Beef, ginger and pineapple stew
This is the day when I vow never to pay attention when I see the “Buy 1, Take 1″ signs all over Shopwise. Not that the cooked dish turned out badly. On the contrary, what a salvage operation it was. The problem was the beef. The meat must have come from a hundred-year-old cow. I’ve been buying meat for over two decades and I didn’t notice? The beef was pre-sliced nicely across the grain and packed in styrofoam trays. You can’t see the grain anymore when the meat has been cut that way. Sneaky way to get rid of inferior meat, eh?
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Vietnamese spring rolls
We never go to a Vietnamese restaurant without ordering spring rolls. Between Pho Hoa and Pho Bac, I prefer the latter’s spring rolls. Apart from that though, my vote goes to Pho Hoa all the way. It’s always been my dream to make Vietnamese spring rolls at home but it wasn’t easy getting hold of rice spring roll wrappers. Quite recently, they started making an appearance in bigger supermarkets. I suppose that signals how popular Vietnamese cooking has become in the Philippines.
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Cabbage rolls soup
There are two cabbage rolls recipes in the archive. One has chicken filling, served with white sauce and topped with grated cheese. The other is the more traditional version, stuffed with ground pork and simmered in tomato sauce. Little did I know that stuffed cabbage, or cabbage rolls, are served as a soup in Vietnam.
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Lasang Pinoy 24: Coconut custard
My most memorable leche flan experience was at a fiesta. The custard was made with duck eggs and coconut milk, according to the father of my husband’s officemate. It was something I always dreamed of doing at home but the few times that we were able to buy fresh duck eggs, my coconut leche flan did not turn out too well. I probably wouldn’t have made the attempt again anytime soon had not Kai e-mailed me about Lasang Pinoy 24: Loco over coco.
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Vietnamese chicken satay with nuoc cham
Chicken satay without peanuts. I couldn’t believe it myself having associated satay with peanut butter. But this recipe from Vietnamese Cooking Made Easy (recipes by Nongkran Daks, Alexandra Greeley and Wendy Hutton; published by Periplus) is peanut-free. It is light and succulent, delicate with just the right hints of complementing flavors. Served with nuoc cham, the Vietnamese sweet and sour dipping sauce, it satisfies the craving for barbecue without the grease and the fat.
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Chicken in caramel sauce
…while the Japanese teriyaki and the Vietnamese chicken in caramel sauce may appear similar, and even taste somewhat similar to the untrained diner, two dishes cannot be more unlike. While both have that sweet-salty flavor, Japanese teriyaki is sweetened with sake and mirin and salted with soy sauce, the Vietnamese chicken caramel is sweetened with sugar and salted with fish sauce. The only thing they have in common is the ginger.
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Beef and hofan soup
If only people would read and read well, they would know how useless it is to ask me to e-mail them recipes. If only people would read and read well, they would stop asking where the recipes are since the pagination links are very plain to see. I’m taking my own advice too. If only I read and read well, I wouldn’t have messed up all the dishes with hofan noodles that I have cooked in the past. Hofan noodles are not cooked. They are soaked in cold water for about half an hour, placed in a bowl and boiling broth is poured over them…
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Pho Hoa wins over Pho Bac
Sometimes, I get confused with these Pho restaurants. We used to frequent a Pho restaurant at the Glorietta and I think that was Pho Bac, the same restaurant with a branch at Robinson’s Galleria. Yesterday, we had lunch at Pho Hoa at Eastwood City and it wasn’t until the spring rolls were served that I realized we weren’t at a branch of the Pho restaurant at Glorietta and Galleria. But it wasn’t a bad thing, actually, since I was able to compare the food. The conclusion? Pho Hoa serves better food than Pho Bac.
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