About the Noche Buena blog
In my experience, between Christmas and New Year, the most harassed member of the family is the one assigned to cook. From the budgeting to the preparations to the actual cooking, the cook has to come up with ideas that will be an acceptable compromise to the individual tastes and preferences of every member of the family. Most times, the cook has to respect traditions too. Who says it's easy? It doesn't help that some guests can be so rude as to criticize the food they are served. I tell you, by the time New Year's Eve arrives, the cook starts to feel the stress.
Enter the noche buena blog. And enter a new philosophy in holiday cookery: Cooking for Christmas without frivolities; celebrating the New Year without excesses... (Continue reading →)
Recently
- Rice pudding with custard topping
- Spaghetti with longganisa (sausage) meatballs
- Chicken menudo
- Corn dogs
- Pork ears barbecue
- Corn muffins a la Kenny Rogers
- Chicken embutido
- Chicken in sour cream
- Melon and coconut milkshake
- Cucumber and coconut smoothie
Recent Comments
- on 'Rellenong manok (stuffed deboned whole chicken)'
- on 'Adobo, quail eggs and rice'
- on 'Rellenong manok (stuffed deboned whole chicken)'
- on 'Bangus belly steaks'
- on 'Corn muffins a la Kenny Rogers'
- on 'Corn muffins a la Kenny Rogers'
- on 'Fried lapu-lapu with pineapple sauce'
- on 'Fried lapu-lapu with pineapple sauce'
- on 'Tilapia fritters with honey-lemon sauce'
- on 'Fried lapu-lapu with pineapple sauce'
Ernest’s pancit canton with bacon-cut pork
That large platter of pancit canton in the photo (and that was only about 3/4 of the entire batch) contained only 300 grams of pork but, with the thin slices, there were more pork pieces than there would have been ordinarily had the meat been cut in bigger pieces. It’s a trick I learned from Stephen Yan. When there’s little meat, you stretch it — literally…
Adobo, quail eggs and rice
The first time I cooked this adobo, quail eggs and rice dish, I dropped the shelled hard boiled quail eggs into the adobo sauce and simmered them for a few minutes so that the eggs became light brown in color. I used chopped onion leaves for garnish.
The second time I cooked the same dish, I did not add the quail eggs until I was assembling the dish…
Fresh tropical fruits salad
There are no hard and fast rules as to what fruits can go into the salad. My family’s preferences include mangoes, melon, bananas, seedless grapes and apples. Papaya and pineapple are good choices too. You can even add buko to your fruit salad.
I recommend chilling the fruits (in the fridge, not in the freezer), as well as the cream and sweetened condensed milk, before preparing the salad…
Rellenong manok (stuffed deboned whole chicken)
The more traditional way of cooking stuffed deboned whole chicken is to leave only the bones in the wings. The thighs and drumsticks are deboned and stuffed as well. But that’s too much for me. I deboned the carcass, and as far as the thigh, but stopped there. BUT unlike most cooks who cut through the chicken breast to make deboning easier (they sew up the chicken during the stuffing part), I did no such thing…
Kalabasa (squash) and potato soup
If you’re planning on roasting a whole turkey, a jumbo chicken, a duck or a goose for Christmas and you’re worried about what to do with the leftovers, you can simmer the bones with herbs and spices, cool and freeze the broth. Then, when you start craving for something really simple after you’ve had your fill of the uber rich food on the Christmas dinner table, you can cook this hearty kalabasa (squash) and potato soup…
