Dinner to Party Part Deux

I am sharing with you guys the shrimp recipe I mentioned in my previous posting and the perfect accompaniment, coconut rice! I would say that this is a fusion meal since Lasing na Hipon is a Filipino/Spanish dish while coconut rice is Thai. The best thing about this is how simple preparations can intensify the flavor of your ingredients. The head of the shrimp has all this fat that melts into the garlic/butter/brandy sauce when cooked. This makes the sauce a very bright orange that tastes a little salty and creamy. This, in turn, makes the flesh of shrimp taste sweeter.

The recipe is about as simple as it gets and I always recommend it to my friends (only because I can’t remember all ingredients for other more complicated dishes that I make). I am going to let the picture do all the talking here because it is as good as it looks.

Lasing na Hipon:

1 lb of shrimp with heads

6 cloves of garlic

½ stick of butter

2 tbsp of good brandy or cognac

cilantro for garnish

salt and pepper to taste

Chop garlic and lightly brown with butter in a large pan. Add the shrimp and after after it turns pink, add the brandy.  You may add salt and pepper at this point to your liking. Those who are not used to cooking with alcohol, this is the point where you might want have a fire extinguisher at hand (preferably one of your guest). It tends to flame up as the heat cooks of the alcohol. Let the shrimp brown and serve it with chopped fresh cilantro on top.

This coconut rice recipe is from Sandra Lee and I absolutely love it. I have been told that if you want to increase the portion of the rice, one needs to put slightly more water and cook for a bit longer.

Coconut Rice:

2 cups of jasmine rice

1 ½ cups of water

1 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk

1 teaspoon kosher salt

Place all ingredients in a sauce pan and bring it to a boil. Stir and reduce the heat to the lowest possible setting and then cover the pan with a tight lid. Cook for another 15 minutes.

Dinner to Party

Laing, Shrimp, Daing na Bangus, Itlog na Maalat, and Rice... of course, what meal is complete without the perfect cocktail: Sangria!

Since I have been doing these dinner parties for my friends, I have gotten many requests to make all sorts of meals. I’ve gotten requests to make Hallal food or gluten-free or vegan non-dairy or to do themed dinner parties. Everybody has different dietary needs and for those who know me-I am always most willing to accommodate. I love the challenge. However, if there is anything that I fear the most and unfortunately the most requested, is making an entirely Filipino meal.

Now, I am a self-confessed lazy cook. Filipino food is not for lazy people. My biggest complaint is all the chopping and prep work involved with Filipino dishes. The amount of garlic and onion we use in every dish is enough to keep you chopping in the kitchen for days.  This is where you can put your guests to work! Have a friend do the chopping or bartender or be in charge of the music. With a little planning and free-flowing sangrias, cooking collectively can turn a dinner into a party in the kitchen!

The menu for this dinner party, as shown in the picture above, consists of the following below.  There’s  a lot of material to cover here so I am going to split this Dinner to Party post into two entries. In the mean time, I am sharing with you three recipes.

• Laing- taro leaves cooked in coconut milk
• Lasing na hipon- shrimp cooked in garlic and cognac
• Daing na Bangus - fried milkfish
• Itlog na maalat- salted duck eggs
• Sangria- red wine drink with fruits
• Casava cake- (not shown) dessert using casava root and coconut milk

The main dish in this meal is centered on a humble fish known to the Filipinos as Bangus or Milk fish. Milkfish is common to Latin America, especially in countries at Pacific-side of the continent. It is also a very important seafood in Southeast Asia.  The most common way to serve this fish is to fry it up. This dish is called Daing na Bangus. There is no real process in making this other than marinating the milkfish in vinegar, 1 tbsp of salt, peppercorns, and whole cloves of garlic for about 2 days. The vinegar cooks the fish while marinating but as long as the fish is in the refrigerator, it should be fine and won’t break apart. When time comes to fry the fish, make sure that the oil (vegetable or peanut oil) covers about half an inch of the pan and piping hot. If you introduced the fish in just just  warm oil, the fish will fall apart. Once the fish start frying you can lower the heat until it is time to turn and then raise the temperature once again.

Salted Duck Eggs

Anything that is fried needs to be balanced out by something fresh. The fried milkfish is often served with salted egg salad and atsara, a pickled papaya side dish and vinegar with garlic and chili for dipping. Salted egg is a literal translation of Itlog Na Maalat which is a duck egg that is buried (yes buried!) for 18 days under a mixture of soil, salt and water. The membrane of the duck egg slowly absorbs the salt hence giving its name and the soil, keeps the eggs tempered.  I am not really sure if it is a salad. I only started calling it a salad because I don’t know what else to call it. The salad part is the fresh tomatoes mixed in with the salted egg. This pairing is a match made in food heaven…AH-MAZING!

For those who are looking for a refreshing summer drink, sangria is the way to go. With sangria, there are  permutation of ways to make it. The recipe below is more like a sangria/tinto verano drink- the difference between the two? Seven up.

Sangria/Tinto Verano:2 parts red wine1 part lemon/lime soda. I always drink 7 up but there are others out there

Fruits chopped in smaller pieces: red and green apple, oranges, peaches.

Mix the whole thing in a large pitcher and lots of ice to make the perfect drink!

I like people who eat…

As penance in neglecting all my friends during the school year, I’ve instituted dinner get-togethers for the summer. Secretly, it’s just a way for me to have more material for the blog, call it research and my friends, my lab rats. But honestly, the trouble with cooking as a hobby is that most reciped serves 4 but there’s only one person (me) who’s eating it. So what do you have? Left overs. I am all for bringing food for lunch but having the same thing for one week is tiring. So I came up with a genius plan to invite lots of people who will eat my food! It’s a win-win and my friends will never go hungry. The only catch is in order to get the free meal, you have to climb the five flights of stairs up to my apartment. I encourage my guest to think of it as working up an appetite! hehehe…

The first dinner party’s menu consisted of Fresh Salsa with Blue Corn Chips, Pork BBQ ribs, Mac and Cheese and Red Velvet Cupcakes.  Everything in this meal can be prepared ahead of time.  The pork bbq is cooked halfway in a slow cooker. This cooks the meat in its own juices and the low heat tenderizes not only the muscles but all the ligaments and joints that connects the meat to the bone. Low heat + extended period of time = meat that falls right off the bone. The ribs can be stored with the sauce in the refrigerator for a few days. One can then finish “cooking” it  in the broiler to caramelize the sugars in the bbq sauce.

The perfect side for this meal, mac and cheese,  is actually best when it sits in the freezer before cooking. This gives the pasta to absorb some of the dairy and binds them together to make a nice casserole. Once all the work is done half way, you have more time entertaining and enjoying the company of your friends even on a weeknight!

The Pork BBQ calls for the following ingredients:

1 bottle of light beer

2 tbsp of Dijon mustard

Salt and pepper

3 lbs of country style pork ribs with bone (you can use beef if you want)

1 bottle of stubbs medium heat BBQ sauce

½ cup of Brown sugar

Corn starch

Place the meat in a shallow dishpan or zip lock bag. Rub the meat down with the Dijon mustard and season with salt and pepper. Pour over 1 bottle of beer (enough to cover the meat) and let it marinate for about an hour at room temperature (maybe put it in the fridge if it is hot like today). Take the meat out and put it in a slow cooker with half the bottle of bbq sauce. Let it cook at low temperature for 6 hours or high for 4 hours.

Once cooked, take the ribs out and place it in a baking dish and pour the juice on a sauce pan (If you are using pork, there’s going to be a lot of fat, try and get the sauce that is under that layer of fat) You want to cook down the BBQ sauce at this point so it will be nice and thick. To do this, you add brown sugar and corn starch on to the sauce while whisking it briskly. Once thickened, pour it over the ribs and place it under the broiler for 30 minutes or until the sugar in BBQ sauce caramelizes.

The mac and cheese recipe is from my favorite cooking magazine, Saveur. Not only do they give you recipes but they feature fun articles that is ecumenical and informative. In their May 2010 issue, they did a whole feature in the anatomy of a refrigerator,  a glossary of olives, and Kenyan food culture . If this is not enough to entice you, they certainly deliver a feast for your eyes. Their photographers are the best in making food as rustic and homey as possible. Check out this spread of recipes for summer tomatoes!

Helen’s Macaroni and Cheese

Makes 6-8 servings

17tbsp. butter (melting 16 tbsp)

1 ½ lbs dried elbow macaroni

7 lightly packed cups shredded shard cheddar cheese

2 cups canned evaporated milk

2 tbsp sugar

salt and freshly ground white pepper

*Tabasco sauce for a kick when serving

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a rectangular 4 quart casserole dish with 1 tbsp of the butter and set aside. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add macaroni and cook until soft, 8-10 minutes. Drain and rinse macaroni.

(Ok, I know all the pasta-purist out there would have gone to a screeching halt and up-rage with rinsing the elbow macaroni. This is usually a big no no in the pasta world because you wash away all the natural starch on the pasta that helps it bind with the sauce. However in this case, the cheese mixture does not need any help because it already binds very well. The starch would thicken it even more and it has a tendency to make it dry and cakey)

2. Transfer the rinsed macaroni to a large bowl. Add 5 ½  cups of the cheese, evaporated milk, 16 tbsp of melted butter, sugar, salt and freshly ground white pepper to taste. Stir the macaroni mixture well; transfer the mixtures to the prepared casserole dish and spread out evenly with a spatula. Top with remaining 1 ½ cups cheese.

(You can freeze the mac and cheese up until this point and take it out when ready to put in the oven, no thawing necessary)

3. Bake until hot throughout and light golden brown on top, about 20 minutes. Set aside to let it rest for 10 minutes, then serve.

One pan meal: Roasted Cornish Hens and Green Beans

If anyone wants a quick and easy dinner for two, roasted Cornish hens are the perfect meal to serve that does not require that much fuss. The best part about it, you only use one roasting pan!

Depending how hungry you are, one cornish hen is enough to split with two people. These birds have a lot of more fat than regular chickens so they tend to stay more moist in the oven. Just clean the bird thoroughly and pat it dry before prepping it. Insert sprigs of cilantro and lemon inside the cavity. Using your index finger, separate the skin from the breast meat and stuff it with fresh cilantro as well. Using one tablespoon of soft butter, give the bird a rub down then season it with salt and pepper. Prop up your cornish hens with the string beans and quartered onions also seasoned with salt and pepper. Drizzle some olive oil on the bird and the green beans and place in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour under 375 degrees until the bird is done. The green beans will need turning half way through so make sure you keep an eye out.

I know that the green beans will cook a lot faster than the bird but the good thing about roasting vegetables with the cornish hens is that it also gets flavor from the drippings of the bird. My other favorite side veggie that will also go well with this meal are brussel sprouts because they roast longer and also very hearty. I prefer them really crunchy and almost burnt with generous seasoning of salt that brings out the sweetness in the roasted greens. Once done, let the bird rest for a few minutes before cutting and sprinkle some fresh lemon juice on top.

**I also served this meal with caprese salad as an appetizer. It’s just ripe steak tomatoes, fresh basil, mozzarella, salt, pepper and olive oil which I am including a picture of only because this is a food blog and I will take every chance to post pictures of food.

Great Balls of Meat

Bola Bola Mestiza with French Fries

Meatballs are a staple in every culture. There’s the traditional Italian Meatball and Spaghetti, or Kofta with Middle Eastern countries, and of course, Swedish Meatballs- made popular again since it is served at your neighborhood IKEA cafes. In the Philippines,  we have “Bola bola Mestiza” or White Meatballs. The dish gets its name because the recipe calls for ground pork, which makes the meatballs lighter than the traditional beef-veal meatball combination.

I experimented with this dish before and if there is anything that I learned, is to never underestimate the simple stuff. The first time was a complete disaster because as it turns out, I don’t know how to make something as simple as meatballs. So finally one day, using this blog as an excuse, I asked my mom what is the secret to this dish. I learned two things: first is that it is all about the process. Knowing what you put into a dish is only half the battle. My mom told me that Bola Bola mestiza requires the meatballs to be par-boiled before browning in the pan while as other meatballs are either fried and/or baked. The boiling process keeps the meat moist and succulent.

Second thing she taught me is using the right ingredients. This meatball requires a specific kind of breadcrumbs, Goya’s Maria Cookies to be exact. These cookies are usually sold in the international aisle of the grocery. Individually these cookies are quite sweet and buttery. They doesn’t crumble like your regular sugar cookies. Instead, they have the consistency of your regular saltines. Maria Cookie breadcrumbs is used to bind the meatball and it is also thickens the soy sauce-based the gravy.

The meatball is crunchy in the outside but really sweet and juicy inside. The fresh cilantro adds a really nice fresh savory aroma. The gravy is also sweet and it is also good as topping on French fries!

I know this all sounds so strange but trust me this is a very simple recipe and perfect as appetizers!

Bola Bola Mestiza

You can probably see all the fat coming out of the meatballs here since pork is very oily. This is very good because it will be the same oil that will be browning the meatballs later.

Meatball recipe:

1 lb ground pork

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

2 tbsp fresh cilantro, minced

1 tsp of rice wine vinegar

½ cup of Maria Cookie breadcrumbs

Gravy:

1 cup of soy sauce

1 cup of vinegar

1 to 1 ½ cup of Maria Cookie breadcrumbs

½ brown sugar

2 tbsp of lemon juice

Mix all the meatball ingredients and form them in about one-tablespoon size balls. Place the meatballs in a skillet with water going up halfway of your meatballs. Boil them until cooked and pale. Once the water has already evaporated, the oil from the meatball will help them brown on the skillet.

While the meatballs are simmering, combine the soy sauce and vinegar in a small saucepan over low heat. Add the brown sugar slowly stirring until dissolved. Once all the sugar is in the mixture, start adding the breadcrumbs with a whisk.  Keep adding the breadcrumbs until the sauce is thick and continuously whisking. The last thing to go in is the lemon juice before pouring over the meatballs and serve hot.

Just a few tips here.  Make sure you use fresh cilantro because it is amazing with ground meat. The gravy is a little tricky so make sure you let your sauce take a “breather” every time you add your breadcrumbs. Sometimes, it already reached its capacity but it may still look watery. This is one of my misstep when I made this dish but otherwise, the I am so proud of my bola bola mestiza.

Couscous and Sausages

Whenever I find myself in my neighborhood supermarket, I am always on the look out of ready-in-minutes type of food. They just make my life so easy especially when I want something home made but simple, flavorful, and inexpensive. I’ve decided to add to this blog entries for “Easy Meals” created entirely out of store-bought and ready made/pre-packaged food. As a busy gal myself, I want people to not be afraid of finding new ways to nourish yourself and excite your senses. There are so many choices out there and believe me, it’s not always good. I hope to be able to recommend some good quality products that you should look out for on your neighborhood grocery and eventually become staples in your kitchen.

Couscous and sausage is probably now my most favorite “Easy Meals” to prepare. Al Fresco’s Spinach and Feta sausage is gluten free and contains all-natural ingredients. The sausages come fully-cooked (boiled) so that they have a longer shelf-life. I find that the sausages are well balanced in flavor.  I am always hesitant to buy chicken sausages because they tend to be very dry inside. However, the rosemary and the feta cheese from this brand of sausage really compliment each other because it adds a savory milky taste to an otherwise dry sausage. The best way to cook this is to pan sear it to give it color on all sides with just a little bit of vegetable oil. I have thrown this over a grill before but the juices tend to drip out of the sausage when cooking over fire and so by searing it, the juices remain inside the sausage. This sausage can also be great as appetizers for dinner parties.

Next up is Casbah Couscous in Lemon Spinach. This box couscous comes pre-packaged with dried herbs and spices so all you literally do is add hot water and some oil to hydrate these semolina granules. Since it is dry herbs, the flavor is very strong. You can really taste and smell the lemon on this and I think it might have been a little too much. I think this brand of couscous would work very well with simple seasoned meats and so the sausage really went well with it. This will also go well with steaks or grilled cubes of beef with salt and pepper seasonings

Summer Meets Meat

What summer would not be complete without a blog post on barbecue and grilling! Vegetarians, be warned. This post is not for you. There is an overload of meat recipes in here–it is offensive!

Now that I have the disclaimer out of the way, I am sharing with you my family’s favorite grill recipes. These recipes–or more correctly, these marinades take little preparation. The bulk of the work is buying all the ingredients from the grocery store. After that, you are a few hours from enjoying the best part of summer.

First dish  is an asian-style short ribs. My mom call’s this “Mary’s Ribs”. The name might suggest something biblical or cannibalistic at first glance but I assure it’s neither. My mom’s friend, Mary taught her the recipe (and at some point the name of the dish) but given my mom’s short-term memory, we have come to know this dish only in reference to my mom’s friend. Hence the birth of “Mary’s Ribs”.

Mary’s Ribs is all about the marinade. Combine all ingredients below and let it marinate 24 hours before grilling. The following feeds 4 people:

3 lbs of flank-style short ribs

1 cup of black bean paste

1 cup of hoisin sauce

½ cup of soy sauce

5 tbsp of cognac

3 tbsp of honey

salt and pepper to taste

The thick marinade makes the rib sticky so a little oil on the grill makes cleaning super easy later. It can also be guaranteed that the sauce will be all over your face after eating these ribs. The hoisin sauce and black bean paste makes the meat tangy and sweet. The sugars in the marinade caramelize very nicely and picks up the smoky flavor of the coal. The most important ingredient in here is actually the cognac.  It lends its mild fruity and fragrant taste after each bite and it gives a final kick as you lick your fingers and lips.

The next recipe has no name and it is just known to us as “Inihaw na Baboy” or “Grilled Filipino Pork Belly”. This is a very tricky meat to grill because pork is very fatty and it really aggravates the fire. You have to keep a close eye when grilling pork because too much fire will turn your meat into charcoal. I prefer a thicker cut for this meat (about ½ an inch) because the pork does not burn or dry too fast.

Filipino-style Grilled Pork Belly

On the foreground is the Inihaw na Baboy, steak with Famous Dave's BBQ sauce, and Mary's Ribs. We did have veggies after all: grilled corn, potato salad and broccoli!

3 lbs of sliced pork belly

1 cup of white vinegar

1 cup of seven up or sprite

6 cloves of garlic

1 tbsp of crushed whole black pepper

2 tbsp of kosher salt

Since the sauce is vinegar-based, the meat absorbs the flavor faster so it is ok to marinate the meat for 3 hours before grilling. Anything longer cooks the meat and makes it very sour. Remember, we are not pickling the meat here. Once that meat hits the grill you can definitely smell the garlic on them. The dipping sauce for this meat is a matter of preference. We normally serve 3 things, the sweet and spicy Thai chili sauce, Vietnamese fish sauce, or my favorite, vinegar with garlic which reinforces the flavor of the marinade. The meat itself picks up a char taste but the fat on the pork is definitely sweet and sour which keeps the pork tender and juicy.

Canned Bread Is Good

Gorrilla Bread

I generally don’t do a lot of baking. I can make my own bread if I have to, but since I have a really fabulous bakery near me and the price of a nice crusty baguette is only $1.50, there’s really no need for me to get my hands dirty. I tend to prefer my breads and desserts to be store bought or prepared by others. On the rare occasion that I do, I always make Gorilla Bread because it is quick and hassle-free.

Despite the name, Gorilla Bread, there are no actual gorillas included in the recipe . In fact it has nothing to do with gorillas, bananas or rainforest. The name “Gorilla bread”  is actually a reference to the appearance of the bread when it comes out from the oven. The bread is made from assembling small dough breads filled with cream cheese and placed in a bundt pun with cinnamon and brown sugar.  When the bread is ready, it comes out dark brown and almost like gorilla fingers.  It’s sister recipe is the Monkey Bread which is like the Gorilla bread sans cream cheese.

The original recipe calls for the following:

½ cup of sugar

1 tbsp of cinnamon

20 buttermilk canned refrigerator biscuits (you can get more if you have a large bundt pan)

8 oz of cream cheese, cut into 20 cubes

1 stick of butter, plus more for the pan

1 cup of brown sugar

1 ½ cup of walnuts

You would need to butter your pan and flour it, even if it is a non-stick pan, it will be easier for you to take the bread out of the pan later. Combine the sugar with the cinnamon and sprinkle each buttermilk biscuit with it. Then stuff each biscuit with a cube of cream cheese. On another pan, combine the brown sugar and butter until both melt into a nice butter mixture. Take your bundt pan and layer walnuts, cream-cheese filled biscuits, and butter mixture. Then repeat steps beginning with the nuts. Bake the bread at 350 degrees for 30 minutes and remove the bread immediately from the pan.

As you can see that there is a lot of sugar action going on here. When I was younger, I would be glad to bring on the toothache. Unfortunately, as you get older, you tend to watch out for any kind of ache (dental or otherwise) as a sign that something bad is going to happen. Since the recipe can be customized to your taste, I tend to maybe use half of the sugar mentioned and go easy on the butter. It is best to eat the bread warm so that the cream cheese is still gooey and a little bit salty while the caramel is sweet and the bread is buttery.

Meals we share

From all my travels all over the world, I’ve always wondered what inspires tastes. It’s definitely not the same for each culture much less for each person. But one thing that everybody can agree on is that we all need to eat and nourish our body and it is best to eat when sharing it.

To kick things off here at The Supplement, I am starting my blog about my recent trip to Norrkoping, Sweden. The town has about a little over a hundred thousand people but despite it being a small city, there is a large student population. I visited this lovely town because my dearest and oldest friend, Joy is getting married to the love of her life and best friend, Marcus. And for the rehearsal dinner, we had inbakad oxfile (pronounced as in-BAH-kahd ox-FEE-leh) or in plain English, Beef Wellington… which is basically a kind of roast beef wrapped in a pastry with mushroom and ham paste. Both the bride and groom are great cooks and everything is prepared with love and care. I am stealing a picture from Joy’s blog from the first time they made this dinner but I guarantee you it looks just as good this time!

inbakad oxfile with roasted tomatoes

The mushroom paste adds a really bold flavor to the meat and the puff pastry around it absorbs the flavor of the paste and the aroma of the meat. It was buttery, flaky and salty… each bite was just in perfect harmony even though you really wouldn’t think so. I highly suggest to check out the full recipe here.

For their second evening as husband and wife, I offered to cook the newlyweds a fail-safe perfect American family dinner recipe: baked pasta with breaded chicken cutlet. When I say fail-safe, I mean really, it’s idiot proof since it is basically assembling things together. It’s something I learned how to make because I was a poor college student and I didn’t have enough time or money for grand meal without eating fast food. It is great to make ahead of time when people are coming over during the middle of the week and still impress your friends.

Baked Penne with Breaded Chicken Breast

You need a box of tube pasta, preferably ziti or penne boiled al dente, take your preferred jar pasta sauce and crushed tomatoes and mix them together. Once your pasta and sauce is mixed, let it cool on the side so that the pasta absorbs the sauce.You take a small container of ricotta and you mix it with salt, oregano, and basil. Then start layering the pasta with extra sauce and ricotta and mozzarella cheese. I prefer to make more sauce because if you decide to freeze the dish first, the pasta absorbs the sauce and by the time you bake it, the dish will not be dry. Once you are done layering, you can let it cool for a little bit (or freeze until dinner time). Bake at 350 degrees until the cheese on top melts and you can see the sauce bubbling. The chicken is also self-explanatory. Just make sure that the chicken breasts are even in thickness so it would cook evenly. Chicken. Salt. Pepper. Flour. Beaten Egg. Breadcrumbs. Fry. Done. Enjoy!

Two Cooks from Two Cities: Joy and Kristine united again!