one filipino dish a week

My cousin, the hunter/fisherman (if you have wildlife problems you can contact him http://nuisanceremoval.com), caught some bluefish in a recent fishing trip. Catching your own fish is so rewarding and makes the cooking part more enjoyable. Knowing the back story of where the fish was caught and knowing that it’s fresh and not frozen for several days is also an added bonus. The Girl suggested that we use the fish to make tinowa! What a brilliant idea!! Tinowa is a Cebuano variant of sinigang. The soup is not as sour as the normal sinigang.

(the banana was a picture crasher he’s not part of the tinowa crew)

What goes in it?
1 inch piece of ginger, pounded
1 chayote, diced
1/2 red bell pepper, julienned
1/2 green bell pepper (or a hybrid like in the picture haha)
1 bunch scallions
3 tomatoes, sliced
1 bunch baby spinach
1 onion, julienned
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup fish sauce
4 tbsp vinegar
1 bluefish cut into steaks (you can use any fish you like)

“Chayote? what is that paoix?” you might ask. So, what is chayote?  It’s a vegetable that’s in the squash family (upper left hand corner in the picture above).  It doesn’t really have much of flavor but it is starchy and adds a texture dimension to a dish. This can be found in Hispanic or Asian stores (some major grocery stores might even carry it).

Saute the onions and garlic in a pot. Add about 3 cups of water and bring to a rapid boil. Once it starts to boil, lower the heat and add the chayote, ginger and bell peppers, fish sauce and vinegar. Let it simmer until the chayote is halfway tender then add the fish.Cook for a few minutes until the fish cooked through add the tomatoes simmer for another minute. Turn off the heat and add the spinach. Season with salt and pepper to taste along the way.

Serve hot, enjoy on a nice rainy fall day!

Eat Filipino Food!

Filipino food as it is known by most Filipinos now is in its essence fusion food. The food has been influenced by the different colonizers (Spain and USA) and the merchant trade (China and Mexico). Chinese food is everywhere in the Philippines. It’s not like the Chinese food here in the US (you won’t find General Tso’s Chicken) and I’m sure it’s not like the Chinese food in China. It’s the Chinese food that has been adapted to the Filipino palate.

When I went home to the ‘rents house I was tasked to cooked pan fried flounder similar to the one we always get in Hop Kee in NYC’s chinatown. I don’t think you would really see this in Chinese restaurants in the Philippines but if you did I bet everyone would like it.

Here’s how I made it:

1 whole flounder
1 bunch scallions
ginger julienned
soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
canola oil for frying

Heat your wok or saute pan and have enough canola oil to fry the fish. Fry the fish until the skin gets light brown and crispy turning once. While the fish is frying, in a saucepan heat the soy sauce and ginger until it is about to simmer. Add the scallions and take off the heat. Mix in the sesame oil. One the fish is done pour the sauce over and serve.

It didn’t exactly taste like Hop Kee but it sure was a great lunch!

Eat (Chinese-)Filipino Food!

Paksiw na bangus (I think this is called inununan in Bisaya) is to me what you would eat on a Wednesday for lunch. It’s everyday food. Bangus (milkfish) is common in the Philippines and is farmed. I’ve never liked bangus growing up and after making this I still don’t like it. haha. I try things several times until I say I don’t like it so this is definitely confirmed. I don’t like bangus because it’s extremely bony (I have fears of having a bone stuck in my throat and I can’t get it out) and it has this muddy taste to it.

I saw the bangus in the market so that’s why I decided to give it another shot. There’s probably better ways to mask the muddiness of the fish (probably frying) but this did not. Here’s how I made it:

1 whole bangus (2 lbs)
1 small ampalaya (bitter melon) quartered
1 Asian eggplant quartered
1/2 cup ginger 1×1 inch thin strips
4 cloves of garlic
4 small chilis
1 cup vinegar
2 cup water
fish sauce to taste

I arranged the ampalaya, eggplant, garlic and ginger on the bottom of a dutch oven and put the fish on top of it. Poured the vinegar and water and let it come to a boil. Lower the heat and let it simmer for a few minutes until the fish is cooked. Season with patis (fish sauce) or salt.

This quantity was definitely a lot and I’ll be eating this for a few days.

Weeknight cooking session is always an adventure. Most nights it’s a game of what’s in the refrigerator that I can semi put together. Tonight I felt like getting a little bit fancy and experiment. I had salmon and some pandan leaves that I had bought from the Asian store. Pandan is usually used for its fragrance and is added in rice and some desserts. I got the idea for this dish from a dish from Cafe Laguna in Cebu that I remembered… pandan chicken. I did some digging and it seemed like this had Thai origins. So boo hoo this is not a Filipino dish. Anyway, I wanted to recreate that but with salmon. Here’s how I did it:

2 pieces salmon fillet cut into smaller pieces
8 pieces pandan leaves
2T kalamansi (from frozen packets) or lemon
1 T butter
salt and pepper to taste

A rather short list of ingredients like most of my weeknight meals. I seasoned the fish and marinated it in the kalamansi juice for a few minutes. I wrapped each piece of fish in the pandan leaves. Pre-heated the oven to 375degrees. I heated up a pan and melted the butter. I fried the fish skin side down until the leaves started to brown and part of the fish starts to cook (~5 minutes). I turned the fish and put the pan in the pre-heated oven for about 10 minutes or until the middle of the fish looked opaque (~10 minutes).

I was actually amazed that this experiment worked out quite well. The fragrance of the pandan leaves imparted itself on the salmon. What really surprised me was the way I tasted white wine with this mixture. I think the kalamansi, pandan, salmon juice and butter had this very sauvignon blanc-esque taste to it. It was quite intriguing and I was very pleased. Sometimes experiments work.

Here it was the opportunity to make my sinugbang isda like I wished for a couple weeks ago. I made the fish the same way in that post. The mother goose also wanted squid so I went and got some squid in chinatown.

After I cleaned the squid I stuffed them with some tomatoes, scallions, onions and then some lemon juice.

Put in the grill and then serve hot! I think I didn’t put enough lemon to make this dish better. I don’t really know how to handle squid that well. So I need a mulligan and have to redo this at some point.

The fish was yummy! Compared to the other time this had the smokiness that I was looking for. Grilling in the cold is a little tricky but I know what to do with some fish now.

A nice Saturday lunch table… Salad, grilled fish, pork bbq, grilled squid and atsara.

The perfect filipino dish. yummmmy.