Cream Puff

It's my son's birthday and my daughter and I could not decide what kind of birthday cake to buy. At first, the plan was to go to a French bakery, but I only like the Tiramisu from that place. We opted not to get a big cake, because that means we have to finish and nobody likes the extra calories even on birthdays. My daughter ended in buying the cream puffs from Beard Papa's (japanese pastry shop) near her work. The cream puff are really good and depending on what is special for the day, you can get flavored cream custard. Yesterday, the flavor of the day was sesame. Not the greatest, but I would like to try the mango or the strawberry next time. Maybe when I get lucky.

VIETNAMESE SPRING ROLLS

This recipe was given to me by my friend's wife. She's into healthy food and anybody who wants tasty and healthy food should try this. Everyone enjoys the lumpiang shanghai, even my non Filipino friends and relatives. This better version of the "lumpiang prito" or lumpiang shanghai is really healthy, because it has more veggies that meat.

2 lbs Ground chicken or turkey
2 onions, minced
2 big carrots, shredded
3 bunches of green onions, chopped
finely sliced soaked fungus mushrooms (I didn't have it last time)
2 small bundles of vermicelli (sotanghon), cooked, cut in small strands & drained
3-4 tablespoons soy sauce cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon nuoc mam (patis)
1/4 tsp white pepper
1 tbsp cooking oil
2-50 sheets medium size lumpia wrapper

Heat oil in pan and saute the onions (until transparent), add mushrooms then ground meat and condiments. Let liquid evaporate.
When meat is done, add carrots and green onions (don't over cook).
Put cooked mixture in a bowl and add the cooked vermicelli. Mix well.
Roll a tablespoon of mixture in the lumpia wrapper. Deep fry the rolls.

Put rolls in a platter and serve with romaine lettuce, mint, green onions and lumpia sauce (commercial sweet sour sauce from asian market) or homemade sauce,

Homemade sauce:
One part patis
One part lemon
one part vinegar
one part water
add little sugar, chili sauce & small amt of grated carrots

Actually the recipe seems to have less meat in relation to the amount of veggies and vermicelli but it just turns good that way.

You can prepare the lumpia ahead of time and freeze them.
If frozen, don't thaw - cook straight in hot oil.

CHICKEN CURRY

2 lbs chicken, cut into pieces
1 thumbsize ginger, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium size onion, minced
2 carrots, cut into 2 in pcs
1 big potato, cut into squares
2 squares of Japanese curry paste

Season chicken with salt ang pepper before frying. Heat 3 tbsp cooking oil and fry the chicken until golden brown on both sides. Remove and set aside. In the remaining oil, saute the ginger, garlic and onions until soft. Add the chicken back and add 1/2 cup to 1 cup water. After 10 min add potatoes and carrots.Cook chicken until tender. Check chicken if done. Add in the curry paste and mix until it is well blended. Make sure to stir and add water if necessary if the sauce is too thick. Turn off the heat and cover for 2 min before serving. Serve over hot rice.

PAELLA

If we are having Paella for dinner, does that mean that we are celebrating? Yes it is true that we have Paella once in a blue moon because it is not easy to make and requires a lot of ingredients. I have to correct myself on this. It is easy to make if you do it in two steps. Cook the meat and freeze it until you are ready to eat. Adding the rice to the mix means, you will have dinner in only30-40 minutes. Otherwise, from start to finish, this dish will take at least 2 hours to make.

I also have another secret to make this dish exceptional. Recently, I saw in one of the cooking shows that adding "sofrito" will make the yellow rice tastier than ever. I have provided the link to the recipe from Daisy Martinez at Daisy Cooks .

From now on, it is not necessary that we can only have Paella for special occasions. We can have anytime we feel we like it.

here's the recipe:
1 lb chicken, cut into pieces
1 lb pork, preferable cut up ribs

1 or 2 pcs of chorizo de bilbao, or chinese sausage or keilbasa
1 lb shrimp, unpeeled if available

1 box New Zealand mussels or or 1 bag of Manila clams
2-3 big tomatoes, cut into small pieces
1 big onion, minced
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 red/green pepper, cut into strips ( divide into 2)
2-3 pieces of bay leaf
achuete (food color) or Goya Sazon powder
olive oil
patis
regular cooking rice and sweet rice (malagkit)- proportion 2 to 1
½ cup frozen green peas
½ cup raisins

Heat 3 tbsp cooking oil in a big cooking pot. Fry the chorizo pieces until brown, Remove when done. Set aside. In the same pan, fry crushed garlic until brown, then add tomatoes. Cook for a minute or so until soft, then add minced onions. Add the chicken and pork pieces and sauté for few minutes. Add patis to the mixture and let the meat absorb the patis by covering the pan. Lower the temp to medium high. Stir around the meat until all pieces are all brown on all sides. Add 2 cups water (or enough water to cover the meats halfway). Add the fried chorizo, ½ of the cut up red pepper, bay leaf and achuete. Wait for mixture to boil, then lower temperature to low. Cover the pot and check after few minutes to see if meat is tender enough (half cooked only) When cool, remove the meat from the cooking liquid and set aside to be used in cooking the rice/sweet rice mix.

Cook the mussels in a small amount of water until it opens (less than a minute) and set aside the cooking liquid. Cook the shrimp separately also if using big size shrimps, otherwise, small ones can be added on the rice mixture.

Combine 2 cups and 1 cup malagkit (amout of rice can be doubled at 2 – 1 proportion) with the cooking liquid from the meat. Add any cooking liquid from the mussels if not enough. Same proportion of water and rice should be used as when you’re cooking regular rice. You can use a large non-stick frying pan or in rice cooker ( use less water and watch and wait until rice cooks). Cook at high temp. and when water is almost absorbed, lower heat and add the chichen, pork and shrimps (if using small ones), green peas, raisins and the rest of the sliced red pepper and mix. Add salt (patis) and pepper according to taste. Add a little bit more liquid and small amount of oil at the bottom (to avoid the rice sticking at the bottom of the pan) of frying pan. Cover and wait until the rice is thoroughly cooked. Keep checking so that nothing sticks at the bottom of the pan if cooking in frying pan. At this point, should you see the tutong, as you flip the rice over, simply remove and set aside, so it would not mix with rest.

When cooking in rice cooker, remove the partially rice as soon at timer gets off and transfer to frying pan with small amount of oil and add ingredients mentioned above and cook the mixture in low temp until the rice is thoroughly cooked. When I started cooking paella, I used the rice cooker, to make sure the rice will be cooked. Adding water to partially cooked rice will not result to the perfect texture that you want to achieve. Eventually, after few trial and error, I can now cook the rice just from the liquid from cooking the meat and the mussels.

For those who have tried my recipe, let me know, if you have problems or questions. It is not easy to put into words when your hands do the cooking. I tried to remember each and every step, but I might have missed some explanations along the way.

HALABOS NA HIPON (my version)

We had this appetizer last New Year's Eve. I heard a long time ago in the Chinese tradition, it is good luck to have shrimps on the table for New Year's eve.

1 lb of shrimps with head, if possible
1/2 cup 7-up or lemon lime soda
2 pc of small chile (sileng labuyo)
Sliced scallion for decoration

Heat the frying pan for a minute. Add the shrimps and the 1/2 cup lemon lime soda, instead of water. Add the cut up chile and cover. Flip the pan once and cover after 2 minutes. Cook the shrimps for 3-4 minutes only until the shrimps turns pink. Serve hot with sliced scallions.

Dipping Sauce:
grated ginger, equivalent to 1 tsp
1 tbsp oil
3 tbsp light soy sauce

Mix all the ingredients in a small bowl and top with sliced scallion.

BIBINGKA

I got this recipe from my cousin from California. I did not make any change to the proportions as it is good as is. I did try to make variations, using feta cheese instead of the Philly cheese. Either way, my bibingka always taste like what I had back home during the Christmas holidays. Hey, you don't have to wait for Christmas to eat bibingka.

4 whole eggs
1 1/4 cups of sugar
1 cups Bisquick pancake mix
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup Mochico rice flour
1 cup sour cream

salted eggs (itlog na maalat – red painted eggs)
Philadelphia cream cheese

Beat eggs thoroughly. Continue beating while adding the sugar. Add the dry ingredients, Bisquick mix, baking powder and the rice flour to the mixture. Fold in the sour cream to the mix. Turn on the oven to 350 degrees.

Pour the mixture onto 2 round 8 in pie pans lined with banana leaves. Bake at 350 degrees for 5 min. Bring out the pans and garnish with sliced salted eggs and sliced cream cheese. Return to the oven to bake for another 20 min or until golden brown.

Remove from the oven and spread butter on top. Serve with grated coconut, if available.

Pictures of the bibingka were posted somewhere in my blog. I will upload a picture next time I make this comfort food.

SPICY TAHONG WITH GARLIC

This has been my favorite appetizer since I learned how to make this dish. It is simple to make and once you taste the first one, you definitely have to have another one.

1 box big Tahong (usually from New Zealand, comes in half shell)
1 head of garlic, minced
5 ( or more) sileng labuyo, fresh or dried, cut into small pieces
2 tbsp butter or margarine
1 tbsp cooking oil
1/2 cup bread crumbs

Cook the tahong in the microwave for a minute and then set aside.

Heat up the up cooking oil and the butter. Fry the sileng labuyo for few seconds, then add the garlic. Fry the garlic until golden brown. Add the cooked tahong without any liquid and mix well to make sure each piece of tahong gets some garlic/fried sileng labuyo in it. Cover the pan for a minute. Mix again and then sprinkle the breadcrumbs all over the tahong. If it looks a little bit dry, add a little bit oil and if it looks to wet, add more breadcrumbs. Depending on your tolerance for heat, I usually add more than 5 sileng labuyo. It is a good pulutan.

Depending on your tolerance for heat, you can use 5 to 8 sileng labuyo. I usually like to add more than 5 sileng labuyo. It is a good pulutan.