one filipino dish a week

It is with great pleasure to have a guest writer to the blog this week. The Girl and her Baby Sis attended an Adobo event in NYC’s well-known Filipino restaurant, Cendrillon, last week. Enjoy!

By The Girl
On December 1, 2008, I was fortunate to attend Cendrillon’s Adobo Cook-Off event. My date was supposed to be paoix aka “The Man” but he was summoned off for business. So instead I brought my baby sis with me for the night.

“The Girl”

“Baby sis”

The cold NYC weather couldn’t stop me from heading off to this event at Cendrillon located at 45 Mercer St. SoHo, New York City.

Cendrillon entance

The event was a $35 pre-fix meal and a tasting of twelve different kinds of adobo. To give a little recap, a typical traditional Filipino Adobo is basically some kind of protein (poultry, pork, beef or seafood) marinated and cooked in vinegar, can be combined with soy sauce, and can be soupy or dry. In the Philippines, how to cook adobo varies from region to region and even kitchen to kitchen. Personalization and availability of ingredients dictate the make up of the dish.

A salad starter with cucumbers, grapefruit and jicama

Our seats

The cook-off was between twelve adobo “masters”. Here are my description and reactions on each of the 12 adobos. To begin the adobo-fest, was Andrew Eisenman’s Classic Adobo Pork Rib Tips with a hint of bagoong or fermented shrimp paste. This dish caught my taste buds by surprise because I had never experienced this type of flavor in an adobo before. My sister even liked the taste of it and to think she’s allergic to shrimps. She was very brave to try it. Andrew sat at our table for the night so it was such a privilege to get an insider’s story of how to make this. Thanks Andrew! I definitely have to replicate this dish one night so that The Man can get a taste of it too.

Ingredients: cane vinegar, garlic, cracked black pepper, bay leaves, salt, a splash of fish sauce and of course the fermented shrimp paste.

Second, was Peter Hoffman’s Duck Gizzards (Adobo). Whether you are a fan of gizzards or not cooking it adobo style is simply another way to eat it. I, for one, am not a really big fan of it. Ask my mother and she will attest to my fondness of gizzard. She always tried to feed it to us when we were little kids because apparently it’s “good for you” (Mothers: anything is always good for you). The one thing I can’t simply get over is the texture of the gizzards. So how was the flavor? To me it lacked vinegar and salt, I felt I was simply eating the gizzards alone but we bravely tried it. My sister gave it “the ukkk face”.

Ingredients: Gizzard, garlic, soy, vinegar, thyme, bay leaves, black peppercorns.

Third on the list, was Ralph Pena’s Pork Shoulder Finished in Turbo Oven. The pork shoulder was a little bit on the salty and dry side (meat wise). It would’ve been good had it been doused with some sauce but I’m not the chef so I can’t really complain. Nonetheless it was a good idea.

Ingredients: Pork shoulder, coarse salt, garlic, whole peppercorns, bay leaf, hot chilies and oil.

Fourth was Julie Weiss’s Chicken Adobo Adapted from Aboitiz recipe (her professional chef friend). Tasting this adobo was such a relief after eating #3 because the flavor was just right. It had just enough vinegar and soy sauce combination and the chicken was soft and juicy. Plus, I was just happy that we got to drift away from the pork family for a little bit.

Ingredients: Chicken thighs and legs, organic unfiltered apple cider vinegar, rice vinegar, peppercorns, soy sauce, garlic and bay leaves.

Numero cinco in the cook off is Dona Lily’s Lengua Adobo (beef tongue) by Lilia Villanueva. The flavor of this dish to me lacked vinegar as well (I guess I’m just a fan of sour). In any case, it was another kind of adobo which I have never tasted before then again we rarely cook beef tongue at home. This dish reminds me of my uncle Nick. I remember him to be the guy that was the first to grab the lechon’s tongue and pair it with an ice cold San Miguel beer at fiestas. I think he would really love this dish.

Ingredients: Black Angus lengua, lots of garlic, onions, bay leaf, organic apple cider, tamari soy, Rufina patis (fish sauce), secret sweetener, canola oil.

At the halfway mark was Tin Tay’s Pork Spareribs Hawaiian Adobo. Pineapple is probably one of my favorite summer fruits to devour besides watermelon. This surprisingly pairs well with the simple adobo recipe however it was overly “pineapple’d” out if you get my drift. The ribs were good but maybe a small pineapple sauce would just suffice. Overall a great idea!

Ingredients: Pork spare ribs, rice vinegar, balsamic vinegar, bay leaves, garlic and pineapple.

The seventh adobo comes from Zennia de Mesa’s Adobong Pusit (squid). Tasting this dish reminds me of my Lola Diosing’s style of cooking. Her dish is simply put together with the freshest ingredients you can find at the mercado (market). She also adds the ink which gives it that dark sauce. However Lola’s dish always end up salty which makes Zennia’s recipe different. Like my grandmother’s style Zennia cooked the squid in squid ink sauce, it wasn’t too salty or vinegary and it was simply just the right amount. My sis didn’t get to eat this because she’s allergic to seafood so she’s definitely missing out.

Ingredients: Grilled squid, sauce from squid ink, garlic, onions, tomatoes, red wine vinegar, sea salt.

Adobo # 8 is Nil Bernstein’s Filipino Adobo with Mexican flavors. Right at the first bite, my tongue immediately recalled the kaldereta (goat stew) dish my Lola Nena used to cook for fiestas. The flavor simply screams kaldereta and my sis agreed. This dish was definitely good as the spices gave it that extra different kind of kick. The flavor was intensified which made it unique to the tongue. I would probably say that the anise made this dish taste similar to that of a Kaldereta which is a stew recipe that requires almost the same spices.

Ingredients: Chicken and pork, ancho chilies, sweet spices: cinnamon, star anise, cloves in addition to black peppercorns and garlic.

The ninth adobo for the evening was Reggie Aguinaldo’s Turkey Adobo A La Vieja. When this dish was served at first the presentation caught our eyes. However the vibe and the excitement wasn’t really present at the table after we each tasted this dish because there was just something odd about the flavor. We couldn’t understand it. It was definitely salty at first bite, maybe there was just too much fish sauce. I think this dish could’ve used more vinegar to neutralize the turkey flavor. I also believed that none of us was really excited to eat turkey that evening since 4 days earlier Thanksgiving was just celebrated and everyone at the table has said that they had a lot of turkey consumption (including me).  However if you’re big on eating leftovers then this is just another great idea to spice up the turkey like Paoix’s Paksiw na Pavo recipe that can be found here.

Ingredients: Heritage turkey, bay leaves, soy sauce, wine vinegar, fish sauce, olive oil, chicken & duck liver.

Abodo # 10 is Sylvia Cedeno’s Pernil de Cochino Venezolano. I’m not going to lie I really don’t remember tasting this dish. I knew I tried it but believe me I was “porked out” towards the end of the evening that my taste buds began to fuse other flavors from the previous adobos served even though I tried to wash it off by drinking water. However I do recall that the flavor of it was somewhat odd which I believe was caused by the Worcestershire sauce. I never really understood the flavor of Worcestershire sauce as an ingredient. But it did look good. 

Ingredients: Pork leg, onions, canola oil, Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, marjoram, thyme, laurel leaf, orange juice, lemon, red wine, Moscatel or Madeira wine, pimiento de guayabita.

The eleventh adobo served was Danny Dorotan’s Dinuguan (pig’s blood). I was only able to taste a little bit of this dish since I was already full at this point in the evening. However the flavor of this dish was very delicious, it wasn’t sour or saucy. Take note that would rarely hear the word delicious come out of my mouth when it comes to dinuguan. As a little girl dinuguan was never cooked at my house even to this day. The reasons are both religious and lack of popularity to this dish in my family. I have only tasted this dish very recently and I must admit I have found a liking to it. That being said, these days I’m a little bit more adventurous and it was an experience to taste Danny’s dinuguan.

Ingredients: Pork, pork blood, garlic, vinegar, long green chiles.

Last but not least (definitely not least as it was such a yummy dish) Perry Mamaril’s Adobong Pork Belly Ilocano Style. I must admit that at first sight of this dish I quickly heard The Man’s Mothergoose’s voice in my head with the words “high cholesteric” (insert Visayan accent) over and over again. The amount of fat exceeds the amount of meat, then again fat=flavor, right? But boy was this good!!! The color was caramel dark brown, saucy on the outside and flavorful on the inside. The smell was divine, just the right amount of acidity and sugary taste that balances out in your tongue even at first bite. Don’t get me wrong as much as I hate to waste good taste, I just had to cut about half an inch thick of pure fat off the meat because as the saying goes “great taste on your lips is bad for your hips”. I can’t deny this dish was simply delicious, the meat was tender and the flavor just married well with white rice. What!!??? You know you just can’t eat it without the main staple.

Ingredients: Heritage pork belly, cane sugar vinegar (sukang Iloko), soy sauce, sweet onions, garlic, black peppercorns, fresh bay leaves, red birdseye chiles (labuyo).

So won the cook-off? I can’t tell you that specifically because we didn’t stay till the end of the event. But if I was the judge, I would have to agree with Andrew Eisenman (one of the cook-off participant) that the dish who reigned supreme for the night in color, flavor, texture and presentation was Perry Mamaril’s pork belly adobo. I wished that Perry’s dish was served first because I surely would have eaten more of it. Alas some other time then. Maybe this too will be replicated one weekend.

Overall, the experience was great! Not only was I “adobo’ed” out for the night but also I was extremely full and probably gained 4 pounds. Not bad for $35.00 right? I wish it did come with a dessert after dinner, but then again with twelve adobos served I’d probably bag it and take it to go. I can’t wait for more cook-offs! Bring it on!!

And as “The Man” paoix would say “Eat Filipino Food!”

Guso was one of the things that was heavily anticipated prior to the trip. The ‘rents, The Girl and I were all talking about having to eat this while we were there. Guso is a simple salad that is eaten as a side dish. I love the texture of guso because it is very much like jell-0 but with a slight crunchiness to it. Well come to think of it guso, I believe, is one of the seaweed that is processed to make agar-agar which is then used to make jell-o, toothepaste, etc. This is just the au naturale form of it

The key thing about preparing guso is to get it fresh. A trip to the market in the morning and then to prepare the the guso… Blanch them add vinegar, some tomato, red onion and salt. And enjoy!

The Girl’s uncle showing everyone the perfect way to enjoy guso!

Eat Filipino Food!

I’m a big liar! Intermittent? I know I know. But I’m back and fighting jetlag. I had an amazing time in the Philippines and have a lot of things to talk about. So now it’s food time…

First day back and a noodle dish? No, no, no, my friends, this is an Andrew-Zimmern-bizarre-foods-type of a dish. This was one of the first things that I ate when I got there. Not necessarily because I was looking for it. I’ve had it maybe once before and that was a long long time ago. Before it was presented in front of me I have forgotten about lukot and wouldn’t have been able to tell you what it was. This was served to us by The Girl’s Aunt, who is a great cook. I thought it was a noodle dish at first until I started eating it and quickly realized that it wasn’t regular noodles.

So what is lukot really? The word lukot in Bisaya means to roll. I guess it looks like it’s rolled up into a ball of thread? Digging a little deeper with questions and a little internet probing I found that this is what comes out of dunsol or sea hare. It pretty much is a sea snail looking thing (not pretty looking at all). Not sure really as to why this comes out of the sea hare. I’ve gathered two explanations one is that lukot is poop and the other is that it is a secretion as a defense mechanism OR maybe they poop in their defense. Great! You don’t really see this too far away from the wet fish markets. You won’t find these in a menu at a restaurant in Cebu City or in a supermarket (none that I’ve seen at least).

So what does it taste like? Honestly, it doesn’t taste much of anything. However, it has a gelatinous texture to it if you put a big wad of it in your mouth. I ate this up in blissfully ignorant of its poopiness. You can prepare this kinilaw or just like we had it in a soup. I have to say though, the soup, was amazing! It is how a seafood soup should taste like. You can smell and taste the sea with each higop (slurp) of the soup. The tahong (mussels) and lukot were the main ingredients with a little bit of tomato and scallions. This was certainly an excellent start to a food trip.

Eat Filipino Food!

I love baked mussels. Every time my mom made this I could eat the entire batch no matter how many there was. One of the things that I remember growing up was that there were times we couldn’t eat tahong because it was ‘red tide.’ The red tide in the Philippines, however, is probably associated to toxins in the water than an algal bloom. Mussels pretty much are garbage collectors and filter the water. So if there’s gross stuff in the water it’s not such a good idea to eat mussels.

When I saw mussels at the fish purveyor at the Union Square Greenmarket I was excited because it would be a perfect Saturday lunch.

Here’s how I made the baked tahong:

2lbs mussels
1 head garlic minced
1/2 lb Emmenthaler Cheese grated (aka Swiss Cheese - a nice cheddar will be a good substitute)
1 Tbsp butter

Preheat the oven to 325F. Wash the mussels well. Get the gunk out of the shells. Boil the mussels in water until the open up. While the mussels are boiling, in a pan melt the butter and sweat the garlic… be sure not to brown it. Once the mussels have opened up, separate discard the half of the shell. Line mussels in a baking sheet. Top with the garlic and the cheese. Bake until the cheese melts.

This turned out really really good. The Girl and I really enjoyed the mussels. The garlic-y, cheesy mussels was perfect for lunch. We had San Angelo Pinot Grigio with the mussles.

The wine complemented the mussels real well. The refreshing wine washed down the mussels awesome. Can’t wait to have this again.

Eat Filipino Food!

When I saw “Chinese, Malay and Spanish Fusion: The Food of the Philippines” on the list of classes in the recreational division of The Institute of Culinary Education I was ecstatic. I said to myself this is what I need! I signed up myself and The Girl for the class.

When we got there it was kind of funny because we were the only Filipinos in the class. The class was taught by Chef Reeni Aragon Espino. She teaches mostly pastry at the school but represents Filipino cooking once a semester when she teaches this class. There were quite a few dishes that were presented to the class: Lumpiang Ubod, Ukoy, Pancit Bihon Guisado, Adobong Manok at Baboy, Sinigang na Sugpo, Kare-Kare, Kaldereta (Lamb), Bibingkang Kamotegkahoy, and Mango-Macapuno Ice Cream. She spoke about each one and what it’s made out of and what’s the significance of each.

I didn’t get to make everything since this was only a 4 hour class. Chef Reeni divided the class and assigned dishes to each group. Don’t worry I’ll be making each one again in the future. My group got to do Sinigang na Sugpo, Kare-Kare and Ukoy.

Sinigang na Sugpo (Prawns)
You can check my previous post on sinigang na baboy (pork). I was quite excited because I was about to make this with a real souring agent and not the chemical fake mix. Here’s how we made it:

A few kamias (depending how sour you want)
1 T vegetable oil
1 large red onion, sliced thinly
1 T garlic minced
2 cups diced tomatoes
6 cups water or rice washing
1 Asian eggplant, sliced
1 medium taro, 1 to 1.5 inch cubes
1 medium white radish, sliced
12 to 15 large head on prawns
1 bunch water spinach (kangkong)
2 long hot peppers

First, simmer the kamias in water until tender.

Mash into cooking liquid (You gotta put your back into it). Here’s where disaster struck. As we were mashing the kamias, we tasted to see how sour it was. It was not at all sour. The freezing probably took away all the sourness out of it. On to plan B, let’s take the guava out. That was also not sour. In fact, it was quite sweet. On to plan C, green tomatillos. They were barely sour so we put a lot of it. Once you’ve mashed the juices out you strain the liquid and add it later to the mix. Okay, so in the end we succumbed to using the packet mix because it just wasn’t sour. One of these days I’ll make a real sinigang.

Saute the onion and garlic then add the tomatoes until they start to break down. Add the sour liquid. Add the water and salt to taste. Bring to a boil. Add spinach, eggplant, taro and radish. Cover and return to a boil. Add prawns and peppers.

Simmer just until the prawns turn color and vegetables are cooked. One thing that caught me off guard about this was the taro made the dish a little cloudy. I kind of like sinigang to be a clear broth soup.

Ukoy (Shrimp Fritters)
The fondest memory I have of ukoy is that there used to be this carenderia (aka lunch spot, cafeteria, etc) near where I grew up called Ben-Jo’s that had ukoy and we always bought it there. Their ukoy was good. I can’t wait to have a taste of it again in the near future ;). Ukoy is best as an appetizer or pulutan (beer drinking food).

The Girl grating some sweet potatoes for the ukoy.

Mmm deep fried shrimp!

I’m going to have to make this again because I didn’t get to do any of the making of this.

Kare-Kare (Oxtail Stew)
Growing up I never really liked kare-kare. I don’t know what it is but it must be the yellowish-brownish tint to the sauce that deterred me. Kare-Kare which sounds like curry is pretty much like a curry and was most likely borrowed from one of the neighboring countries. This is how we made it:

3 to 4 lbs oxtail, cut in serving pieces
1/2 lb pork belly, cut in serving pieces
8 cups water
2 bay leaves
3 T annatto seeds
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups broth
1/2 cup raw rice
2 cups dry-roasted peanuts
2 T finely chopped garlic
1 cup chopped onion
12 ounces long beans cut in 2in lengths
2 Asian eggplants cut in diagonal 1/2 inch pieces
Salt, fish sauce and black pepper to taste
1 bock choy, cut in 2in pieces

Boil the oxtail and pork in water, bay leaves and salt to taste until tender. This is The Girl checking if the oxtail is tender with a knife. Watch out now.

Heat the annatto seeds and 1T oil until heavily colored. They pop and splatter everywhere so make sure you have a cover. Add the broth. In the meantime in between time as the great snoop dogg would say, toast the rice in a dry pan until lightly browned. Transfer to a spice grinder/food processor and grind until fine. Also grind the peanuts to a paste.

Saute the garlic in remaining oil until soft. Add oxtails, pork and annatto water and bring to a boil. Mix the rice powder, peanut and 1 cup broth and add to pot. Add 3 cups broth, beans and eggplant. Cover and simmer until vegetables are tender and sauce has thickened.

Serve with rice and bagoong (fermented shrimp paste). I’m quite sure that this was not THE perfect kare-kare. So I will make a second attempt at this.

Other Dishes
The fruits of the labor of the other groups.

Clockwise: Pancit Bihon, Bibikang Kamoteng-kahoy, Lumpiang Ubod

I’m definitely going to make the Lumpiang ubod.  It came out excellent. And I finally saw how you make the wrapper!! I didn’t get to take a picture of the ice cream but I think I can definitely make a much better ice cream than what was made. It’s all in the ingredients too. The mango used was the red Mexican mango (I don’t really know what type of mango it is… the red kind.). It would be so much better if the yellow champagne mangoes were used. In the summer time when those mangoes come out I’ll make mango ice cream.

What better way to accompany all this food but with some San Miguel! Great Great class! If you are in NYC and would like to learn more about Filipino food first hand check out this class. I will definitely have to make each one of these dishes again though. So look for futures posts with these dishes again.

Eat Filipino Food!