one filipino dish a week

The change of weather got to me recently and I was feeling under the weather last week. The Girl, being the best girlfriend that she is, made me some pospas. Pospas is a rice porridge and very much a comfort food. It’s something that you get to eat when you’re sick. And that is the majority of the times that I’ve eaten pospas is when I’m sick or if it’s cold and rainy outside. But I would eat it any given day. It’s just that good.

What’s goes in it?
1 cup of white rice
4 boneless skinless chicken breast diced
1 cup chicken stock
2 cloves Garlic
1 inch Ginger
scallions for garnish

Saute garlic, add chicken stock, bring to a boil, add ginger and rice, turn heat to medium-low then simmer until the rice is slightly mushy, then add chicken, cook until chicken is tender, salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot and garnish with scallions.

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!

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!

For this week’s dish, I wanted to tackle a classic Filipino dish, sinigang. Many would argue this as a THE Filipino dish right up there with adobo. It’s fairly simple to make but like any classic Filipino dish there’s a whole lot of variations. I’ve quickly realized through these first three weeks that Filipinos like to tweak dishes, even the classics. This could be very much correlated to the fact that the country is disjointed (7,000 islands). What could be abundant in one area might not be in another and necessity is the mother of invention. So some hungry Filipino really wanted a dish but didn’t have all the ingredients and just decided to go with what’s available. It makes it hard to trace back to the original or what is considered traditional.

Sinigang can be made with fish, pork, beef, chicken, or shrimp. Practically any protein you desire. It’s a sour soup and is good on a cold day (perfect for winter, hence the pick). The souring agent can vary depending on what part of the Philippines you’re from which could be tamarind, batwan, or kamias. Other substitutions are guava, tomato or kalamansi. The souring agent helps preserve the dish. Before refrigeration preservation methods had to be creative and is a very helpful thing in a tropical country.

I went to the local Asian store to get ingredients. I got some long beans, Asian eggplant, radish (didn’t realize how big it is), hot pepper, and kangkong (water spinach). I was semi-devastated when I couldn’t find the tamarind. I guess that’s not really a common thing to have but I swear I’ve seen it before in Asian stores.

The Girl convinced me that the powdered mix would work well. I really wanted to make this dish with real tamarind but it just wasn’t there. The one qualm that I had about the mix was that it had a bunch of fakey-fake ingredients (MSG and preservatives).

For the pork, I used pork loin because that’s what I had in the fridge (doing it the Filipino way…using what’s available haha). If I had cut that was bone-in it would’ve made a better soup because the bones have all the flavor.

I browned the pork before I put in the water to give it structure before it gets boiled in the water. After I made this dish I found out that instead of plain water Filipinos use the water used to wash the rice. I’m assuming that this would take the nutrients from the rice of the otherwise wasted water and give off a subtle flavor. It’s great because nothing gets wasted. Once it starts boiling lower the heat and simmer for a while until the pork gets tender. Add the veggies (except for the kangkong), and in this case the sinigang mix. Let it go till the radish and eggplant gets a little tender but not mushy. I seasoned it with a little fish sauce to give it a little bit of Filipino taste but the sinigag mix is already salty so be cautious if you are using the mix. Add the kangkong right before you take it off the heat, just enough to wilt it.

Serve hot! Filipinos usually eat this pouring it over rice. And it is usually served together with the other dishes and not as an appetizer like most soup would be in western dining.

The dish came out great. It had a good sourness. The pork was nice and tender. The veggies weren’t too mushed up. The Girl and the Roommate liked it. I don’t know if I’m just biased but the sourness kinda tasted fake. I would love to revisit this dish and make it again with real tamarind.