Overseas Pinoy Cooking

Asparagus with Tofu . This dish was inspired by the same dish of Max’s Restaurant the moment I have seen in it their menu while looking for something different but healthy food I curiously ordered the dish. True enough I was not disappointed the dish was great even though it look simple. In fact the blend of sauce ingredients are a little intricate that is some what a mix of oyster sauce and hoisin sauce with a hint of sesame oil. This is how I tried to replicate it judging from how it taste and from a standard method of cooking stir-fry vegetables with oyster sauce. Ingredients: 1 big block tokwa , firm tofu, cut into thick strips 1/2 kilo asparagus, cut into 2” length 1 thumb size ginger cut into thin strips 1 medium onion, sliced thinly 1 small size red bell pepper, julienne 1 small size carrot, julienne 1/2 head garlic, minced 1 tbsp. hoisin sauce 1 tbsp. soy sauce 1/2 c. oyster sauce 2 tbsp. cornstarch 1/2 tsp. sugar sesame oil salt to taste cooking oi...

Tokwa’t Isda is the healthy alternative for tokwa’t baboy which is loaded with cholesterol. For those who are on a low fats food, and of course pork is on the top “no-no” from the doctor but craving tokwa’t baboy for that lugaw or porridge, don’t despair use fish as an alternative for that fatty pork face for tokwa . For best result don’t over fry the fish fillet it should be just quickly fried to maintain the softness of the fish and little bit crisp on the outside. Ingredients: 1 kilo white fish fillet (any firm white fish) 4 blocks tokwa (firm tofu) 2 medium size onion, chopped 1-2 piece sili , chopped 1/2 cup soy sauce 1/2 cup vinegar 1 tsp. sugar cooking oil salt Cooking Procedure: In a frying pan fry tokwa for 3-5 minutes or until color changes to golden brown, remove from pan and drain excess oil, let cool. Cut fried tokwa into big cubes or serving pieces set aside. Cut fish fillet into big cubes. In same frying pan quickly fry fish for 2-3 minute...

Vigan Bagnet is the Ilocano version of lechon kawali . Large chunks of pork leimpo, belly or pork sides, deep fried for at least two times until crispy. It is serve with tamatis and lasuna with bagoong nga munamon . Just the thought of it makes every genuine Ilocano drool. Just be careful when cooking or deep frying this dish, expect a lot of hot oil splashing. Ingredients: 2 kilos pork liempo (pork belly), whole cut 1/2 head garlic 1 tsp. peppercorns 2 tbsp salt 1-2 bay leaves cooking oil for frying Cooking procedure: Wash pork belly, cut into large chuncks and place in a large pot. Add enough water to cover the pork belly. Add in salt, peppercorns, garlic, bay leaves. Cover and bring to a boil, simmer for 30 to 45 minutes or until tender. Remove all scum that rises. Remove from the pot, place in a colander and let sit for a while so that the liquid will drain. Dry with paper towels if necessary. Keep refrigerated for several hours. In a large kawali heat enough...

Inihaw na Manok , grilled chicken is still loved by my children. It is an easy choice at any restaurants or at food courts when you are choosy and fed up with that fried chicken . They are served with java rice and even in sizzling plates. Here is a simple and easy to prepare recipe using commercially available marinade mix similar to my inihaw na baboy recipe. You can’t go wrong with this prepared marinade mix. Try to grill the chicken at low to medium heat or at least six inches away from the charcoals to have the inside of the chicken cooked properly. Ingredients: 1 kilo chicken legs or any chicken cut 1 cup Mama Sita’s Barbecue Marinade Knorr Liquid Seasoning Cooking procedure: Wash chicken, remove any traces of blood. Drain in a strainer. Marinate with Mama Sita’s Barbecue Marinade for 3 hours or overnight. Grill at low to medium heat for 10 to 15 minutes on each side. Drizzle with Knorr Liquid Seasoning in between. Do not overcook, it should be moist inside, jus...

Paksiw na Asuhos . Asuhos are always available at the fish market and most supermarkets of Abu Dhabi. If you’re lucky you could get them fresh. They are good also for kinilaw since they are bigger than dilis it is easier to prepare. But the ones I bought from the supermarket are frozen so I decided to cook them as paksiw . Well with a lot of green sili , spring onions and crushed black pepper it was good. Ingredients: 1 kilo big size asuhos 1/2 head garlic, crushed 1 thumb size ginger cut into thin slices 1 medium size onion, sliced 1 tbsp. crushed black pepper 1/4 c. vinegar 3-5 pcs. whole green sili 1 stalk spring onions, cut into 2” length cooking oil salt Cooking procedure: Remove gills and innards by cutting the under belly up to the head of each asuhos . Wash fish thoroughly drain. In a pot put garlic, onion and ginger at the bottom. Arrange asuhos side by side, add 1 cup of water and 1/4 cup vinegar green sili , spring onions and crushed bla...

Kentucky Fried Chicken . When I was a kid fried chicken means two things, fried chicken marinated with soy sauce and kalamansi or the savory fried chicken similar to the one served at Aristocrat or Max’s fried chicken. Today fried chicken means crispy breaded fried chicken. That is served at any of your favorite fast food restaurant. This has become the favorite of most Pinoys, not only for the kids but adults as well. The Pinoy version comes with the chicken gravy as a dip. The gravy has become a must for every fried chicken meal for Pinoys that it is even used as a sauce topping of the rice that comes along with meal. There is even a street food version that is coined as “ Kantoky ”, meaning KFC in street corner. Off course cooking this at home is not that difficult all you need is a lot of cooking oil and a deep fryer or deep pan. Here is how I cooked it. Ingredients: 1 kilo marinated chicken drumstick or any choice cut 1 piece egg 1 cup fresh milk 2 cup all purpose flour...

Rellenong Alimasag, Stuffed Crabs dish is very difficult to prepare to some. Well the only difficult part is of course is collecting the meat from the crab shells and claws including meat from the legs. The collected meats are then  and stuffed to the shell nothing special. Crabs are now in season in Abu Dhabi and in the Gulf in general, most Pinoys usually go to the beach in the evenings to catch crabs. Crabs usually come out during the on the evening or night. For those who are working in the Gulf and regularly go “crabbing”, Rellenong Alimasag, Stuffed Crabs is an alternative way to cook your extra catch. Ingredients: 1 kilo small to medium size medium size steamed alimasag , crabs 1-2 stalks wansoy, finely copped 1/4 head garlic, finely chopped 1 small size tomato, finely chopped 1 medium size onion, finely chopped 1 tbp. soy sauce salt and pepper 1 pc. egg, beaten in a bowl cooking oil Cooking procedure: Collect aligi and meat of each crab ...

Kinilaw na Kambing is another Ilocano favorite. It is made up of the goat’s skin, meat and some liver that are freshly grilled and chopped into thin slices, soak with Ilocos cane vinegar, chopped ginger, chopped onions, chopped red chilies and pepper. It is then creamed with the goat’s brain or mayonnaise. Skin from old goat are chewy so I have to boil them until they are soft to chew but not to soft to maintain the chewy characteristic of this dish. I then re-grilled them. I don’t have the goat brain so I used mayonnaise instead but this is an option, mayonnaise will mask the true taste of the goat meat so it would be best to skip the mayonnaise. I skip also the liver, here is the recipe. Ingredients: 1 kilo goat meat with skin intact 1 thumb size ginger crushed 2-3 pcs. bay leaf 1/2 tsp. crushed peppercorns 2 thumb size ginger, finely chopped 3 medium size onion, sliced thinly 1/2 cup vinegar 3 pcs. siling labuyo , chopped 1/2 cup mayonnaise, optional sal...

Fish and Tofu with Tausi . A couple of weeks back I was in Manila for my leave, I was looking for a place to have a quick lunch at a mall. The fish and tofu with tausi meal at the menu sign board of Chowking caught my attention, every now and then a new dish or rather an old dish that was remove and being re-introduced by this fastfood restaurant then and now. Being on a low fats diet this dish was appropriatefor me and not to mention it is one of my favourite fish dish, Despite knowing that the quality of Chowking’s food is not that great I have no choice, they are the only fastfood restaurant that is serving this dish so I ordered the meal for myself. Well true enough if it was not really great, it taste bland it lacks the true taste of the ingredients. Maybe because of economic reasons, they have to sell something that most people can afford or they want to make more money they made short cuts on the quality. Ok enough on that it is best to cook the dish yourself. I used tilapia ...

Chicken  Sisig is not new, these version of sisig is an alternative for those who are not eating pork and for those who have health concern but still want to enjoy sisig. It is basically the same with the original pork version but with out those fats. My chicken sisig uses chicken fillet from chicken breast therefore it is much leaner.  To compensate for the dryness of using chicken, it is cooked with more liquid or stock. I would not recommend adding mayonnaise as there is no sense of using lean meat, not of course you are having a chicken version because you are not taking pork for some other reasons. Ingredients: 1 kilo chicken fillet 1/4 kilo chicken liver 4 medium size onion, chopped 3-5 pcs. green sili, chopped 1 pc. chicken bouillon cube 1/2 cup vinegar 1/4 c soy sauce 2 tbsp. liquid seasoning 3 pcs. bay leaf cooking oil salt and pepper kalamansi Cooking procedure: Dash with salt and pepper each chicken fillet and let stand for 15 to 3...

Arroz Negra, Black Paella . I have several requests for this dish several months back. This is my first attempt to cook black paella. I have cooked paella on countless occasions, it is a regular dish on our Noche Buena every Christmas I even cooked the rice cooker version. Now I have to try this black version. I browse the nett to find out what is the ingredient that make the black color of this dish. Some recipe suggested using the black variety rice. I did try to look for this type of rice but instead I could only find a violet colored variety. But most recipe use the ink of squid and again those recipes are suggesting that the ink they collected from the squid are not enough to make the dish really black otherwise use a bottled squid ink available only at some deli shops. Or if you are desperate use food coloring. Squid is one of my favourite seafood, I am sure the amount of black ink from the three big pieces of grilling size squid is more than enough to give a jet black c...

Lumpia, Lumpiang Gulay, Lumpiang Togue is another accompaniment for lugaw or goto . It is a Pinoy vegetable roll that is serve with a vinegar and garlic dip . There are no ingredient mixture ratios on the filling which is a sautéed vegetable being mung bean sprout as the main ingredient. If there is to much filling in the roll it turn soggy quickly because of all the vegetable juices so it is best to keep the vegetable filling minimal in the roll for a really crispy  Fried Vegetable Roll . Ingredients: 3 cup togue , mung bean sprout, roots trimmed 1 cup green beans, thinly sliced diagonally 1 medium size carrot, cut into strips 2 cup cabbage, shredded 1 cup sayote cut into strips 1 cup small size shrimp, shelled, chopped 1 cup boiled pork liver, cut into strips 2 cup pork, cut into strips 2 cake tokwa , tofu, diced 1/2 head garlic, choped 1 medium size onion, chopped 1/4 c. patis salt and pepper vegetable oil l umpia /spring roll wrappers Cooking p...

Pancit Malabon and pancit palabok or pancit luglug are to my knowledge two different but related pancit. Pancit palabok ingredients consist of four parts. The luglug which is the noodle itself, it is the regular bihon noodles soaked in water then blanch in boiling water or stock. The palabok is the thick sauce which is made up of shrimp juices thickened with cornstarch and colored bright orange with annatto. The paalat which is the salty broth made up of again shrimp juices, diced tufo and ground meat and colored bright orrange with annatto. And the toppings or garnishing of shrimps, smoked fish flakes, pork crackling ect. Pancit palabok is served by arranging the blanched or boiled noodles in a platter then topped with the palabok then the paalat is poured over the palabok and finally the garnishing. Pancit Malabon on the other hand uses thicker rice noodle or bihon like spaghetti. It is also soaked in water and blanched in boiling water. When ready to serve the noodles, ...