Sweet and Sour secret

Another saturday night and a chance to go crazy in the kitchen, It took me less than an hour to get this ready and it wasnt so bad.

My brother taught me this secret sweet and sour sauce which, according to him, was passed on to him by a cook at the old kowloon house in makati, right beside the Sulo Restaurant in quad at what is now a Rapide auto shop.

By 2 pm i had taken out and thawed a tilapia fillet cut into 1 inch wide strips and 6 shrimp (about 100 grams worth peeled and deveined with tails on)

First season your seafood with salt and pepper and let sit for 10-15 mins

While waiting slice a small golf ball sized red onion into 6 wedges, about 12 1 inch squares of a bell pepper, thinly slice half a thumb size of ginger and a small tomato

Dust your seafood with corn starch and drizzle with a wet handful of water just to moisten the mix. coat evenly and deep fry all the seafood, dropping them into hot oil one at a time and nudging them in the pan to prevent sticking.

Remove them when lightly browned and drain on paper towels.

Now you can do the sauce. Saute in a little oil all your vegetables, just put them all at once in the pan and saute and turn heat on to high. As it starts to sizzle put your sweet and sour sauce ingredients in this order:

a tablespoon of catsup (i used one jollibee sachet) - stir
a tablespoon of soy - stir
a tablespoon of cane vinegar - stir
a tablespoon of sugar - stir
it should be sizzling now
now pour 4 oz or a half a small glass of orange juice (instant is fine)
now wait for it to simmer then turn the heat down to low.

The secret is in smelling the aroma wafting into the kitchen at this point. if it smells like vinegar, its not ready.

when the vinegar smell is gone, just combine the drained seafod into the mix and toss turn onto a plate and time to eat with white rice.

The chilled Gray Goose on ice helped push this dish along.

Seafood A1 (ewan)

Maybe I've been working too hard that I dont have time to put one more recipe on this spot. Everyday I prep something - old or new - for sure that recipe is not here.

My kids visited their grandmother today. Each visit is a cooking adventured filled with a lot of memories (and I can rack up a few after 50 years) from the old house in Pasay to the big house in BF so when my son and daughter told me they were having crabs today at Lola's, i could almost taste it...

We are surrounded by so much coastline that it would be criminal not to know how to prep at least one decent seafood dish. In and of itself, anything swimming in the water has to be delicate and will not take well to extreme flavor. I promised myself I would have to avoid broth cubes, too much salt, too much pepper which is so different from how I cook really . . .

This one is anchored on a basic bechamel flavored with onions, carrots and bell pepper - kinda like a mirepoix without the celery.

1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour
scant teaspoon of olive oil
1 glass of milk
1 tsp green tops of onion leek sliced fine
1 tsp basil cut chiffonade (rolled and sliced into strips) cut only before adding into the dish

1 small onion chopped fine
1 small carrot diced
1/2 a large green bell pepper diced

fillet of white fish (grouper, snapper, dory or tilapia) about as big as your palm sliced to approximate the size of the shrimp.
4 medium shrimp peeled and split lengthwise in two

salt and pepper to taste

You want to have a nice creamy white sauce so you will be working with a small to medium flame throughout.

Start with a medium size pan, drizzle the olive oil and butter and as the butter melts, add in your onions bell pepper and carrots.

As the onions wilt and get translucent sprinkle the flour and make sure its combined well into the cooking vegetables. Keep it moving so it will not burn. Now you can add your milk, slowly but completely stirring while pouring.

The mixture will start simmering along the sides. As bubbles start to form along the sides, turn your flame down to low

Now add the fish fillet and shrimp a little at a time and allow them to be submerged in the roux.

Cover and simmer for five minutes or until the seafood is poached until cooked. Salt and pepper to taste. To this sprinkle your chiffonade of basil and simmer for 2 mins more and you're ready.

Serve over hot rice, hot pasta or toasted crusty bread. I think if I added some cubed potatoes and chopped clams, it could be a good seafood chowder. Definitely chardonnay.

Asado ni Ima

Here I go again.

The real pleasure in eating is to rediscover that flavor that brings memories back. I guess I'm waxing romantic because I just hit the big 5-oh and long for that flavor now that my taste buds have been numbed by a half century of abuse.

The Chicken asado of my dear Capampangan grandmother has been replicated in its entirety first by my mother, then by our cook, Fe, who had the diligence and patience to actually write down the recipes she learned. This is the bottom line of taking the ordinary and transforming it into legend.

The succeeding words are not mine, but Fe's transcribed from her handwritten scribble. (i will try to translate into english as necessary)

Ingredient:

1 whole chicken
3 pcs garlic
2 tbdsp vinegar
1 onion
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 red bell pepper

Paraan ng pagluluto

Igisa ang sibuyas bawang soy sauce veingar and red bell pepper

(Sautee onions garlic soy sauce and bell pepper, cut into strips i might add)

ilagay ang manko na hinati sa pahaba sa ginisang sangkap at tubigan ng isang tasa

(Place the chicken split in half lengthwise on the sofrito and add i cup water)

at hayaang lumambot ayon sa gusto.

(allow to soften as desired, she obviously acquired the capampangan flair for vagueness)

at pagluto na ay alisin ang manok sa sabaw at patuluin ang manok.

(when done, remove from broth and allow chicken to drip - i guess you set aside and let the liquid from the chicken drain off)

at ang sabaw na natira palaputin sa pamamagitan ng cornstarch & flour

(with the remaining broth thicken with cornstarch & flour, now this part i dont understand, you can make a roux with flour or disperse cornstarch in an equal amount of water)

at bago ihain ang manok ay ifrito ng kunti and manok sa kunting mantika at pritohin ayon sa gustong laki pagkatapos iprito at ihain

(and before serving the chicken, fry in a little oil, that means brown on both sides, as desired, i prefer it a bit burnt over a high heat, then allow to sit in the sauce and baste before serving.)

I can't imagine this dish without salt or pepper. Just the nutty flavor of the fried chicken skin blending with the soy sauce, and the sweetness of bell pepper weaves a magic flavor uncomplicated by herbs and spices. Just the unfettered mixture of the chicken leached into the soy sauce.

I would definitely take a sauvignon blanc for this one

Pasta ni Ima'

In 1989 I took a trip to Rio de Janeiro and stopped by SFO on the way, spending a week with my brother, Bernard. Part of our plan was to watch Dianne Schuur but on the way, we got stuck in traffic on the Sta Monica freeway. We ended up getting a bottle of Absolut and headed back to his apartment. With nothing prepared for dinner he went ahead and showed me how to make a pasta dish that we used to eat in Pasay city at the house of Mercedes Santos vda. de Paras where our grandmother Rosa Tayag Maglutac worked as the chef well . . kusinera. I am convinced that she was our personal experience with what Chef Gene Gonzales described as the legendary sulipan chefs.

Their greatness was not in the use of complex exotic ingredients but in the transformation of the ordinary into legend.

Here goes. You will need

1 Pork knuckle (front or hind doesn't matter)
1 medium white onion chopped fine
1 small white onion peeled and kept whole
4 cloves of garlic crushed and chopped
1 12" stalk celery cut in half - chop half fine
1 medium carrot split in 2 - dice half into little cubes about 1/4 inch square.
500 gms. pasta
water or light chicken broth (in typical capampangan flair, just enough to cook the pasta)
1 bay leaf
Olive or Corn oil, or any oil that won't solidify, the tendons in the knuckle will take care of that.
1 tbsp. Annato seeds steeped in 1/4 cup of hot water
3 hotdog or sausage (not the red but the brown - german franks are fine) sliced diagonally
Salt and pepper to taste.

First make your stock

In cold water, place your knuckle, incl the small white onion, half the celery stalk, half the carrot and enough water to submerge the knuckle. Start the flame and as it starts to simmer, ladle out the scum coming up to the surface. Don't let it come to a rapid boil at once. As the scum disappears you can turn your flame up and let it come to a rolling boil. When the knuckle is cooked, you can tell when you pierce the center no blood comes out, remove the knuckle and pull the meat, skin and tendons off from the bone. Chop this fine.

The liquid should start giving off a grey color. Return the meat, skin and tendons you pulled back into the broth and let it boil rapidly until the liquid is reduced to about ahalf of its original volume. You will notice it has actually turned an absurd dark murky green color. This is what you're looking for. Take out the meats and set aside. Salt your broth, you will need about one teaspoon. Pepper lightly then Keep the broth!

Saute' the onions, garlic, carrots and celery. Allow to sweat until translucent. Add your meats and saute lightly until they are well blended with the sofrito. Now slowly add in your broth then your spaghetti. Ima, would split the raw noodles in half. As it comes to a boil add the liquid from the annato steeped in water, and drop in your bay leaf.

As the liquid starts to reduce, add your sausages and mix once to blend in with the mixture. Watch closely, it will be done in about 10 minutes.

Try not to stir it too much - as the spaghetti becomes al dente, your liquid should be a nice bright more yellow than green colored sauce, just thick enough to coat the individual strands of pasta.

Turn into a large dish and serve at once. I like to drizzle a bit of olive oil after its turned onto a plate.

If this gets cold, it tends to coagulate because of the tendons in the knuckle. It's not exactly your healthiest dish but a minute in the microwave should take care of that.

And there you are, paired with ice cold Absolut on the rocks with a twist of lemon and nice crusty bread and butter, you'll swear by it.