Posts made in January, 2014

Rellenong Alimasag ( Fried Stuffed Blue Swimmer Crab)

Rellenong Alimasag ( Fried Stuffed Blue Swimmer Crab)

When I was a child (noong bata pa si ‘Sabel), Rellenong Alimasag was only served during special occasions. Why? Because it takes a lot of time to prepare it. Nowadays, you can buy canned, peeled, crabmeat; but it doesn’t come up to par to the laborious, old-fashioned method. Alimasag is also known as Blue Swimmer Crab. Alimasag is much sweeter than Mud Crab or Alimango. Try and choose crabs that are similar in size so that there is no fight at the table. All the effort in preparing this dish is worth it. Ingredients: 1 kilo alimasag (blue swimmer crabs) – rinse with cold water and drain. Place crabs in large saucepan and sprinkle 1 teaspoon of salt all over the crabs. DO NOT ADD WATER; THE WATER INSIDE THE CRABS WILL SUFFICE TO COOK CRABS. Place sauce pan over low heat and cover. Cook crabs for 20 minutes or til the crabs turn orange. Remove from heat and uncover and cool. Now comes the tedious part; remove and pick the crab meat from the crab, including the meat from the legs. Save the top shell of crab (carapace); that is where you will put the mixture. Set aside the crab meat. 2 tablespoons cooking oil 1/4 cup finely chopped onions 2 tablespoons chopped spring onions 1/4 cup finely chopped tomato – remove seeds before chopping 1 tablespoon Mirin 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper 1/4 teaspoon sea salt 2 whole eggs – well beaten till frothy flour for dusting tops of stuffed crab 1 cup cooking oil for frying Procedure: In a medium sized frying pan, set over low fire, pour in the cooking oil. Let the oil warm up. Saute the onion till wilted or translucent. About 3 to 4 minutes. Add the chopped tomato and continue to saute for another 3 to 4 minutes. Add the spring onions and mix; continue sautéing. About 1 minute. Add the crab meat and toss and turn. Season with mirin, black pepper and salt. Taste the mixture and adjust by adding salt and pepper to your liking. After about 2 minutes, remove from fire and set aside. Stuffing the crab shells: Depending on the size of your crab shells, divide equally the crab meat mixture. Place mixture inside the crabshells, but do not over stuff. Sprinkle flour lightly on top of the meat. Set aside. In a medium sized frying pan, pour cooking oil and bring to 350ºF or 180ºC. Beat the whole eggs til very frothy. Place the beaten eggs, one at a time, on top of crab meat. Very carefully, slide the crab shell, meat facing oil, and fry the Rellenong Alimasag for about 20 to 30 seconds each or...

Read More

Kinilaw na Isda (Filipino Ceviche)

As Sofia, from the Golden Girls T.V. series says, “picture this!”: the sun is setting over the horizon,  in one of the many beautiful beaches in the Philippines; the beer is chilling nearby, ready to slake your thirst; you just caught a beautiful tuna fish early this morning; the fish coruscating on the chopping board as it is prepared for Kinilaw na Isda; the mouth-watering scent of the pork and chicken as they are grilled over an open charcoal fire; and the cooling winds playing tag with the hair and clothes of your family and friends  frolicking on the sand — PICTURE PERFECT!  The best way to make this is to have very fresh fish; freshly caught is the most excellent. I like using calamansi juice because of its fragrance and lime can also be used. You can add more vinegar or calamansi juice if you prefer. Procedure: 1 kilo sashimi grade tuna or tanigue (Spanish mackerel) – sliced into 1/4-inch thick by 1 1/2-inch lengths 1 tablespoon sea salt 1 tablespoon finely julienned sliced ginger 1 cup chopped sibuyas Tagalog or red onion 10 – 15 pieces bird eye chilies – finely sliced in circles 1/2 cup calamansi or lemon juice 1/4 cup coconut vinegar or palm vinegar Procedure: Make sure you place the fish in a glass serving dish or enamel dish. This prevents the vinegar from reacting with either stainless or aluminum and keeps the flavor clean. Arrange the fish pieces on the glass dish. Mix all the other ingredients in a glass bowl and taste before pouring in. Adjust the salt or chilies to your liking. When the flavor is right, pour over the fish and stir around. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 1 to 2 hours. The fish and marinade will turn milky. This means it’s ready to serve. Serve with cold beer or chilled white...

Read More

Tinolang Manok (Chicken Soup with Ginger and Green Papaya)

Tinolang Manok is another Filipino comfort food that can be eaten any time of the day or when one is not feeling well or is down in the dumps. The ginger and the chili leaves gives the dish a pick me up flavor. Because the dish is suppose to be slow cooked, the best chicken to use is ‘native’ or organic or free range. The green papaya helps in tenderizing the chicken; specially the ‘native’ chicken. Ingredients: 1 whole chicken – cut the chicken into serving pieces 1/4 cup cooking oil 1 tablespoon crushed garlic 1 cup sliced onions 1 – 2 tablespoons julienne sliced ginger 3 – 4 tablespoons fish sauce (patis) 8 cups rice washing liquid 500 grams green papaya or soyote (chokoes) – peeled, seeded and sliced into 1-inch 1 cup malunggay (mooring) leaves or sili leaves or baby spinach leaves salt or fish sauce to taste Procedure: Using a large pot, over medium fire, pour cooking oil into pot and warm. Saute garlic, onion, and ginger, till the garlic is light gold. Add the chicken pieces and continue sautéing for five minutes. Add the fish sauce and mix with the chicken pieces; for 1 minute. Pour in the rice washing liquid and bring to a boil. Once the pot is boiling, turn down the fire to low and cover the pot. Depending on which kind of chicken you used, simmer the pot for 30 to 50 minutes. Add the papaya or chokoes and cover the pot; simmer for another 10 to 15 minutes till the chicken and papaya are tender. Taste the broth and add salt or fish sauce to your liking. Then add the malunggay or sili leaves and stir through for 1 minute. Serve while hot with rice and extra fish sauce with calamansi or lemon for...

Read More

Lenguas de Gato (Cat’s Tongue Cookies)

Lenguas de Gato (Cat’s Tongue Cookies)

Most specialized bake shops in the Philippines carry this delicate cookie. It is a Spanish cookie but since we were ‘once upon a time’ a Spanish colony, this must have rubbed off on us. It’s supposed to be shaped like a cat’s tongue but other bake shops have shaped them into thin discs. The secret of this cookie is the butter that one uses. Use the best butter that is available so that the flavor comes out and it’s good to the last crumb. Lenguas de Gato are a delicate butter cookies; an old fashioned afternoon delight. Memories of my grandmother, Natividad ‘Naty’ Lichauco de Leon, and her afternoon mahjong games comes to mind. Coming home from school, I would find her with her friends scrambling the mahjong tiles on the gaming table, and I would sit beside her and try to figure the game out. I never learned to play this Chinese tile game, but memories of Mama Naty’s afternoon delight linger in my mind. Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups (335 grams) butter – cut into cubes 1/2 cup (115 grams) margarine – cut into cubes 2 cups (400 grams) sugar 6 egg whites (3/4 cup) 2 tablespoons evaporated milk or powdered milk 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 3 1/2 cups (490 grams) all purpose flour 1 cup finely chopped cashew nuts (optional or for another type) Pre-heat oven to 350ºF or 180ºC Baking cookie sheets lined with baking paper Procedure: In the mixing bowl of an electric beater, using the paddle of mixer, slowly cream the butter and margarine until well blended. Add the sugar, 1/4 cup at a time, alternately with egg whites, beating well after each addition. Do not hurry; it must be well blended before adding sugar or egg white. Blend in the vanilla and the milk; blend well. At the slowest speed of the mixer, mix in the flour, 1/2 cup at a time. Mixing well before adding the next 1/2 cup. Add nuts if desired. Fill a medium sized pastry bag, fitted with a 1/4-inch round tip, half full of batter. Press 3-inch strips of dough, one inch apart on lined cookie sheets. Bake 5 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges. Place on cooling rack and let cool for 5 minutes and with metal spatula, remove from sheet and continue to cool in another cookie sheet. When totally cool, store in an air tight...

Read More

Kalamay na Duman aka Kalamay na Pinipig (Green Sticky Rice Cake)

Duman is the gold edition of malagkit rice (sticky rice). The best duman is grown in Santa Rita, Pampanga. Planted during the rainy season, it waits for the cold weather of November and December before it is harvested. Duman is actually immature sticky rice. The rice is harvested while is it still immature and green. It is hand harvested; hand roasted; hand pounded; hand sifted, and therefore costs a mint! The cost of one ‘pati’ (about 3 kilos) of this young rice is equivalent to a fifty kilo sack of ordinary rice. Whoever thought of this process must have been a real gourmand and a glutton for work. One can eat the duman, raw, just as it is. The usual way one eats duman with is steaming hot chocolate. In a cup of hot chocolate, one sprinkles about 1/2 cup of the duman into the chocolate and then slowly spoons it into the salivating mouth. The other method of eating duman is to get newly harvest palm (sasa) juice that has been warmed and the duman sprinkled on it too. The reason that duman is so expensive is that only a few know how to do this and that they can only harvest it in its prime, which is only a few weeks. There is also available the ‘over the period’ kind but it’s already the stage when the rice begins to harden and cannot be eaten raw. There is also the fake kind, people color the ‘pinipig’ (as it’s also known) green. The true color of duman is a pale yellow green. So once a year, we were able to taste this precious sticky rice. There were times when I had more than I could eat and that is when I started to experiment with this. I know very well that you will not be able to do this; the basic ingredient is prohibitive and only comes out once a year for a few weeks. But then I wanted Filipinos to know that such a dish exists and it can only be found in the Philippines. During my catering days, I would serve this and got requests to serve it again and had to turn them down because of it’s unavailability. I would just say, try again next year. It is very easy to make but hard to find. There is a saving grace in all this, one can freeze the duman even for a year. Wrap the duman in wilted banana leaves; then wrap with foil; wrap with Manila paper; then place in a resealable plastic bag; then freeze. The secret is keeping the duman moisture free. If you want to eat it raw, take the amount...

Read More

Balo-Balo, aka Burong Hipon (Fermented Rice with Shrimps Sauce)

People who are not used to the smell and taste of this sauce, find it very offensive and why not! it smells like rotten, putrefied garbage. But to those that know how this sauce tastes like and is served, find it heavenly. It’s all in the mind! Once I served it to very good friend – Denise Bellini (an Australian), and he found it tasted like cheese and liked it. In Pampanga, where this is a common sauce for fried or grilled or roasted fish, and for steamed vegetables (eggplant, okra, ampalaya (bitter melon), sitao (long pole bean)) or fresh mustard leaves, the meal is incomplete without this sauce. There is also a version where fish is used instead of shrimps, maybe you could try that out too. Usually this is made in large quantities because it is used frequently. I have made this Sydney upon the request of my Filipino ladies group and our home’s architect – Ton Jaucian. It just takes a bit longer to ferment due to the cool weather of Sydney. Fermenting Ingredients: 5 cups cooked rice – boil rice with 10 cups of water till cooked; you come up with a soft kind of cooked rice; cool rice thoroughly 500 grams very fresh shrimps – alive if possible, the 2-inch long size; do not peel. In Sydney where you do not find shrimps that are alive, I use small, fresh prawns that are peeled and sliced in half – lengthwise. If you want to use fish, I use filleted fish and slice into 1/2-inch cubes or in small strips. In the Philippines, you can use whole small fresh gurami or tilapia, de-scale, debone and cut into finger sized strips. Do not use head of tilapia. Some even use the mud fish for this. 250 grams young, fresh bamboo shoots – sliced very thinly and blanched for 5 minutes in hot water and drain well and cool down 1/2 cup salt Procedure: Get a well washed, dry, 1 to 2 gallon glass jar. Rinse the shrimps/fish with water and drain well. Pat dry to ensure dryness. In a large bowl, place shrimps and sprinkle with the salt, and mix thoroughly. Using rubber gloves, spread cool rice in a large bowl. Mix the bamboo shoots with the shrimps. Mix the shrimp/bamboo with rice using gloved hands. Put the mixture inside the jar, in layers, packing well each layer. You want to avoid air pockets in the jar. Cover the mouth of the jar with a clean sheet of plastic and close with lid. Some times it is hard to find glass gallon jars and I use a glass bowl that has a lid. Set aside in...

Read More

Whole Fish Baked in Salt

Beaches and summers go together during vacation time. My children and I spend many memorable holy weeks at the Bacnotan Vacation house in La Union. I had to rack my brains to come up with different ways to cook fish which was fresh and abundant in this area. If you enjoy going to the beach and buying freshly caught fish directly from the fishermen, you can make this very simple dish and actually feed the whole gang. The fish must be from the sea, and have thick scales. The fish I used was the El Dorado (it was about 2 kilos plus and 24-inches long). Straight from the fishing banca (boat), the El Dorado shimmered like gold – it had a golden stripe on its back. But another time, when I bought it from the fish market, the gold seemed to have faded away. So try it straight from the sea, it is much better. There is no need to scale or gut the fish. Just rinse the whole fish with water and pat dry. To cook the fish in the rough without an oven (remember you’re on holidays), you’ll need some stones or 3 hollow cement blocks, a piece of G.I. sheet, and about 2 gallons (32 cups) of salt. Build a makeshift barbecue pit by placing the G.I. sheet (flat type) over the stones or hollow blocks. Spread evenly, around 16 cups of salt on G.I sheet, to follow the contour of the fish. Lay the fish firmly in the center of the salt, then with the other 16 cups of salt, cover the entire fish with 1/2-inch to 1 inch thick crust of salt. Start a charcoal fire under the G.I sheet. Cook the fish until the salt is firm enough to knock on. You can use a wooden spoon to tap on the salt and when the sound is hollow, the fish is cooked. To oven-bake the fish, set the oven temperature to 350ºF or 180ºC and bake the fish till the crust of salt is firm enough to knock on. The fish retains its natural flavour and cooks in its own juice. The salt does not penetrate the fish. Carefully remove the salt crust with a knife and turner. Do not cut the fish open until all the salt has been removed. When all the salt has been removed, use a knife and fork to remove the skin. Serve the fish with garlic fried rice and any of the following sauces for dipping. Soy Sauce Dip: Mix together the following: 1 cup soy sauce 1/4 cup white vinegar 2 tablespoons calamansi juice or lemon juice 1 tablespoon grated ginger 1 tablespoon finely crushed garlic...

Read More

Adobong Pusit (Squid Stewed in Vinegar)

This the traditional Adobong Pusit which I avoided like the plague when I was young till I learned how to make it in a different style. Now I love ‘calamari’ aka squid specially Paella Negra. You see, I am not fond of sour foods in general. When I learned how to temper the sourness in foods, then I began to like and appreciate sour food. Ingredients: To cook the squids: 500 grams fresh squid (pusit) – small sized ones 1 whole bulb of garlic – crushed 1/4 cup white vinegar (coconut or palm) 2 tablespoons calamansi juice or lemon juice 1/4 cup water 2 teaspoons salt To stew the squids: 2 tablespoons cooking oil 1/2 cup squid broth 1 head garlic – crushed 1/2 cup chopped onions 1/2 cup fresh tomato – chopped 1 lady finger chili (siling mahaba) Procedure: Detach the head of squid from the body. In the tube part, clean the squid by removing the plastic looking spine; be careful with the ink sac that is found at the bottom part of the head. Gently remove the sac, which looks like silver beads and place in a tiny bowl; set aside. Remove any dead fish or other sea creatures found (you’ll be surprised to see what you find – like baby clams, baby crabs and the like) in the the cavity. Do not remove the fat, which looks like gelatine and do not remove the skin of the squid. Rinse with water, drain, cut into 1-inch circles and set aside. With the tentacles, remove the teeth, which looks like a small tube (it’s hard). If the tentacles are small, leave whole, if its big, slice lengthwise in half. Rinse and drain. Set aside together with the rings. In a non-corrosive sauce pan (glass, clay, non-stick, or ceramic), over low fire, put in the vinegar, water, calamansi juice, garlic and salt. Bring the mixture to a slow simmer then add the squid rings and tentacles and simmer for about 15 minutes. Remove from fire, drain out the squid, save liquid and set aside. Rinse non-corrosive sauce pan and place over low fire. Sauce garlic and onions in oil till the garlic is light golden tan. Add the saved ink sacs, and using the back side of wooden spoon, crush the ink sacs. Simmer for 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and continue to simmer for 15 minutes. Add the broth from the simmered squid and the siling mahaba; simmer for another 5 minutes. Add the squid rings and tentacles and simmer for another 5 minutes. Taste and adjust by adding salt, pepper or patis. Serve with hot...

Read More

Search Masarap.ph