inuyaki » Filipino

Tocino and Blue Potato Hash

arnold — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 02:32:36 +0000

This is my first post for the Kulinarya Cooking Club, a collection of Filipino food bloggers that celebrates Filipino cuisine every month. This month’s theme was the “Colors of the Philippine Flag,” which doesn’t sound hard until you consider that there isn’t a lot of blue food from which to choose. The rules did allow for garnishes or dishes to be used to represent the color blue, but I wanted it to be a main component of the dish.

My original idea was to do tocino chilaquiles, but I thought that was a little too easy since I would’ve simply bought a bag of blue tortilla chips. The hash idea evolved naturally from there, and blue potatoes was a natural choice. I wanted to tocino to represent the color red, and I used Jun Belen’s tocino recipe. I’ve been experimenting with tocino recipes for awhile, but I wanted to try Jun’s recipe because I like its simplicity and his use of red beet powder as a coloring agent. I added red bell pepper at the end for a more “pure” red color, since the tocino’s redness would diminish a bit when cooking. To round out the colors, I used a sunny egg for the yellow and white, which also fairly accurately represents the sun on Philippine flag.

For the technique, I pretty much followed the steps for the corned beef hash at Simply Recipes. It’s really straightforward and easily adaptable. Thanks, Elise!

I think I should’ve maybe used some yukon gold or other light-colored potato to maybe help the blue potatoes stand out more, but in the end, it was delicious and that’s all that really matters. :)

Tocino and Blue Potato Hash

(adapted from Simply Recipes.)

1 lb. cooked tocino, finely chopped
1½ cups cooked blue potatoes, diced
½ cup red bell pepper, finely chopped
½ medium onion, finely chopped
2 Tbsp. butter
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Heat butter in a large skillet (preferably cast iron) on medium heat. Add the onion and cook a few minutes, until translucent.
Mix in the chopped tocino and potatoes. Spread out evenly over the pan. Increase the heat to high or medium high and press down on the mixture with a metal spatula.
Do not stir the potatoes and tocino, but let them brown. If you hear them sizzling, this is good. Use a metal spatula to peak underneath and see if they are browning. If nicely browned, use the spatula to flip sections over in the pan so that they brown on the other side. Press down again with the spatula. If there is too much sticking, you can add a little more butter to the pan. Continue to cook in this manner until the potatoes and the tocino are nicely browned.
Remove from heat, stir in chopped red bell pepper. Salt and pepper to taste.
Top with fried or poached eggs for breakfast.

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Puto Bumbong

arnold — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 16:52:21 +0000

Puto Bumbong is a Filipino delicacy that’s traditionally served during the Christmas season in the Philippines. It literally translates to steamed glutinous rice (puto) cooked in bamboo (bumbong), and it’s a staple at my best friend’s house, where we gather for Noche Buena at midnight on Christmas Eve. The purple color comes from the mixture of sweet rice and black rice (pirurutong), but I’ve seen recipes that call for purple food coloring, which is obviously cheating! Puto bumbong is served with butter, sugar and freshly grated coconut on top. I asked my friend’s mom if she would show me how to make puto bumbong, and she was happy to oblige.

Dave Chappelle says “I want that purple stuff!”

Cooking puto bumbong is fairly quick but preparing the rice is a three-day process. On the first day, you take a mixture of equal parts of sweet rice and pirurutong and soak it overnight. On the second day, you take the mixture and grind it in a blender. (In the Philippines, you’d traditionally use a grinding stone of some kind.) Then the mixture is placed in a cotton sack (like a flour sack) for another day in order to drain any excess water. Since it’s generally warm at Christmastime in the Philippines, you’d simply hang the bag outside and let gravity do the work. With the colder winters here in the States, better results are obtained by putting a heavy weight on the bag to force the excess water out.

The rice mixture should be ready the next day, and it should be moist, not dry. The next step is to use your hands to mix it up and break up any clumps.

Clumps are bad.

To cook the puto bumbong, you need a special steamer. This one has three holes on top so that the steam can escape and cook the puto in the bamboo. The cloth wrapped around the bamboo helps prevent burnt hands.

Simply fill up the bamboo with the rice mixture and put it on top of the steamer. You can tell when it’s done when the rice turns dark purple and kind of shrinks into the bamboo.

Clockwise from top: almost done, just started (light purple), and finished (dark purple).

Before you remove the puto bumbong from the bamboo, hold the top of the bamboo over the steam to finish cooking the end that was farthest away from the steam.

Finish off the tip.

To remove from the bamboo, hold the bamboo in your left hand…then hit the pinky side of your left hand against your right palm by the base of your thumb. The puto bumbong should plop onto plate.

Lots of butter is very important!

To finish, slather the puto bumbong with butter and then top it with freshly grated coconut and sugar (either white or brown). In the Philippines, puto bumbong is sold by street vendors after Mass during Christmas week and is wrapped in banana leaves so customers can take it with them. Since we normally enjoy these at home, we just eat it fresh from the steamer…no banana leaves required.

Thanks to my Tita Lety for showing me how this delicious Christmas treat is made. It’s always great going to their house on Christmas Eve for Noche Buena just a few hours after finishing our own Christmas Dinner.

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Pulled Pork Adobo Sandwich at Cafe Gabriela – Oakland, CA

arnold — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 17:30:53 +0000

Cafe Gabriela has been open for around seven months and it’s a couple blocks from my office, but I never thought about going there until my friend Luis told me they served a pulled pork adobo sandwich. After I read that tweet, I immediately left the office to go get some lunch.

The adobo is cooked long enough so that the pork pulls apart easily, and flavorwise, I really liked that you can actually taste the vinegar. It’s served topped with onions and any juices are absorbed by a perfectly toasted baguette. Owner Penny Bee, who named the business after Philippine heroine Gabriela Silang, developed the recipe herself and says she’s gotten several requests for a chicken adobo sandwich, as well.

Aside from their signature adobo sandwich, Cafe Gabriela’s other menu options include a turkey cranberry sandwich and an heirloom tomato salad. They also make a point to showcase some of the East Bay’s best businesses, including The Bread Workshop, Blue Bottle Coffee, Arizmendi Bakery, and Pepples Donuts.

I’ve been desperate for Filipino lunch options since I started working in downtown Oakland in February. With Cafe Gabriela and the newly opened No Worries vegan Filipino restaurant just a few blocks in the other direction, my Filipino lunch cravings are finally satisfied.

Cafe Gabriela
988 Broadway
(between 9th St & 10th St)
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 763-2233
Facebook

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Homemade Pork Tocino

arnold — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 21:46:19 +0000

A few weeks ago, I got this urge to make my tocino, the sweet cured pork that’s a staple Philippine breakfast meat. It’s probably most commonly served as tosilog, which is portmanteau of tocino, sinangag (garlic fried rice), and itlog (eggs). (I discuss “silogs” in my Best Breakfast Ever post from a few years ago.)

Tosilog — the breakfast of champions (from Cherry Garden in Fremont, CA)

My first attempt at tocino used the simple salt/sugar/achuete cure from the book Memories of Philippine Kitchens by Chef Romy Dotoran and Amy Besa of New York’s famous-but-now-closed Cendrillon. but that recipe didn’t work for me at all. The tocino ended up being way too salty, and it was almost inedible. (There’s a good chance that the recipe’s failure was my fault, so I’ll have to revisit it one of these days.)

While discussing my tocino plans with a couple other food bloggers on Twitter, Mark Manguerra of No Special Effects said that he’d always want to try Simply Anne’s tocino recipe, so I decided to give it a shot. In short, the recipe is good and with a few adjustments, the tocino was exactly what I wanted.

Pork Tocino

(adapted from Simply Anne’s.)

3 lb. boneless pork shoulder roast
1¼ cups pineapple juice
½ cup ketchup
½ cup lemon-lime soda
1/3 cup light soy sauce
2 cups brown sugar
1 Tablespoon garlic, minced
2 Tablespoons salt
1 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

Freeze pork shoulder roast for an hour or so to firm it up so that it’s easier to slice. Cut 1/4-inch slices of pork shoulder and place in a one gallon zipper-lock plastic bag.
Mix the rest of the ingredients in bowl and then add to the meat. Seal the bag, doing your best to remove excess air. Let the pork cure in the refrigerator for a 4-5 days, flipping over the bag every day or so.
After curing, you can either cook the meat or portion them off into smaller bags and freeze them.
To cook the tocino, add a little water, marinade and a few slices of meat to a skillet. Over medium heat, let the liquid boil off and then fry the meat for a couple more minutes to caramelize it. There’s a lot of sugar in the marinade so make sure you don’t burn the meat.
You can also grill the tocino, which is my ideal method, by searing both sides on a grill over high heat and then letting them finish cooking over low or indirect heat. You can replicate this method indoors using a grill pan to sear and a low oven (around 250F) to finish.

Pan frying tocino is traditional, but I prefer it grilled.

There’s a lot of tocino in that picture, isn’t there? I’ll show you what I did with it in my next post… :)

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Making Tapa with Dad

arnold — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:00:40 +0000

Tapa is Filipino cured beef that is similar to beef jerky, and when I was home last weekend, my dad was raving about the homemade tapa he started making recently. He was eager to show me how it’s done, so I pulled out my camera and followed him step by step.

Dad uses three pounds of thinly sliced sirloin tip steaks that he gets at the local Mexican supermarket and cuts it into equal-sized strips with scissors.

Next, he marinates it for 10 hours in a basic mixture of vinegar, soy sauce, garlic and sugar.

Tapa Marinade
½ cup soy sauce
½ cup vinegar
6-8 garlic cloves, chopped
1 Tbsp. sugar

After marinating, the meat gets layered in a food dehydrator that will run for 12 hours. A dehydrator simplifies the process of making tapa, but if you don’t have one, you can always use Alton Brown’s box fan method, which Burnt Lumpia did when he made his tapa. I don’t have a dehydrator, but I do have a box fan, so I’m going to use this method next time.
After 12 hours, the tapa looks like this…

If Lisa Lisa saw this, she’d say it was “all dried out.”

My dad is insistent on broiling the tapa for two minutes a side because I think he’s averse to frying in general, but frying the tapa in a little oil is a great way to finish it off before serving. One of the most popular ways to enjoy it is for breakfast in tapsilog (tapa, garlic fried rice (sinangag) and eggs (itlog)), which is how I like to eat it.

Tapsilog with Dad’s Homemade Tapa.

Last weekend I was home attending my high school reunion, so I’m not going to be home for Father’s Day this year. When I was a kid, it was my dad’s garlic fried rice that woke me up on Sunday mornings, and when I was out on my own, trying to replicate that simple dish was one of the reasons I started cooking. My mom had a stroke five years ago, and dad has been responsible for taking care of her—cooking all the meals, making sure she’s exercising and doing her therapy, and more importantly, keeping her smiling and laughing.

So this post is for you, dad. Happy Father’s Day, and I can’t wait to hear more of your culinary secrets.

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Filipino Spaghetti 2.0 (Holy Trinity Version)

arnold — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:26:23 +0000

After my first post on Filipino spaghetti, I was pretty satisfied with myself and didn’t really have a desire to make drastic changes to my methods. But during my appearance on Kababayan LA last week, I told host Jannelle So that I had Martin PureFoods red hot dogs in hand and was ready to make a more “authentic” version of Filipino spaghetti. Over the weekend, I dropped by Island Pacific Market in Union City and picked up two more items—a bottle of Jufran banana sauce (ketchup, really) and a blue can of Kraft Cheddar “Cheese” (or as a reader called it…”Krap Chis”)—to complete the Holy Trinity of Filipino Spaghetti.

Many of you have probably never seen this blue can of “Kraft Pasteurized Processed Cheddar Cheese Spread” but it’s a pretty vivid food memory from my childhood. The best way to describe it is that it’s like Velveeta in a can. Here’s what it looks like after I removed 1/4 of it to use in the spaghetti (I ended up using half a can).

At room temperature it breaks into pieces easily, especially when using a Microplane to grate the stuff, but it does grate well if you’re careful with it. For the sauce, I ended up doing a rough chop. Here are some shards of “cheese” next to about five red hot dogs that were cut on a bias to make them a little “fancier.” My friend Euge said he mistook the hot dogs for char siu when he first saw this picture and that he was disturbed by them. Mass-produced hot dogs can be disturbing for several reasons aside from some red coloring, but we won’t get into that discussion now. ;)

I started making the sauce as I normally would, sauteeing onions and garlic in a wok for a bit and then adding a pound of ground beef and mixing it all together. After the ground beef was browned, I removed it from the wok and then added the hot dogs, cooking them until they had a nice crust going before adding back the ground beef. Next, I added a whole 26.5 oz can of Del Monte Traditional Spaghetti Sauce.

I was wary of adding any of the banana ketchup to the sauce because I thought it might become overpoweringly sweet, but in the end, I decided to add the whole bottle. The result was really nice because the Jufran gave the sauce a different kind of sweetness than sugar provides, and it also thickened it up a bit and gave it a richer red color. I added salt, pepper, a little brown sugar and about half a can of chopped “cheese” to the sauce and cooked it for about half an hour. I was a little disturbed at how long it it took the chopped “cheese” to melt…grating it into the sauce should accelerate this process.

Here’s how it turned out…don’t forget to grate a little “cheese” on top to garnish.

There was some sauce leftover, and my wife liked it so much that she started using it as a dipping sauce for pandesal. Despite my misgivings about the banana ketchup, this was my favorite version of Filipino Spaghetti of all the ones I’ve made so far and will be the standard that I turn to in the future.

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Inuyaki.com Featured on Kababayan LA

arnold — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:39:48 +0000

I didn’t do a very good job promoting this appearance, but I was the featured blogger on Kababayan LA’s weekly segment known as Viral Thursdays. Hosted by Jannelle So, Kababayan LA is a LA18′s daily Filipino newsmagazine show. It airs weekday afternoons at 4:30pm on Channel 18 in Southern California.

I thought the interview went really well, and we talked about a range of topics, including my blogging origins, Ad Hoc’s Swine and Wine and my Filipino Spaghetti post, which Jannelle said gave her a Jollibee craving.

Here’s the video. My segment starts at the 57-second mark.

When I was talking about the Ad Hoc Swine and Wine, they showed some random pictures of lechon as I was talking, probably because I didn’t have any other pictures of the actual Ad Hoc pig posted here. I thought that was pretty funny.

Despite how serious I look, I had a really good time. I wasn’t able to see Jannelle during the interview, so I was forced to respond to her questions while staring into my laptop camera, which was awkward. Luckily, my face isn’t on screen as much as it could have been.

Thanks to Jannelle and everyone at Kababayan LA for having me on the show. Let’s do it again some time!

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Filipino Spaghetti

arnold — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:11:09 +0000

UPDATE: Check out my Filipino Spaghetti 2.0 post for another version of this dish)

Filipinos love spaghetti…so much so that it’s a staple at fast-food restaurants in the Philippines, including American franchises like KFC and Wendy’s. The Philippines biggest fast-food chain, Jollibee, offers burgers, fried chicken and spaghetti under one roof, and lucky for me, there’s a bunch of them here in California.

Filipino spaghetti is sweeter than a traditional Italian spaghetti, usually from the addition of sugar or banana ketchup to the sauce. It’s other defining characteristic is hot dogs, which sounds weird to non-Pinoys, but it acts as a salty counterpoint to the sweet sauce. (I always knew there was a reason I was partial to Spaghetti O’s with Sliced Franks when I was a kid.)

I generally freestyle my spaghetti, but I always start with a plain sauce (like canned Hunt’s or Del Monte) to use as a base since other ingredients are going to be added. A friend who makes her own excellent version of Filipino spaghetti swears by Prego. I prefer using sugar as a sweetener instead of banana ketchup since it’s something I always have on hand.

You can use almost any brand of hot dogs, but in the interest of “health,” I opted for 97% fat-free Hebrew National Beef Franks (45 calories per hot dog v. 200+ calories for a “regular” hot dog). If you really want to make it authentic, you can get the atomic-red hot dogs they sell at the Filipino or Asian supermarkets.

INGREDIENTS
1 lb. package of spaghetti
½ pound of ground beef
4 hot dogs, sliced cross-wise, about ¼-inch thick
1 onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
grated cheese (at least ¼ cup)
sugar (to taste)

INSTRUCTIONS

In a large pan or wok, heat a couple tablespoons of oil.
When the oil is hot, add garlic to the pan and let it cook in the oil for about 30 seconds.
Add four (4) sliced hot dogs and cook until the edges start to get crispy. Remove from pan and set aside.
Add chopped onions to the pan and cook until they just start to brown
Add approximately ½ pound ground beef to the pan and cook until brown.
Return hot dogs to the pan and add the entire can/jar of spaghetti sauce.
Simmer the sauce for at least 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
After a couple of minutes, stir one tablespoon of sugar into the sauce. Let it simmer for a minute before tasting and adjusting.
After 15 minutes, add approximately ¼ cup of grated cheese to the sauce. I had parmagiano reggiano on hand, so I used that, but cheddar is commonly used.
In a stock pot, boil enough salted water to cook a 1 lb. package of spaghetti. Cook spaghetti according to the directions on the package.
When the sauce is ready, mix about ¾ of the sauce with the cooked spaghetti, reserving the rest of the sauce to top each serving when plated.
After the spaghetti is mixed thoroughly, you can grate more cheese to top the spaghetti before serving, if desired.

This recipe is far from being the definitive version of Filipino spaghetti…this is just how I like to make it. Feel free to make your own adjustments…but don’t forget the hot dogs! :)

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Bourdain Rocks the “Land of Lechon”

arnold — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 08:59:39 +0000

I called my mom about 5 minutes before No Reservations: Philippines was going to air in California, and instead of greeting me, she said, “Are you watching No Reservations?” It wasn’t airing in Hawaii, where I was on vacation, for two more hours, but I did call her to make sure she was watching.

You know Bourdain was in the real Philippines because it said BAWAL UMIHI DITO
(translation: don’t pee here) on every wall. :)

If the Pacquiao/De la Hoya fight was the Filipino equivalent of the Super Bowl, I think this block of television devoted to the cuisine of the Philippines might have been our NBA All-Star Game. Granted, 44 minutes isn’t nearly enough time to do justice to the diverse cuisine of the Philippines, but I thought the show did a good job highlighting some of the great things about the Mother Islands. Bourdain is also a self-described history nut, and he had a lot of great questions about the cultural and historical influences on the Philippines.

I’m not going to recap the whole episode, but it was nice to see Bourdain fall in love with sisig and lechon, and then later declare that the Philippines is No. 1 on his “Hierarchy of Pork” on his Travel Channel blog.

The street food section that opened the show was good, and I was glad Bourdain got to try Pancit Palabok—even though he didn’t think it was “the greatest thing ever”—and the shout out to kalamansi in the segment was nice. Oh…I also want Ivan Man Dy’s Adobo T-shirt.

Where do I get this shirt?

Claude Tayag was Bourdain’s host during the Pampanga segment, and he was great. He started with goat four different ways, which was right up Bourdain’s alley, but a porky love connection happened when Claude introduced him to sisig, the fried pork face dish that might never have been invented were it not for the surplus of pig heads that Clark Air base used to give away in the 1970s.

Sizzing Sisig!

I was chatting with my cousin who lives in Vermont (the state, not the street in L.A.) and she got instantly homesick and hungry during the sisig segment. It must suck to be Filipino in Vermont.

Claude brought some snarkiness to the mix by touting the superiority of Pampanga (big surprise) and saying that “You cannot be Filipino unless you become Pampanga first.” Of course, when his wife corrected him, he immediately clarified that you had to know whatever region you’re from first in order to be Filipino, a sentiment Bourdain related to since he considers himself a New Yorker first and an American second.

Claude also made an observation that has frustrated me since I was a kid.

“We’ve always been bypassed by foreign writers. Even in cookbooks—you buy a Southeast Asian cookbook—we’re marginally on the sides,” he said.

Back in the day, every time I picked up an Asian or world history book or cookbook, the first thing I always did was look in the index for any references to the Philippines, and if there were a couple pages, I considered myself lucky.

Food blogger and lechon master MarketMan of MarketManila.com anchored the Cebu segment. The hand-turned, spit-roasted lechon was a sight to behold with its perfect crispy caramel-brown skin that you could tell was delectable, even on the crappy 19-inch TV at my in-laws house. If you’ve ever been to a party where lechon is being served, people are always scheming to get the first crack at that pig skin.

“Best Pig Ever.” – Anthony Bourdain, 2.16.09

MarketMan’s tour of the fish market was great, especially his explanation of the Suki system of doing business. I also loved that he said the clarity and freshness of the first pressing of fish sauce was analogous to the first pressing of olive oil. Basically, MarketMan was dropping knowledge left and right and definitely picked up the slack for Augusto, whose lack of knowledge was glaring and a bit distracting.

See, I can relate to Augusto’s Fil-Am experience almost exactly, and I had my share of identity issues when I was growing up. However, I never would have put myself up as a representative of the Philippines or its cuisine—especially on international television—and I’ve spent more time there than him. Don’t get me wrong…Augusto deserves a lot of credit for making this episode possible, but as a guide, he was ineffective. It was the exact opposite of the Korea episode where Bourdain’s assistant Nari, while American, had strong ties to Korea and the food, as well as a truly compelling family story.

The show works around this deficiency by framing the narrative around Augusto and his ongoing search for his roots, but in the end, I thought it painted young Filipino Americans as lost souls. But Augusto’s Fil-Am experience is essentially the same as thousands of American-born Filipinos, including me, and as Moonie at PinoyLife noted, the fact Bourdain even brought up this topic “made this episode more historic in the realm of Filipino identity in America.”

As Bourdain himself observed:

It occurs that however badly he wants to be a Filipino, to reconnect with his roots, however hard he’s worked to make that happen—practicing the language, reading up, cooking the food, digging up family memories—he’s still American and to some extent, still new to this part of the family. Not a stranger like me, but an outsider of sorts just the same.

Although I would have preferred that the episode focus more on the food than Augusto’s search for his culture, Augusto deserves a lot of credit for actually wanting to learn more about his culture, especially when it would have been easier for him to ignore it. Of course, Augusto’s story did set up Bourdain’s insightful take on Filipinos and identity that closed the show.

“If there’s anything smart I can say on the subject of national or ethnic identity in general, watching Filipino American Augusto with his Chinese American wife, and—I guess these days—a typical American baby, I think maybe the whole concept is getting quaint and kinda outdated. Who are we really? Increasingly…wherever our hearts are.”

Overall, I thought Bourdain and his crew did an excellent job of showcasing the Philippines without being sensationalistic or cliché, but that’s what he’s done for every other country or region he’s visited. A visit to the Philippines was long overdue, but the wait was worth it, and I hope he goes back for more.

Thanks Tony for shining a light on Philippine cuisine and for giving the Cebuano Lechon the title of “best pig ever.”

And though I may sound critical of him in this post, a big thanks to Augusto for being curious and proud enough of his culture—even if he didn’t fully understand it—to take the initiative to send in his entry and remind Tony that the Philippines was always right under his nose.

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Philippines Tops Bourdain’s “Hierarchy of Pork”

arnold — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 02:55:20 +0000

As the No Reservations – Philippines episode gets set to air, Bourdain’s latest blog post boldly declares that the Philippines is No. 1 in his so-called “Hierarchy of Pork,” ahead of Bali and Puerto Rico.

In his post, Bourdain had high praise for both sisig and the lechon he had in Cebu.

What we did get right, I’m quite sure, was making sure that the amazing, porky delights of “sisig” got plenty of camera time. If you’ve never had this divine mosaic of pig parts, chopped and served sizzling and crisp on one side on a screaming hot platter, then you’ve yet to have one of the world’s best beer drinking dishes. And speaking of pig? It can now be said that of all the whole roasted pigs I’ve had all over the world, the slow-roasted lechon I had on Cebu was the best.

First Manny Pacquiao and now No. 1 on Bourdain’s Hierarchy of Pork? All we need now is for Charice to become bigger than Celine Dion, and we can start our official cultural takeover of the world.

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Watch Bourdain Eat the Philippines on No Reservations

arnold — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:58:13 +0000

I know I’m probably the last Filipino food blogger to mention this, but the much-anticipated Philippines episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations is airing on the Travel Channel tonight at 10pm EST. For a preview, check out his travel itinerary.

Don’t pee here, Tony!

On his Travel Channel blog last October (on my birthday, no less!), Bourdain said this upon his arrival to the Philippines:

Of all the people who watch NO RESERVATIONS, it’s been Filipinos who have been consistently among our biggest fans and most vocal about our having yet to film in their country.

“You’ve been all over Asia,” I hear again and again, “…so WHY haven’t you come to the Philippines?!”

Well…I’m here. And the pressure is on…

…

All I can say is “Don’t worry. We’re NOT doing balut. Been there. Done that.” And privately think to myself, “Don’t screw this up … don’t screw this up … don’t screw this up.”

It’ll be nice to see a show that highlights Philippine cuisine without featuring balut because it’s such a cliche for “adventurous” eaters. Also, It looks like the silog segment got cut, but you can watch it here.

Even though I’m in Hawaii right now, it’s family dinner night so we’re staying in, and I’ll be in front of the TV watching. Will you?

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Filipino Barbecue Skewers

arnold — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 23:16:38 +0000

One of my most enduring food memories is grubbing on skewer after skewer of Filipino Barbecue, but it wasn’t until my friend asked me to cook for her son’s 2nd birthday yesterday that I even thought of making it myself.

Chicken Skewers

Filipino Barbecue is usually made with pork or chicken. and the marinade is a combination of salty, sweet and citrus components. Many recipes call for 7-Up or Sprite, which works as a sweetener and tenderizer. I found a recipe that I liked and made some adjustments and additions to come up with this marinade. I’ll probably tweak this a bit more when I make it again, but here’s what I used yesterday.

Filipino Barbecue Marinade
1 cup soy sauce
1 head garlic, minced
1 onion, finely chopped
3 tablespoons of kalamansi juice or lemon juice
1 cup of lemon-lime soda
2 cups of tanglad (lemon grass) for whole chicken
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper.
3 tablespoons of brown or white sugar

This marinade works best with a 2-3 pounds of chicken or pork cut into cubes. If you use chicken, my preference is for thighs, but breast meat should work fine if you don’t like dark meat. It’s best to marinate the meat for only a couple hours instead of overnight, and then skewer the meat and grill it until it’s done.

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Bacon-Wrapped Lumpia with Alfie the Lumpia Queen

arnold — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 07:30:24 +0000

My homegirl Alfie has been experimenting with lumpia lately and recently started wrapping them in bacon. Yes, that’s right…bacon-wrapped lumpia. It started with turkey bacon, but Alfie was apprehensive about whether or not real smoky pork bacon would work or not. I told her to go for it since I don’t acknowledge the existence of turkey bacon (I feel the same way about turkey SPAM also).

Yes…that’s bacon-wrapped Lumpia.

Anyway, I wish I was back in L.A. to be one of Alfie’s tasters, and the more you read about Alfie’s Lumpia Project, you’ll wish you were one too.

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Saveur Explores Christmas in Pampanga

arnold — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 10:29:34 +0000

I picked up the latest copy of Saveur mainly to drool over the cover story about filet mignon, but as I was thumbing my way to page 87, I caught a glimpse of a roasted pig on a spit and immediately stopped. As I started reading, I discovered that it was part of an article called “Days of Feasting” about the Christmas season in the Philippines, more specifically in the city of Arayat in Pampanga, an area known for their outstanding regional interpretation of Filipino food.

The author, Robyn Eckhardt of Eating Asia, stayed with the family of her friend and colleague Marc Medina during her stay in Pampanga, and she was introduced to the annual gorgefest that occurs all over the Philippines during the holidays. Eckhardt’s main connection to the cuisine was the Medina’s family cook, Lucia Mallari, who prepared most of the meals during her stay. Overall, it’s a good read and I suggest that you pick it up while it’s on newsstands since the article isn’t available online.

Four recipes accompany the article, including an Adobong Manok (chicken adobo) recipe that doesn’t include soy sauce (Mallari claims her recipe is the “real” one), Pinakbet (Philippine vegetable stew), Ulang sa Gata (prawns in coconut milk), and Ensaimada (Philippine-style brioche).

Seeing these recipes in Saveur, especially with their Tagalog names listed first, was really heartwarming because Filipino food hardly ever gets any attention from the “mainstream” culinary media. I’ve always thought that Filipino food could hold its own against other Asian cuisines and have often wondered what’s holding it back. It’s even more amazing when you consider that in America, Filipinos are one of the largest Asian populations in the country (approx. 4 million), but I’m willing to bet more people have eaten Thai food in their lifetime than Filipino food and there are only around 250,000 Thai people in the U.S.

Maybe Manny Pacquiao’s newly claimed worldwide superstardom is going spill over into food, and this Saveur story is just a happy coincidence that will ride the Pac-Man wave.

Gratuitous Manny Pacquiao cameo.

Then again, Manny did eat at Nat’s Thai Food in Hollywood almost every day when he was training, which I thought was an odd aspect of his regimen, but I guess we have to give Thai food its props for helping power the Pacquiao Express.

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Bistek Tagalog 3.0 (Grilled Version)

arnold — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 07:33:40 +0000

Thanksgiving was at my cousin’s this year, and we both agreed we didn’t want to do turkey. I decided that I would make a big batch of Bistek Tagalog, only this time (and inspired by Marvin at Burnt Lumpia) I was going to grill it. Bistek is great as a traditional single-pan dish, but I was confident that grilling the steak would make it even better.

Unlike previous versions of bistek I’ve made that used thinly sliced New York or sirloin steaks, I picked up some flap steak at Costco. Flap steak is very similar to skirt steak, cooks quickly, and is extremely tender. Again, you can use almost any cut of steak to make bistek, but I think that skirt, flank, or flap steaks might be the best cuts of meat for this dish.

I used the same methods as in Bistek Tagalog II (Kalamansi version). I got some more kalamansi from our family friend and ended up needing 60 of them to get almost 1.5 cups of juice. I mixed this with a cup of soy sauce (to ensure there was proportionally more juice than soy sauce) and four chopped garlic cloves to finish the marinade. The meat should be marinated for no more than an hour before putting them on the grill. (Make sure you save the marinade to make the sauce later).

On the Grill

I grilled them for about 5 minutes a side on a very hot grill and then rested the meat for 10 minutes before slicing it against the grain. The meat ended up being between medium rare and medium, which is exactly what I was looking for.

Slice against the grain.

I had a bit of trouble getting the onions onto skewers, so I just put them directly on the grill. I lost a bit of onion this way, but for the most part it worked well. I’m sure you could fry up the onions in a hot, dry frying pan or grill pan if you want to maximize your onion yield. :) When you’re done cooking the onions, mix it up with the meat.

While the meat rests, take the remaining marinade and cook it down to your desired consistency to make the sauce. You might find that you don’t even need the sauce after you try the meat, but it’s always good to mix it in with your rice, too. We ended up pouring the sauce into a gravy boat so that people could just pour it on the meat if they wanted.

Of the three different bistek’s that I’ve made, this one is by far my favorite. Grilled meat always trumps pan-fried in my book, and the flap steak was also the ideal cut of meat to use for bistek. A pan-fried flap steak would also be excellent, but if you have access to a grill, by all means use it.

How did it go over at Thanksgiving? The bistek was the first platter to be finished off, and I also got several compliments on it, so it went very well. :)

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend…now it’s time to focus on Christmas dinner!

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Bistek Tagalog 2.0 (Kalamansi version)

arnold — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 08:09:14 +0000

We’ve been cooking a lot for my parents this week, and when my mom showed me the bags of kalamansi (Philippine musk lime) she got from her friends, the first thing I thought of making was Bistek Tagalog (Filipino Beefsteak).

The first time I wrote about this, I only had lemons on hand, but kalamansi is the traditional ingredient.

Kalamansi are really small, and I think I used at least 30 kalamansi (I lost count) to get 1 cup of juice. The kalamansi juice is mixed with soy sauce and minced garlic and used to marinate the steak for about 30 minutes.

My mom said that the bistek she grew up with a had a strong citrus flavor, so instead of the 1:1 citrus/soy sauce mixture that I used before, I reduced the amount of soy sauce to let the kalamansi juice come to the forefront.

When my mom tried my bistek, she said it reminded her of home, which was the ultimate compliment.

I think regardless of whether or not I have kalamansi on hand or not, I’m going to go with this version of the recipe instead of the previous one.

INGREDIENTS
Thinly cut steaks
1 onion, thinly sliced into rings

Marinade:
1 cup kalamansi juice
3/4 cup soy sauce
4 garlic cloves, minced

DIRECTIONS

Combine marinade ingredients and marinate steaks for no longer than 30 minutes.
In a skillet, cook the steaks over medium high heat. If you’re using thinner steaks, this should only take a few minutes. After the steaks are cooked, remove from skillet and place on a plate. Keep warm.
Add the onion slices to the pan and cook until softened. Top the steaks with the onions
Add the remaining marinade to the skillet and reduce for about a minute to make a sauce. If the sauce is too strong, add a little water to dilute it a bit. When the sauce is ready, pour over the steak and onions.
Serve with steamed rice.

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Toasted Pan de Sal and Peanut Butter

arnold — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:27:49 +0000

My parents usually have a good supply pan de sal in the house, so I’ve been getting my fill of my favorite snack, toasted pan de sal and peanut butter.

Pan de sal is a Filipino bread roll that’s normally eaten at breakfast. Its name literally mean “salt bread” but it’s generally on the sweet side. The Filipino store near my parents gets their pan de sal from Valerio’s Bakery, which is pretty well known both in SoCal and the Bay Area.

I cut the bread in half and then to toast mine to the “medium” setting on the toaster oven so that it gets nice and crusty. This ensures that the outside of the pan de sal will have some crunch when you bite into it, but the rest of the roll should be soft, fluffy, and warm.

You can use any peanut butter you want, but I lean towards creamy because I love the sheen of the peanut butter as it starts to melt when it hits the hot bread.

So how do you like your pan de sal?

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The Oinkster

arnold — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:19:44 +0000

When I’m home in SoCal, heading out to Eagle Rock isn’t normally on the agenda, especially for food. But when some friends told me about The Oinkster’s house-cured pastrami sandwiches and ube milk shakes, Eagle Rock started sounding mighty nice.

The Oinkster is the brainchild of Andre Guerrero, a Filipino American chef who’s a veteran of the Southern California restaurant scene. His other restaurant, Max in Sherman Oaks, offers contemporary Pan-Asian fine dining that’s a stark contrast to The Oinkster’s laid-back, order-at-the-counter vibe. (We also took my parents to Max for a Mother’s/Father’s Day dinner, so basically it was an Andre Guerrero weekend.) We ended up going to Oinkster twice in four days and were able to try a good cross section of the menu.

The Oinkster Pastrami sandwich is a thing of beauty—pastrami with Gruyere and a red cabbage slaw. The pastrami is cured for two weeks (the old-fashioned way) according to a recipe Guerrero developed over a period of two years. It’s not a melt-in-your-mouth pastrami like they have at Katz’s in New York, but it’s definitely the some of best pastrami I’ve had on the West Coast.

Aside from the sandwiches, the pastrami also tops the Royale burger, and it’s also featured in their excellent chili. If you’re from Southern California, you’ve likely had a chiliburger at one of the many Original Tommy’s hamburger stands that are down here. Tommy’s chili is legendary in L.A., so it may be blasphemous of me to say this, but…The Oink’s chili is so much better. In fact, I don’t know what I really saw in Tommy’s chili other than the novelty of it. I went back to Tommy’s with my wife a few months ago, and on its own, the chili reminded me of dog food. It really needs to be paired with fries or a burger. The Oink’s chili can definitely stand on it’s own, and it has a freshness that you’ll never get from Tommy’s chili.

The BBQ Pulled Pork sandwich features soy/honey-brined pork that’s slow roasted and smoked and topped with red cabbage slaw and caramelized onions. The pork is nice and tender on its own, but my wife said it’s like Kalua Pig without the salt. When you pair it with The Oink’s own vinegary Carolina BBQ sauce, it’s just about perfect. Make sure you get some at the counter when you’re getting your other condiments…the first time we went, we forgot the sauce because we didn’t know it was on the counter and the bottles weren’t labeled very well. Instead, we used the house-made Oinkster Mustard as a substitute, which was fine, but not as good as the Carolina sauce.

Guerrero prides himself on using Kennebec Potatoes for his Belgian Fries, which he says are the same potatoes used at In-N-Out. I know many people who don’t like In-N-Out’s fries, but I’m definitely a fan, and I liked The Oink’s fries a lot. They use the traditional Belgian double-fry method to keep the fries crispy and fluffy, and they pair up nicely with The Oink’s chipotle ketchup and garlic aioli, and of course, it goes great with the aforementioned chili. The rotisserie chicken, also pictured above, was really good, but I like my birds to have a crispier skin a la Zankou Chicken.

There’s a wide selection of other desserts all baked by Guerrero’s pastry chef girlfriend, Jan Purdy. They include the excellent peanut butter and jelly cupcake, a very popular item so snap one up if they’re in the dessert case, and a nice carrot cupcake. Next time, i’m going to try the brownies and the lemon bars.

But if it’s your first trip to The Oink, you must christen the occasion with an Ube Shake. Ube’s going to sound weird to most people because it’s a purple yam native to the Philippines, but it’s actually very popular in desserts, especially ube ice cream. The ube shake is rich and creamy and is a beautiful shade of light purple. If you’re not very hungry, I think the Ube Shake could actually serve as a meal replacement instead of dessert. Think of it as a Filipino Jamba Juice.

I’m going back to SoCal in July for a wedding at Occidental College which is very close to The Oinkster. Sounds like I’ll need an ube shake to cool off just before wedding.

INFORMATION
The Oinkster
2005 Colorado Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90041 map
323.257.3892
Web site

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The FINAL Dale Post, Courtesy of Bourdain

arnold — Fri, 30 May 2008 18:23:07 +0000

I swear this is the last time I write about Dale’s departure from Top Chef. I wouldn’t have said another word about it, but I just read Anthony Bourdain’s blog on the subject. Bourdain filled in for Tom Colicchio during Restaurant Wars, and he offers a first-hand behind-the-scenes account of what when down.

Dale’s departure and Lisa’s continued presence (in the Final Four no less!) has been fodder for a lot of rage and anger in the blogosphere, but I think Bourdain’s objectivity and Dale’s own reflections (see here and here) on his departure should serve to calm folks down (for a second or two.)

On Dale’s butterscotch scallop dish:

…Supremely bad. Jaw droppingly bad. So bad that there was a long, awkward moment at the table when all the judges just sat there, silent, stunned with disbelief that anyone—especially Dale—could serve something so…disgusting. It’s the only time on Top Chef that I literally could not take another bite.

Dale was in deep, deep trouble from the judges’ first mouthful of this luminously wretched gunk.

Lisa’s laksa was screwed up. Unpleasantly smoky. But I could eat it. Her “sticky rice” dessert was awful. But not dig-a-hole-in-the-ground-stick-my-head-in-pour-in-Clorox bad. Like those scallops. They were distinguished by their sheer degree of awfulness, sucking everything around them down with it.

Shit Happens When You Don’t Win the Quickfire:

He had the misfortune to almost win the Quickfire. Had he lost, and not come in second, he would not have been team leader—and would not have had the additional burden of leadership.

(A burden he was ill suited to carry)

He was even more unfortunate in that he WON the coin toss, after which he made the regrettable and ultimately foolish decision to anoint himself Exec Chef. Looking around at who he had to work with, and knowing, one would hope, that he was unlikely to be able to either lead or inspire them, he could have put ego aside and stayed out of the line of fire and avoided the clusterf**k.

On Dale’s “Leadership”:

Had Dale been a little more mature, a little better suited to lead…had he not fancied himself a crotch grabbing gangster genius..had he not been the sort of guy who unnecessarily calls temp waiters, hired for the DAY “assholes”, then he might well have seen the wisdom in adopting Stephanie’s far smarter attitude over at Team Woodstock. Note the agreement on that team that whatever happened, no one from that team was going home that week. The whole concept, the menu, the division of labor was smartly designed to achieve just that. To protect the team–as a whole. To not f**k up—or allow anyone on their team to f**k up.

Dale, with many opportunities to do otherwise, just couldn’t resist trying to shine as an individual. He reached too far…with a dish he’d never even made before. And he neglected to guard his flanks.

On Dale’s Future:

Of the Terrible Trio, Dale will surely have a bright career. He’s generally an excellent cook. His post-loss interviews have demonstrated commendable insight into where things went wrong for him.

On Judging “Conspiracies”:

Judging on Top Chef, as has been pointed out repeatedly (most recently and succinctly by my learned colleague, Ted Allen) is on a “What Have You Cooked For Me Lately” basis. We are not supposed to care what has been achieved previously. In fact, guest judges don’t even know. The shows air long after filming. So Jose Andres, for instance, can in no way be expected to know—or care—if Dale won previous challenges, deserved to win them, loves puppies and long walks on the beach—or tortures hamsters in his spare time. After deliberation, the judges were unanimous in their feeling that it was Dale who—this week—f**ked up worst.

On Lisa and Spike:

Lisa, who’s appearance and hostile, defiant-looking posture alone seem to have made her this season’s designated villain surely does not deserve the hatred and vitriol seen on blogs and websites. Nor is it likely—barring the most freakish and flukey sudden realignment of the planets and spate of untimely deaths—that she shall win Top Chef. She’s a decent cook…but a lucky one.

Blaming others ain’t gonna take her far.

Spike, on the other hand, can look forward to a long career.

In politics. He’s perfect for it.

Read the whole thing here.

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Top Chef’s Dale Defends His Vision in BuddyTV Interview

arnold — Sun, 25 May 2008 17:42:55 +0000

A friend sent me a link to another interview with Top Chef contestant Dale Talde, this time on BuddyTV.com. It covers some of the same ground as the Chow.com interview I discussed in my previous post, but he spent a good chunk of the interview defending himself amidst criticism that he only cooks Asian food.

Are you going to (ask) an Italian chef, “Why do you only do Italian food?” Are you going to (ask) Alain Ducasse, “Why do you only do French food?” My food is inspired by Asia…ALL of Asia…the Philippines, Japan, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos. You want to talk about Asia? Asia is enormous.

In Season 2, Ilan Hall won the title of Top Chef by relying on his background cooking Spanish food. At least Dale was drawing from an entire continent for influence, not just a single country.

If Dale was bothered by anything, it was the criticism of his vision.

Criticize my execution if you want to. If my dish wasn’t good, fine, I’ll take it back. Don’t you in your life ever criticize my vision. It’s MY vision, not your vision.

Dale also said he had no problem throwing down with anyone if they wanted to cook Italian food or French food, but he finds that food boring because the flavors don’t “pop out” to him.

My flavors are big and bold and bright and in your face, and sweet, sour, salty come all at you. I’m not going to sit there and roast a piece of rack of lamb, and cook some noodles, and deglaze with white wine and shallots and then put it on a plate. That’s not who I am. Chilis…vinegar…miso paste. That’s what I do.

Dale was adamant about creating new dishes on the show instead of playing it safe.

Unlike some of my other competitors…I had never done some of that food before. I never did that food. Maybe that was a mistake of mine, too, from an execution standpoint. What I’m not going to do is sit there and recreate dishes that I did at my restaurant. I’m not going to do that. Why? Because it’s not about “Hi, you’re the best chef” and now bite every recipe off all these people. It’s about Dale making his own food and about putting my food in the forefront. Maybe I should have toned my style down, but I failed. I didn’t execute a good dish. The scallop dish was weak. I knew it was weak.

He also broke down his thought process on the ill-fated butterscotch scallop dish.

When you do a miso sauce, there’s a lot of sugar involved in it. The idea of caramelizing the sugar and turning it into a butterscotch and then adding miso…I like salty/sweet. It’s always a combination that I love. That’s what that is. Maybe not so good with scallops, maybe better off with something else like a piece of cod or something a little more savory�scallops have a natural sweetness to it. I had never made that before, and I put it on a plate and that was my downfall.

Ironically, I was watching on old episode of Iron Chef America the other day and Iron Chef Cat Cora, in a honey battle versus Citizen Cake’s Elizabeth Faulkner, caramelized some honey on top of a scallop successfully. So Dale may have been on the right track with the butterscotch…

Listen to the entire interview here.

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