Sweet and sour fish: don’t forget the ginger
Deep in the archive of Pinoy Cook is a recipe for sweet and sour fish. I used whole tilapia and took photos with my first digital camera — a point-and-shoot 1.3 megapixel Olympus. That entry was posted in April 2003, one of the first entries in my food blog. I look at that entry now and realized that cooks do get better with practice. The same thing is true with photography buffs. While the recipe itself has stayed pretty much the same, I have picked up a few techniques here and there that makes this version of sweet and sour fish just a little bit better.
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Molo soup for a hot summer night
… just as we decided to stick to a fish, chicken and vegetables diet, there was a sale at the fresh meat section of the supermarket two days ago — ground pork mix for making lumpiang shanghai. Buy one kilo, get another kilo for free. I couldn’t resist. So much savings. Besides, it’s not like we’re reverting to the meaty diet we have been used to in the past. And although the package said shanghai mix, I didn’t use the ground pork mix for lumpiang shanghai. On Tuesday, dinner was fried hito (catfish) and molo soup or pancit molo…
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Steamed fish with oyster sauce
Just last month, I did a steamed fish experiment and both turned out well… Let me add another to my repertoire. Minus the minimal preparation time, this one is ready to serve in 30 minutes and cooks inside the oven in a tent of aluminum foil. I suppose that makes it a baked fish recipe rather than a steamed fish recipe but if we’re going to be strict about definitions, the fish was cooked in the steam inside the foil tent so I still say it is steamed fish.
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Lo mein, not chow mein
If you ask a Filipino what the noodle dish in the photo is, he would probably say “pancit canton”… Strictly speaking, however, that is chicken lo mein in the photo.
Although both lo mein and chow mein refer to noodle dishes with stir fried meat or seafood and vegetables, there is one distinct difference between the two and it is not the crispiness of the noodles. When cooking chow mein, the noodles are fried separately albeit not to a crisp but simply to coat it with oil and give it better texture. The frying stage is skipped when making lo mein.
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Char sui (Chinese barbecue sauce)
My husband came home last night with a kilo of pork tenderloin and I knew I was going to cook them a la Chinese asado. You know, the thinly sliced pork served as an appetizer in Chinese restaurants. These reddish rimmed and highly seasoned meat is served as a stand alone appetizer or as part of the cold meat platter. In the latter case, it is served with duck or chicken, pickled seaweeds, century eggs and suckling pig.
The marinade for the pork is called char sui sauce. You can buy char sui sauce in jars or you can make your own.
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Pork and asparagus egg drop soup
Based on the view count, the chicken in caramel sauce appears to be quite popular. Easy and tasty is always attractive. To the newbie cook, it means less chances of messing up. To the busy mom, it means less time sweating it out in the kitchen. To the seasoned cook, it’s a rest from those laborious works of art. To the diner, good food is good food.
I should tell you though that I served the chicken in caramel sauce with a soup.
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Chicken fillets with hoisin sauce
The original Chinese recipe is called Szechuan (Sichuan) Pork, so named probably because one of the primary ingredients of the dish is Sichuan peppercorns. I’ve used the same basic recipe on pork, fish and chicken and they were all good. I have to warn you though that I never used Sichuan peppercorns because I have not discovered where I can buy them.
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Steamed litid ng baka (beef ligaments)
One of my guilty pleasures: steamed litid ng baka. Until recently, I only get to enjoy them from the dimsum cart of bigger Chinese restaurants. Then, I bought this tray of beef litid from Unimart, used some to make my beef and hofan noodle soup and, the rest, I cut into bite size pieces, arranged the pieces on small plates, garnished them with toasted garlic and chopped onion leaves, seasoned with a little light soy sauce mixed with grated ginger and steamed everything for 20 minutes. I served the steamed beef litid as an extra dish for lunch yesterday.
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