'School lunchbox' archive

Crispy chicken strips with sweet and sour sauce

This isn’t a new recipe. You’ll find the details in an archived entry called sweet and sour chicken fillets. What’s new is that instead of deboning a chicken breast, I used chicken thigh fillets with the skins on. Amazing how the skins affect the crispness of the chicken. Even after the sauce was poured over the chicken strips, they retained their wonderful texture. I know. The skins add a lot of fat to the cooked dish. But for those who don’t mind the extra fat, it might be useful to point out how not removing the skins will affect the overall texture of the dish.

Packed school lunch idea: chicken gizzards with fresh asparagus

About a week ago, I cooked 800 grams of chicken gizzards for a soup dish. I only needed half as much but decided to simmer them all anyway. Chicken gizzards don’t cook as fast as chicken meat. They usually require at least an hour of simmering. With the price of fuel, it was wiser to cook them all at the same time and just keep in the fridge what I didn’t need at the moment. When the gizzards were tender, I cut them into strips and reserved half for future use. Three days later, I sauteed the reserved gizzards with slices carrots and fresh asparagus for the kids’ school lunchboxes.

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.

Adobong kangkong

There is an older version of adobong kangkong (swamp / water spinach) in the archive but it was cooked with chicken gizzards. This version which went into the kids’ school lunchboxes, has strips of lean pork.

If the meat comes from a young animal and is cut correctly, the pork strips are tender after only about 15 minutes of cooking. You can buy pork cutlets from the supermarket (thin, wide slices of fatless pork) or you can buy the meat whole and do the slicing yourself…

Pinatisang bangus (milkfish soup with fish sauce)

My fifteen-minute fish soup made with boneless bangus belly fillets, shallots, tomatoes, garlic and onion leaves. It went into the kids’ school lunch boxes.

There is much confusion about the nature of shallots as the name is often interchanged with scallions. In Southeast Asian cooking, shallots refer to small red onions; scallions are the onion leaves. In Filipino cooking, shallots are sibuyas Tagalog (Allium ascalonicum) which would make them “authentic” shallots as being one of the two species of the Allium plant that are considered true shallots.

Herbed chicken and rice

This chicken and rice combo dish went into the kids’ lunch boxes last Tuesday. Cold cooked rice and the meat from the breast of a chicken and there was enough for baon and breakfast as well. This is a variation of the herb-loaded rice recipe in the archive which, in turn, was inspired by the herbed riced I enjoyed at Vieux Chalet.

Roast pork and cabbage fried rice

Most leftovers in our house end up as Oriental style fried rice. The thick slices of roast pork that had been sitting in the fridge for a couple of days were no exception. With eggs, shredded cabbage, finely chopped red bell pepper and carrot, I cooked this roast pork and cabbage fried rice for my daughters’ packed school lunch today. It’s a complete meal with meat, vegetables and rice. For recess, I packed some potato salad accompanied by store-bought cheese bread.

Shrimps, cabbage and bell pepper stir fry

Looks like I’m going to stop being a Shopwise regular. The Landmark opened at the TriNoma mall recently and the supermarket is a cook’s dream. We used to shop at Landmark in Makati but those were the days when I was still working in an office. For a stay-at-home mom, Makati is just too far away. The fact that the commercial center is a parking nightmare doesn’t make it any attractive either. But The Landmark at TriNoma… that’s manageable.

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House On A Hill

Pinoy food

• Pancit bihon (rice sticks with chicken and vegetables)
• Guinataang paco
• Biko (sticky rice cake)
• Fish and malunggay soup
• Spicy, herb-y adobong sitaw
• A soup called bachoy
• Adobong kangkong
• Chicken tinola and liver sauce
• Chicken soup a la picadillo
• Molo soup for a hot summer night

Experimental

• Spicy chicken breast fillets
• Pork tongue asado fried rice
• Yellow fin tuna and kamote (sweet potato) cakes
• Braised tilapia
• Fish & vegetables stir-fry
• Beef short ribs braised in green mango jam
• Sesame chicken balls
• Pasta pronto
• Fish fillet with sweet corn and white sauce
• Hill feast