim and a decision that took all of a split-second to make. What I really intended was to saute the spinach leaves with a little Kacep Manis then use them as a bed for the fried tofu and fish fillets. I was already taking out the bottle of Kecap Manis from the fridge when my eyes went past the small jar of pesto that I made a couple of days ago. I said, “Why not?” And because pesto is much milder than Kacap Manis, I decided that a little more kick was in order — two pieces of chili picante. That was how I discovered that pesto is not an enemy of tofu.

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House On A Hill

Fish & seafood

• Tilapia with shredded corn and coconut cream
• Baked scallops
• Tilapia fritters with honey-lemon sauce
• Sweet and spicy talakitok in a flash
• Pritong tilapia (fried St. Peter’s fish) and cheese-topped chili-cauliflower bake
• Bangus (milkfish) fritters, v. 2
• Oven-steamed whole fish
• Fish fillets in white wine
• Clams spaghetti with white wine
• Fish fillet with corn sauce

Healthy veggies

• A side dish: buttered corn and carrots
• Pork, spinach and Pinoy pesto
• Salted eggs and vegetables salad
• 5-minute tomatoes and pesto salad
• Chicken livers and string beans
• Fish fillets and togue (mung bean sprouts) stir fry
• Cabbage Rolls
• Beef and broccoli leaves
• Fried beef brisket and potatoes with sour cream
• Tuna belly fillets with garlic and rosemary