one filipino dish a week

I come home and I see T on the couch relaxing and she looks at me and says, ‘I made the dinner that we planned to have tonight. We’re having monk food.’

I was utterly confused at this statement, ‘Huh?!? I thought we were having split peas with spinach?’

‘Yes’, she said. ‘It’s like monk food.’

I was really intrigued went to the kitchen to get a quick taste and it tasted really good. Simply good. Good yet simple. And that’s the only way I can relate this to being “monk food”. It’s simple yet poignant. Zen food. There’s depth in flavor from the lemon that she juiced over it. Vibrant hues of green from the lighter green of the lentils, to the deep green of the spinach and the fresh green of the parsley. These were the kind of nights that I was hoping to have when we set to give up meat for lent. Moments when things just click and everything seems to fall into place. Moments when you ask yourself why didn’t I make/eat/try this sooner? Simple, healthy, yummy. Have you had any zen food moments lately?

Ingredients
1 cup green split peas
2lb baby spinach
1 onion, julienned
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp ground coriander
a couple of garlic cloves minced
1 1/4 cup of vegetable stock
3 tbsp vegetable oil
salt and pepper to taste
lime, for garnish

1. Rinse peas. Place in a bowl cover in cold water and soak for 2 hours. Drain.
2. Wash the spinach. Cook in a pan with just the water that remains in the leaves until wilted. Set aside.
3. Heat the vegetable oil in a pan and saute the onions, garlic and ginger.
4. Add the peas, spinach and stock. Add in the coriander, cumin and chili powder. Cover and simmer until the peas are cooking and the liquid has been absorbed. Season to taste. Squeeze some lime juice when serving.

Yay mongos! T and I rejoice every time we have it. It’s our favorite. I’ve always liked mongos growing up. Unlike my love - hate - love cycle relationship with eggplant, mongos has always stayed true. What is mongos? Well it’s apparently something that originated in India -thanks wikipedia. These are small beans green in color that makes lovely soups! I do associate mongos with lent because it is what we ate when I was growing during the lent season when no meat is allowed on Fridays. It’s perfect over white rice (but what isn’t?). Trust me Filipinos eat everything with white rice. I think the texture really has a lot to do with the character of the dish. True to most Filipino dishes there’s a few variations. I highlighted some common variations.

1 pack of mung beans
onion
garlic
salt & pepper to taste
chicken breast diced or shrimps or pork or fish (practically anything - but I skipped because I wanted vegetarian)

optional items:
coconut milk
spinach (or kalamungay is more traditional)

1. Put the mung beans in a pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil. Lower heat to medium and simmer until beans are soft.
2. Set the beans in a bowl. In the same pot saute the garlic and onion in oil. If using meat this would be a good time to include chicken and pork
3. Put back the beans when the onions and garlic are fragrant.
4. Add some water to the desired consistency (more soupy the better). If using coconut milk add at this point. Simmer to mix ingredients.
5. Add in the spinach mix in for about a minute then turn off heat.
6. Serve over rice. Enjoy!

Tonight I had an excellent dinner prepared by T. This is the first vegetarian paella I’ve had and it was fantastic! We bought a paella pan the other week and wanted to try it as soon as we could. This isn’t a traditional paella since there’s no meat but this was fantastic. Growing up I remember eating paella only on special occasions and it always had seafood. We’ll have to just to revisit paella in the future and cook the different versions.

This had fantastic flavor and texture. The contrast of the rice and crunchy cashews, the taste of the olives, bell peppers and the spice from the chili powder were great. Here’s how she made it…there’s an overwhelming amount of ingredients but don’t be afraid that’s why it tastes good.

2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1 red onion
2/3 cup risotto rice
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
3 garlic cloves crushed
1 green bell pepper seeded and diced
1 red bell pepper seeded and diced
pitted black olives
1 large tomato seeded and diced
2 cups vegetable stock
1/2 cup unsalted cashew nuts
1/2 cup frozen peas
2 tbsp chopped parsley
pinch of cayenne pepper
salt & pepper to taste

1. Heat the olive oil and melt butter over medium-high heat
2. Add the onion and saute until softened
3. Stir in rice, turmeric, cumin, chili powder, garlic, peppers, black olives, and tomato over medium-high heat
4. Pour in stock, bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low and let cook for 20 minutes. Don’t forget to stir constantly or the rice will stick
5. Add the cashews and peas and cook until the peas have defrosted and soft but not mush. Season with salt, pepper, cayenne, parsley.
6. Transfer to plate, garnish, eat!

The paella had a nice kick in spice with it from the chili powder and paprika. So it was perfectly paired with the cucumber dill salad in sour cream to tame the fire. Very simple to make. Cut up cucumbers into thin slices, chop some dill, and sour cream (or creme fraiche).

Stir fry to me is the ultimate quick weeknight dinner. It’s the go-to dish when it’s been a long day at work and I’m starving when I come home. There’s not too much fuss about stir frying. Mix veggies together (and some meat if you like) add a little bit of some kind of sauce serve over rice and you’re golden. It’s all about just putting things together that you like. This time around T and I made bok choy and snap peas stir fry over white rice.

The Asian store in Jersey City carries vegetables that you normally don’t see at the standard box grocery store. You’ll find bok choy at the grocery store every now and then but not most times. So we go to the Asian store for them. I’m actually quite conflicted with buying vegetables at the Asian store. As a food blogger I’m quite aware of the different movements for better food out there: local, organic, and sustainable to name a few. But when I’m buying at the Asian store I know that none of those are really taken into account. It’s just price. Quality is even second to price. Looking at these vegetables they don’t look like they’re the best. So I’m always conflicted because I understand that I probably should be doing more to save the planet and my health but I’m also on a tight budget. Am I being a bad food promoter? Am I letting the factory farms and big business win? I’d like to hear your thoughts on this topic if you have any comments.

Now that I’ve aired my thoughts out there it’s on to the cooking. For this evening’s stir fry it’s just bok choy, snap peas, shallots minced, garlic minced, ginger finely chopped, soy sauce, spicy chili sesame oil, vegetable stock, salt and pepper to taste, and oil for frying. This is really what was in the fridge that night but it’s really anything you like. You can put carrots, green beans, mushrooms, baby corn, green/red peppers, etc.

Put about 2 tablespoons of the frying oil in your wok or pan on high heat. Once the oil is nice and hot (right before it starts smoking) saute the garlic and shallots for a couple of minutes. Add the snap peas, ginger, and bok choy and fry until the vegetables are soft but still firm. Touch it, feel it, smell it. That’s the fun part about cooking. Then add vegetable stock and soy sauce probably about a 1/4 cup total. Whatever looks right for your amount of vegetables (it shouldn’t be like soup but it shouldn’t be completely dry). Salt and pepper and give it a try and add until it tastes good. Turn the heat off and add about 1 teaspoon of the sesame oil and mix. Serve over white rice. Eat right away! Clean up later.

What’s your go to weeknight dish?

Pizza!!! I’m always excited for pizza. I was extra excited for this Friday night dinner with T because I was going to make pizza from scratch. For me pizza is one of those things that I’ve never really thought about making from scratch. I’ve always associated it with something you order. I’ve never really made pizza dough so I did the google-ing and the recipe book researching for pizza dough and found that it isn’t really as intimidating as I thought it would be. Probably the most intimidating part as crazy as it sounds was buying yeast. It’s like when you have to try something that you’ve never used before and you have that anxiety if it works or not.

Making the dough was a little bit of a challenge and I think I just need to do it a couple more times to get it to that right elasticity and consistency. I used portabellas, white button, and enoki mushrooms along with the white part of the leek. For the cheese, I used gruyere and pecorino romano. Even though I had a challenge with the dough this came out spectacularly and was an excellent Friday night dinner along with some red wine. Wine and pizza that’s how adults spend Friday nights. Especially with the soil smelling mushrooms this pizza was really good with red wine. Perfect combination. This may be one of those things that will be added to the regular rotation.