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.
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Chicken tinola and liver sauce
Tinolang manok or chicken soup with green papaya and chili leaves was a huge favorite with my family when my brother and I were growing up. My father taught me how to make a special dipping sauce to make the tinola experience even more satisfying — a mixture of mashed chicken liver with patis (fish sauce). I taught my own kids to eat tinola with chayote rather than green papaya, and I never had the opportunity to introduce them to green papaya and the mashed liver and patis dipping sauce until a few nights ago.
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Lumpiang ubod (heart of palm spring rolls)
The last time I made lumpiang ubod, my firstborn (now 15) was still a baby and we were living at my in-laws’. I had too many excuses for not making lumpiang ubod all these years — I had no non-stick pan to make those crepe-like wrappers, it was such a hassle going to the market so early in the morning for the ubod choice cuts, the weather’s too hot…
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Sinigang na ulo ng isda sa miso (fish head sour soup with miso)
Miso is a paste made by fermenting rice, barley or soybeans with salt and a mold. In Philippine cuisine, it is used for the dipping sauce that accompanies pesa. It is also used for sinigang.
Kanduli, a relative of the hito (catfish) is traditionally associated with sinigang sa miso. But large kanduli is not always easy to find in the wet markets…
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The heart and soul of Filipino food
My editor asked, ?What characterizes great Filipino food? The long hours of simmering? The recipes that have been handed down through generations? The bold flavor of Ilocos garlic and sibuyas Tagalog? Or is it simply the time a family spends in sitting down for a meal and then continues to share stories long after the food is gone??
I was transported to a night when my father labored over home-made siopao per my request when it would have been the easiest thing to drive to Binondo to buy a dozen…
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Chicken soup for a rainy day
Ham bones, especially those from Chinese ham, are wonderful for making soup. You just drop the bones in water, add onions and garlic and let everything simmer for an hour. The flavors from the bone will transfer to the water and you get a broth that is simply bursting with flavor.
But who has ham bones at this time of the year? Well, see, Majestic Ham sells bones by the kilo…
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Lasang Pinoy 14 (A la Espanyola): My father’s sarciado
About my father’s sarciado… of course, I had enjoyed this dish countless of times when I was growing up. But the day my husband ate my father’s sarciado, it became his standard for sarciado. I had just given birth to our firstborn, Sam, and on a visit, my father cooked his sarciado and a clam soup with malunggay. My husband couldn’t stop talking about the sarciado for days.
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Halaan (clams) and malunggay soup
The more common way of preparing this simple soup is to add sili leaves to the clams after the heat has been turned off. The pot is covered for a few minutes to allow the sili leaves to wilt before serving. But after I gave birth to my first child, my father would make this soup using malunggay leaves. Whether there is a scientific basis for it or it is simply another old wives’ tale, I am not sure, but my father said malunggay helped with the production of breast milk. He wanted the best for his granddaughter. 
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