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.
Continue reading 'A soup called bachoy' »
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…
Continue reading 'Adobong kangkong' »
Lunch on the beach
Unlike Boracay, the beach in Roxas City is more intimate. It looks more like a neighborhood affair rather than a posh resort community. On one side are the private residences and on the opposite side are the restaurants and watering holes. Behind them, a few meters farther from the sea, are the fields where salted fish dry under the sun.
On our third day in Roxas City, after the bangus harvest, we had lunch at one of the restaurants that dot the beach — Coco Veranda.
Continue reading 'Lunch on the beach' »
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.
Continue reading 'Chicken tinola and liver sauce' »
A typical lunch in Roxas City
After Boracay, we spent a few days in Roxas City. A friend, PJ Juinio, hails from the place and his parents built a beautiful home there to enjoy their retirement years by the sea. We stayed at the Junio residence, they brought us to their fish pond to witness a bangus (milkfish) harvest, we went sightseeing, we ate out… In short, we had a wonderful time.
But wonderful as restaurant fare in Roxas City was, there was still nothing better than a home-cooked meal. Let me show you a typical home-cooked lunch during our three-day stay at Roxas City.
Continue reading 'A typical lunch in Roxas City' »
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…
Continue reading 'Molo soup for a hot summer night' »
Gindara fillets in coconut cream
I intended to grill the gindara over the weekend. But I got up so late, forgot to thaw anything from the freezer overnight and the kids would be home for lunch. They spent the morning preparing for the school fair and we will all be there later in the afternoon. So, there I was, sipping my first cup of coffee for the day at 11.45 a.m. and the kids were due home in about 30 minutes… (Believe it or not) The kids were home no more than five minutes before lunch was ready.
Continue reading 'Gindara fillets in coconut cream' »
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.
Continue reading 'Pinatisang bangus (milkfish soup with fish sauce)' »
