November 19, 2009 at 3:06 PM (Recipes, Sinamak)
Ilonggo Spiced Vinegar
We Filipinos love to dip our food and no Ilonggo home would be complete without our favorite Sinamak on hand. This is a favorite dip for our Inasal, grilled or fried fish. This is easy to prepare you just need to have the ingredients on hand. You can mix fish sauce or soy sauce with it if you prefer, when serving.
Panakot (Ingredients)
- Vinegar (Coconut vinegar is the best for this recipe, but you can substitute with your favorite vinegar)
- Chili (We use the really tiny ones back home which are very fiery we call them Kutikot) put in a lot at least half of your container
- Peeled garlic (four or five will do)
- Whole Peppercorns
- Bay Leaf
- Wild ginger (Langkawas , or regular ginger will do sliced)
Paagi (Procedure)
- Not much in a way of procedure just put in all the ingredients in your container, chilies first then arrange the rest as you see fit. Let it marinate for at least two weeks or when the ingredients drop down to the bottom of the container which means it has absorbed the vinegar.
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November 13, 2009 at 5:31 PM (Pinakbet, Recipes)
Braised Vegetable Medley with Shrimp Paste
Although this dish is more “Ilo-kano” than “Ilo-nggo” Pinakbet is almost a national dish as Adobo. It is in most regions in the whole country with slight variations. We used to go to this resort in Iloilo that has this really great Pinakbet, oozing with bagoong, crisp vegetables and lovely melt in your mouth pork belly. It has always been part of our order.
I think the secret to Pinakbet is the high quality Bagoong (shrimp paste) that you choose and the freshness of the vegetables.
I have been to a lot of filipino homes, parties and restaurants, and I noticed that the veggies are usually overcooked (from pansit to chop-suey etc), partly to blame I think is our Turo-turo mentality where the food has been slowly cooking in their containers for hours. So you have vegetables that are mushy and lacks color. Turo-Turo is ok if you are in a rush, that’s how it was designed for…”Fast-food”. But definitely not at home. We have to cook with our heart that has been our Lola’s secret recipe and our Mom’s secret recipe and will continue to be, provided you put care and love in your cooking. I am a firm believer in the slow food movement.
Panakot (Ingredients):
- Garlic, Tomato and Onions for Sauteing
- Squash
- Long Beans (Sitaw)
- Okra
- Eggplant
- Bagoong (Shrimp paste, I personally like to use Barrio fiesta’s spicy adobo bagoong)
- Pork Belly (sliced into cubes)
- Patis (Fish Sauce)
* note: You can pick any robust vegetables that you want (Sigarilyas or Ampalaya are another good addition)
Paagi (procedure):
- In a pot, boil a liter of water, and blanch the vegetables beforehand. Cool it off in a an ice bath if you wish to preserve the color (This is the best technique to cook the veggies uniformly)
- In a wok put in the pork belly and let it fry in it’s own fat
- Once the pork belly is brown and crispy, add your Bagoong (about 2 tbsp) and saute it in pork fat
- Add garlic, then onions and tomato let it saute a bit for about 2 minutes
- Put heat on high
- Add all the vegetables and mix thoroughly
- Add fish sauce or salt to taste
- Turn down the heat to simmer, put a lid on it till slightly undercooked.
- Turn off the heat and keep the lid on till serving time (about 5 minutes), the residual heat would slowly cook the vegetables to just the right amount of done-ness.
Serve hot with rice, Namit!
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November 8, 2009 at 7:09 PM (Ginat-an nga Pasayan, Recipes)
Shrimp in Coconut Milk and Butternut Squash
Shrimp or Prawns really goes well with coconut milk and a bit spiced up. Most southeast Asian cuisine has something similar, notably Thai food. This is my personal favorite with butternut squash, chili and lemongrass. I prefer the shrimp with head and shell on, adds more depth and flavor. If you want it without the shell then pound the head add some water, strain and add the juice to your sauce.
Panakot (Ingredients)
- 1 lb large shrimp
- Garlic
- Onion
- Ginger (Julienned)
- Lemongrass
- Gata ( Coconut Milk divided into two cups)
- Kalabasa (I used butternut squash, sweet and creamy. Slice it by Cubes)
- Sili (I use siling haba, you can use the more fiery ones if you prefer)
- Fish sauce and salt and pepper to taste
Paagi (procedure)
- Suatee Garlic, then onions and ginger
- Add squash and sautee
- Add first cup of Gata
- Simmer and add lemongrass
- Once squash is halfway cooked, add shrimp
- Add salt and pepper to taste
- Once shrimp is almost cooked add the remainder of the Gata
- You can add Chili pepper leaves or use it for garnish
Serve Hot!
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September 16, 2009 at 8:04 PM (Litson nga Pugo, Recipes)
I’ve always loved the native Lechon Manok at Tatoy’s restaurant in Iloilo. The restaurant only use native free-range chicken called bisaya for their lechon manok. The taste is always succulent and delicious, basted with annato oil and stuffed with lemongrass or tamarind leaves. It’s also relatively healthy because it’s lean, and cooked the right way it is also tender.
Here in America and even in Manila free-range chicken is hard to come by, since a lot of breeders don’t sell it commercially because it takes a long time to mature unlike the forty five day chemically fed chicken that is in the grocery stores and it has to be at the right young age for it to be tender.
I’ve always wanted to recreate the lechon manok here but can’t find the right chicken for it. A couple of weeks ago I happen-chance to see some dressed Quails while I was shopping at an Asian grocery near me. I know that the flavor profile and the texture of native chicken is closer to the avian family than poultry, I thought I’ll give it a shot. Surprise surprise I found the protein that was really close to what I was aiming for.
Here is my version of Native Lechon Manok albeit in a smaller package.
Litson nga Pugo
Panakot (Ingredients):
Young Native Chicken, Quail or Cornish hen
Marinate:
- Soy Sauce
- Salt and Pepper
- Crushed Ginger
- Crushed Garlic
- Vinegar
- Sprite (optional)
Stuffing
- Lemongrass or Tamarind Leaves
Baste:
Annato oil
Paagi (procedure) :
- Marinate the chicken for an hour or two (Do not marinate overnight if your using vinegar it will partially cook the meat)
- Stuff the inside of your Quail with lemongrass or tamarind leaves
- Sprinkle Salt and Pepper all over the Quail
- If you have a rotisserie then cook as you would a regular roast chicken and baste with annato oil
- If you have an oven, roast the Quail for 30-40 minutes at 250 degrees, baste with annato oil. Free range chicken or quail has lean meat so basting is necessary to retain moisture
- Once the meat is almost done, broil the quail to crisp up the skin
- Once done let it rest for a couple of minutes
- Serve with Sinamak (spiced vinegar) and toyo.
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August 31, 2009 at 5:42 PM (Kansi, Recipes)
Kansi
Last weekend I was invited by a friend to their new house for a barbecue at a pool and of course “Inuman” (drinking session) is a given. I wanted to cook something that would be a great hangover cure and the weather was a bit on the cool side. So what would be perfect that a hot and spicy, steaming bowl of soup. This recipe is close in flavor to Mexican “menudo” than Bulalo. My Batangueno friends loved it, and they are the masters of Northern Bulalo. So that’s a good sign. Enjoy!
This is my version of the “Kansi” I added some beef pata to the usual shank.
Panakot (Ingredients)
- 2 lbs Beef Shank with bone marrow
- 2 lbs Beef Pata (Knee) or Maskara (face)
- Kamias or Batuan (This is the traditional souring agent for classic Ilonggo cuisine, but it is hard to find so I used Kamias)
- Green Jackfruit (Langka)
- Tanglad (lemon grass)
- 1 small head of Garlic minced
- Tomato
- Sea Salt and Pepper
- Sili
- 1 tbsp of Atsuete (Annato seeds)
Paagi (Procedure)
- In a pressure cooker, brown half of the minced garlic and set aside for garnish later
- Add the rest of the garlic until slightly brown and saute with the tomatoes.
- Add the beef shank and beef pata.
- Add water to cover the meat, close the lid of the pressure cooker and cook for maybe 30 minutes
- After 30 minutes open your pressure cooker and check the beef shank if its tender as it will cook first before the pata. If it’s tender take it out and put aside.
- Take out the scum that’s floating on the top
- Add the lemongrass and Kamias
- Prepare the Annato seeds by adding some of the hot broth to the seeds let it sit for awhile till the colors come out.
- Close the pressure cooker again and continue cooking until the pata is fall off the bone tender maybe another 30-40 minutes
- Add the Langka and continue cooking till it’s fork tender
- Add the extract from the Annato seeds
- Bring back the shank and season with salt and pepper to taste
- Garnish with the crunchy garlic you had set aside
Serve hot.
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August 28, 2009 at 1:56 PM (Pochero Ilonggo, Recipes)
Pochero Ilonggo
Pochero Ilonggo
Pochero is one of those Filipino dishes that have been influenced by Spanish cuisine like Cocido. There are different styles of cooking this dish, in the northern part of the country they add tomato sauce with chorizo. The Ilonggo version of this dish has no tomato sauce but have sweet plantains in them which makes the broth both savory and sweet.
Panakot (Ingredients)
2 lbs Beef Shank (Traditionally this is done with pork or pork hocks)
1 red onion
1 Potato
1 Saba (Sweet Plantains)
1/2 head of Cabbage (I used red to add another dimension of color to the dish)
Corn (I used baby corns on mine)
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 Bay leaf
Paagi (Procedure)
- Put the Beef shank in the pot and add water to cover the meat, bring to a boil
- Scoop out any scum that might surface
- Add half of the red onion to add flavor to the dish, the other half you can add later to retain the color
- Reduce to simmer until meat is almost fall off the bones tender
- Add the potatoes and the bay leaf
- After a few minutes add the plantain
- Add salt and pepper
- Once the potatoes and plantains are nearly cooked, add the cabbage
- turn off the heat, and let the residual heat cook the cabbage
Serve hot and Enjoy
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August 27, 2009 at 11:38 AM (Recipes, Sinugba)
Sinugba nga baboy
Sinugba nga Baboy
Grilled Pork Belly with a soy ginger marinade and rosemary.
The marinade is the foundation of the Ilonggo chicken Inasal. I just love the addition of rosemary and olive oil in it, adds a nice western touch. Perfect for the grill!
Recipe for the marinade:
Soy Sauce
Vinegar
Lemon (Calamansi is best)
Crushed ginger (lots of it)
Salt
Pepper
garlic
brown sugar
optional
Lemongrass and chili (if you have it for the extra oomph factor)
rosemary
Baste:
Annato Seeds
Olive oil (if you want it decadent and originally Ilonggo, use chicken fat as the oil.)
and some of the marinade. Simmer them together to create annato oil.
This recipe is easy to prepare, marinate the pork overnight and grill!
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August 25, 2009 at 1:30 PM (Laswa, Recipes)
Laswa
Laswa
Hearty Vegetable Stew
I think Laswa is a good example of what Ilonggo cuisine is all about. It is simple to prepare and the ingredients has to be fresh. My Lolo (grandfather) used to have a vegetable garden in his backyard and on some days my Lola (grandmother) would go there and pick whatever vegetable is in season and make it into a stew.
The flavor of Laswa is clean and sweet from the different vegetables you add to it. There is really no standard vegetables that you can use, but I would suggest that Okra should be there because it gives body to the stew and squash for added sweetness and color and whatever vegetables that are in season. I use shrimp as my soup base but you can use chicken stock or pork if you prefer, some use dried fish as a soup base too. This stew is a great side dish for grilled or fried food to counter balance the richness of the meat.
The crucial part of making Laswa is understanding the cooking point of the vegetables, there has to be a hierarchy when adding the vegetables to the stock. That is why this dish is best prepared at home, I don’t like eating this dish at turo-turo restaurants since they are continually getting heated up and thus the vegetables get overcooked.
Panakot (Ingredients)
- 1 tbsp Hibe (dried shrimp)
- 1 cup of Shrimp (head on)
- 2 cups Squash
- 5 pcs Okra
- 1 cup String Beans
- Spinach (I prefer Chinese spinach if you find some)
- Chicken stock or Rice washings
- Salt
- Dried Scallops (optional but I have some I brought back from Hong kong and it’s great with soups or stews)
Paagi (Procedure)
- Bring the soup stock to a boil (This is crucial before adding the vegetables, you want everything to cook fast to preserve the texture, taste and the color of the vegetables)
- Add the dried Shrimp let it sit there for a minute or two
- Add the fresh Shrimp
- Once the fresh Shrimp turns pinkish, add the okra then after a minute or two add the squash. (Depending on what squash you use the cooking point may differ, I use butternut squash and they cook fast)
- When the previous vegetables start to slightly be fork tender, add the string beans
- Add salt to taste
- turn off the heat then add your leafy vegetables, they will get cooked by the residual heat so it won’t get overcooked.
Serve Immediately
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August 24, 2009 at 8:57 PM (Arroz Caldo with Crispy Chicken Adobo, Recipes)
Arroz Caldo
Arroz Caldo with Crispy Chicken Adobo
(Saffron infused Chicken and Rice Porridge)
This is my take on our venerable Arroz Caldo, instead of just boiling the chicken along with the porridge, I opted to make it more flavorful by crisping up some chicken adobo to top my Arroz Caldo.
Arroz Caldo is a favorite soup/snack for those rainy days back home and it’s perfect here on the cold winter months. I know it’s summer but it can really be enjoyed anytime.
It’s also great for people on a diet, because it actually has low carbs, a bowl of porridge probably has 2 tbsp of rice because it expands.
Panakot (Ingredients):
1 cup rice
1 Liter water (you can add more if the porridge is too thick)
Chicken (separate the dark meat for the stock and create adobo out of the breast meat)
a pinch of Saffron
3 cloves Garlic
a thumb of Ginger
1 small Onion
optional: Chicken Bouillon (If you don’t have a lot of bones for the stock use this)
Garnish
- Green Onions
- Fried Garlic
- Hard Boiled Egg
Paagi (Procedure)
-Saute garlic, onions and ginger
-Add chicken bones
-Add the rice and saute it for a minute, you want the oil to coat the rice
- Add water and bring to a boil
- add the saffron to give it color and aroma
- Simmer until the rice breaks and the porridge thickens up
- Garnish with crunchy fried garlic, hard boiled egg, green onions and your crunchy adobo.
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August 21, 2009 at 11:18 AM (Chicken Binakol, Recipes)
Filipino cuisine is as unique and diverse as its 7,107 Islands. My blog will focus on recipes that I’ve learned and observed from my Lola (Grandma), my Nanay (Mother) and the people that I meet during my travels. I will focus on the cuisine of the islands in the middle part of the country. The western part of the visayan islands, home of the Ilonggo.
My birthplace Roxas City, is dubbed the seafood capital of the Philippines. I live about 10 minutes away from the beach and on some afternoons we would watch the local fishermen bring home their catch from their “pukot” (a style of netting fish) and we would have a bed of hot coals waiting for the fresh fish. The cuisine in my hometown is all about simplicity and freshness. Sometimes sea salt is all we add to fresh fish to enhance the flavor of the seafood and not cover it with sauce.
It is also my goal to help bring awareness of Filipino cuisine to the world. We are a country not only diverse geographically but we are a melting pot of cultures. Spanish, Chinese and Malay cultures have made their mark on our soil and on our cuisine. In a local “handaan” or banquet, you would see food on the table like Spanish Paella, Chinese spring rolls or Chicken curry along with the rest of the local delicacies.
It’s time for Filipino food to come front and center, but in order to do that we have to elevate it into an art form. So it can belong not only in our beloved carinderia but also in fine restaurants anywhere in the world.
Chicken Binakol Roxas Style
Here is my first recipe. This recipe is not only Visayan, but it is uniquely Ilonggo. We call this dish “Binakol”. What’s unique about this dish is it uses the water of a young coconut as part of the broth and they used to cook this inside a makeshift bamboo pot and slowly cooked over hot coals. So you can imagine the aroma of the lemongrass, the coconut and the bamboo permeating the soup. Namit!
Chicken Binakol
Ingredients:
- Free range chicken or Cornish hen (Back home we use a variety they call “Bisaya”, it is basically a native free range chicken that is very flavorful. )
- Kamias (Iba in visayan)
- Lemongrass (Tanglad)
- Ginger (julienned)
- Garlic (chopped)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Chili (Siling haba)
- Young coconut
- Chicken bouillon (If you don’t have enough chicken bones and time to prepare the stock)
Directions:
- Saute the ginger and garlic until fragrant
- Add the chicken and continue to saute until slightly brown
- Add the coconut water and coconut meat, add some water to cover the chicken
- Bring to a boil for a couple of minutes
- Bring the pot to a simmer and add the Kamias and the lemongrass.
- Depending on how spicy you want the dish to be you can add the Chili sooner, but I like to add it towards the end.
Serve hot and Enjoy!
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