Food articles posted in Jun 2008

Pasta primavera… with fresh tuna!

There are no hard and fast rules as to what vegetables can be used for making pasta primavera. Personally, I prefer a combination of tomatoes, eggplants, bell peppers and carrots. I also like to add fresh basil because it goes so well with garlic and olive oil. In the past, I often added sardines in jars or canned tuna to what traditionally is a vegetable dish, but never fresh seafood. I never realized the difference it makes. The cubes of fresh tuna retained their shape, added flavor to the dish that did not have that overpowering fishy taste one gets from fish in cans and jars.

Capsicum halves stuffed with chicken, cheese and vegetables

This is my second attempt at making stuffed capsicum (or bell peppers, if you prefer to call them that) and I finally did it right. The first time, I stuffed the peppers with raw ground meat mixed with raw vegetables. The juices from the meat and vegetables soaked the peppers during baking, making it very soggy. This time, I cooked the filling first, stirred in lots of grated Parmesan and stuffed the sticky gooey mixture into the cavities of the halved peppers. I baked them only long enough to brown the tops and to cook the bell peppers just until they were tender-crisp.

Poached egg in dashi — with ground sichuan peppercorns!

Poached eggs are cooked in simmering (not boiling) water. The shells are cracked and the eggs are allowed to cook in the water until the whites are firm but the yolk still runny. I never poached eggs in water. I used to cook them in simmering meat broth. But because I am on a low-fat diet now, I am discovering other ways to poach an egg.

Try poaching your egg in dashi. Then, sprinkle it with salt and freshly ground sichuan peppercorns.

Corn bread

I baked a pan of corn bread based on a recipe in Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook. I said “based on” because I made one substitution. The original recipe uses frozen corn; I used fresh sweet yellow corn. I cut off the kernels from the cobs myself just like I did when I baked a batch of corn muffins a la Kenny Rogers. The second page in the corn muffins entry has a very illustrative photo on how to cut corn kernels off the cob.

A soup called bachoy

“Bachoy” is the collective term for pork lomo (tenderloin), lapay (spleen) and bato (kidney). It is also the name of a traditional soup cooked with lots of ginger. If noodles are added and the noodle dish is topped with ground chicharon (pork crackling), it is called la paz bachoy. I’ll have to skip la paz bachoy with the pork crackling — too much fat for my diet. But the basic bachoy dish can be made almost fat-free if you trim all the visible fat from the pork.

Herb-loaded rice, version 2

…there was still some olive oil left in the pan after the salmon and the sliced eggplants were done. That leftover oil had been flavored with the salmon and… why waste it? I remembered the herb-loaded rice from long ago and decided I’d do it again — this time, using a different combination of fresh herbs. What did I have? Lots, actually. Most of the herbs had been replanted in pots so I can bring them when we move. But there were still lots growing directly in the soil. Why not consume them during our final days in this house?

Sauteed chicken and squash with fresh tarragon

I cooked this chicken and squash dish for my kids’ packed school lunch a couple of days ago. My original plan was to add coconut milk (my kids love anything with coconut milk) but the humid weather made me think twice. Coconut milk spoils fast so I decided it wasn’t the best time for a vegetable and coconut milk dish. To make an otherwise plain sauteed dish exciting, I added finely sliced fresh tarragon to the chicken and squash. Tarragon, after all, is a traditional accompaniment to chicken and fish dishes.

Birthday dinner at Vieux Chalet

When a restaurant is good, customers return. When a restaurant is great, customers return again and again. I can’t remember anymore how many times I’ve been to Vieux Chalet having been a regular since I was a law student. My kids are now 15 and 14, so, go figure. June 17 was my husband’s birthday and dinner was at Vieux Chalet. What an excuse not to observe my diet. Finally got the chance too to take photos of the house specialty, Tony’s chicken — marinated, stuffed with fresh herbs and baked to perfection.

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House On A Hill

Fish & seafood

• Tilapia with shredded corn and coconut cream
• Sardines frittata in tortilla
• No meat during Lent?
• Chili garlic shrimps with coriander paste and Kecap Manis
• Baked pompano and red cabbage
• Fish fillets in white wine
• Fried lapu-lapu with pineapple sauce
• Baked river cobbler fillets
• Talakitok (trevally) steaks with homemade pesto
• Fish fillet and vegetables in sour cream

Superb soups

• Kalabasa (squash) and potato soup
• Fish head soup with coconut cream
• Herbed chicken soup with assorted beans
• Macaroni soup
• Clams and malunggay soup with coconut milk
• Chunky Beef and Macaroni Soup
• Chicken soup for a rainy day
• Cock-a-leekie soup, Pinoy style
• Pork and cabbage soup
• Bulalo (beef bone marrow) noodle soup