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Filipino Tinolang Isda (Fish Soup) Recipe

admin — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:54:44 +0000

Don’t get confuse when you hear the word “tinola”. The word itself has different meanings in most places in the Philippines. Some people in Luzon area says that Tinola refers to the clear chicken broth with papayas and chili leaves. But generally, major areas in Visayas and Mindanao refer Tinola as a clear fish broth. Most pinoys if not all really love to eat this very delicious and aromatic dish.

Tinolang isda serves best when it is still hot and the fish belongs from the freshest catch of the day. Aside from the terrific taste and aromatic smell, the dish has plenty of nutrients and vitamins that we can get from it which would play a vital role to our body.

You can see below my simple but yet very delicious tinolang isda recipe:

- ½ kilo fish (any medium to large fresh fish will do)
-1/2 medium size onion sliced
- 2 medium size tomatoes
- 4-5 pcs. green pepper
- salt

Directions:

Clean the fish. In a pot bring to a boil 1 1/2 liter of water, add onion and tomato (you can also add tanglad and ginger if available) then simmer for 3 to 5 minutes. Add in the fish and continue to simmer for 3-5 minutes. Season it with salt to taste. Cook until fish is already cooked. Serve hot and enjoy!

Filipino Beef Bulalo/Pochero (Beef Bone Marrow Stew) Recipe

admin — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:50:24 +0000

Beef Bulalo or other known as Pochero actually refers to the beef bone marrow which is boiled for hours until the marrow is tapped out from the bone. It is one such a favorite Filipino soup that is perfectly served during cold weather even in warm weather too. The hotter the soup it was made, the best time to serve.

This dish is a hearty one-pot meal. Terribly easy to do, but it does take some planning as it does take a while to cook. So, you should start to prepare the cooking in the afternoon hoping to have it done in the dinner time.

Ingredients

•   2 kg beef bone marrow, have your butcher chop it into small pieces
•   1 kg boneless beef shank or stewing beef
•   1 onion, peeled and sliced
•   3 liters water
•   2-3 medium potatoes, peeled and quartered
•   2-3 saba (plantain) bananas, each cut into two pieces
•   1 whole medium cabbage, quartered
•   2 cobs of corn cut into 1.5? segments
•   3-4 tablespoons fish sauce (patis)
•   Salt and pepper to taste

Procedures

•   Blanch bone marrow and boneless beef shank or stewing beef in hot boiling water for a while and rinse in cold running tap water to remove scum and blood.
•   Place bone marrow and onion in a stockpot, pour in the 3 liters of water and bring to the boil.
•   I suggest to used a pressure cooker since beef bone marrow takes quite a while to soften, if so pressure cook for 45 minutes or cook until meat is soft and close to falling off the bone.
•   Add the boneless beef shank or stewing beef and corn and return to the boil.
•   When it boils, lower heat and simmer until beef is tender, about 1 to 1½ hours.
•   Add the potatoes and bananas.
•   Simmer until potatoes and bananas are tender, about 10 to 15 minutes.
•   Add the cabbage and stir in fish sauce, salt and pepper to taste.
•   Cook until cabbage is tender-crisp, about 2 minutes.
•   Serve it hot.

Filipino Crispy Pata Recipe

admin — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:14:48 +0000

Crispy Pata is a special dish to every Filipinos because of its crispiness and very delicious taste. But before I give you the procedure on how to make a good crispy pata, let us try to know first the meaning of the word “crispy pata” and its origin. Crispy pata means deep fried pata with a crunchy rind and soft and moist meat inside. Pata is the front or hind leg of the pig. In the Philippines, that means the leg and the trotters (knuckles).

Always remember to have a best pata, we must be very selective when buying pig’s hind leg. It is very important to choose a young pig rather than the old one because the more mature the pig, the thicker and tougher the rind. Frying alone is not the only step in cooking this dish; the pata has to be boiled to tenderness prior to deep-frying.

According to the oldies, one has to drip-dry the pata after boiling and then allow it to air-dry for a day prior to deep-frying. It is definitely not true. For as long as you drain, cool and, preferably, chill the boiled pata, there’s no reason why you can’t boil and fry it on the same day.

Procedures:

At first, you should boil the pork hocks or the knuckles with enough water and spiced with garlic, peppercorns, salt, bay leaf, and soy sauce. Some recipe also indicates the inclusion of 7-up or Sprite in the boil. So it’s your preference, it really doesn’t matter at all. Boil until it become tender for not less than 2 hours. It only takes less time if you have a pressure cooker.

Once the pata is tender, you need to drain it well. Please make sure it becomes dry to obtain crispiness. Probably hang it so it can drip or at least, blot with paper towel.

You need to deep-fry the dried pata and make sure that you have enough oil to cover the pata by doing this in a large kawale (or pan). You start at high heat, then medium heat, then low heat when the skin starts to become golden brown in color. When blisters start to appear, the pata is probably cooked at crispy. Then, your pata is ready to serve for dinner.

Filipino Escabeche (Sweet and Sour Fish) Recipe

admin — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:47:13 +0000

This old time Filipino recipe known as Escabeche (Sweet and Sour Fish) is highly rated as the most common dish which often available on any events or occasions. The dish is being so much loved by most Filipinos because of its unique blending taste of sweet and sour that even small children would appreciate and enjoy eating it. Aside to its delicious taste, Escabeche is also a very healthy dish since their ingredients have different kinds of vitamins and nutrients which are very good to the body.

In making your own style Escabeche, one must have the right ingredients and please always make sure all of them came from the freshest source when you buy it. Note: Freshness is the key to have a special and healthy Escabeche dish.

The ingredients would be as follows:

- 2-3 lbs red snapper, whole fish
- 4 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1/2 cup apple cidar vinegar or white vinegar
- ¼ water
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 large chopped onion
- 6 tablespoons minced garlic
- 1/2 cup ginger, julienned
- 1/2 cup carrot, julienned
- 1/2 cup red bell pepper
- 1/2 cup scallion, julienned (spring onions)
- 1 tablespoon sifted flour

Directions

Clean the fish and slit it open. Let it stand for few minutes and drain well.
Sprinkle fish with 1 tbsp salt.
In a medium skillet, heat the oil and fry the fish until brown. Remove the fish from the pan and set aside.
In the same skillet, sauté the garlic until light brown, then sauté onion.
Add salt and white pepper. Stir in ginger, scallions, carrot and red bell pepper.
Add soy sauce, vinegar, water and sugar. Salt and pepper to taste.
When the mixture boils, add flour to thicken. Then, add the fish.
Cover the skillet and simmer for 5 minutes.

Filipino Bicol Express Recipe

admin — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:24:35 +0000

Bicol Express or also known as Sinilihan is a famous dish which originated in the Bicol Region of the Philippines. It is pork strips and siling haba (finger chilies) cooked in coconut milk. Bicol Express is very rich and very spicy. Some versions include ginger, some include dilaw (turmeric), some include bagoong or shrimp paste. The dish is said to have evolved from gulay na may lada, another Bicolano dish which is nowadays also presented as one of the many variants of Bicol Express.

Basically the original Bicol Express is a lot different from what is being introduced here in Manila and some other places. According to some Bicolanos the original Bicol Express has less or no coconut milk at all. It’s less saucy and much drier and has more “siling labuyo”(hot chili).

Ingredients:

• 1/4 kilo pork, thinly sliced
• 1 cup Baguio beans
• 3 cups long chili or jalapeno peppers
• 1 onion, minced
• 1 head of garlic, minced
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 1 cup coconut cream
• 2 tablespoons of cooking oil
• Salt to taste

Directions:

• In a bowl of water with salt, soak chili peppers for 30 minutes then rinse and strain.
• In a cooking pan, heat cooking oil and brown sliced pork for a few minutes.
• In another pan, sauté minced garlic and onion.
• Add to the sauté the browned pork.
• Then add the coconut milk, bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes.
• Add the chili peppers, Baguio beans and cook until dish gets a little dry.
• Add the coconut cream and simmer until the sauce thickens.
• Salt to taste.

Indeed, there’s a lot of version on how to cook Bicol Express and it depends on the taste of the person cooking the dish. There are two options and that is to stick to the old version of cooking or enhance it according to your style and taste.

Filipino Chop Suey Recipe

admin — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 11:48:28 +0000

Chop Suey is originally an American-Chinese dish which consists of meats (often chicken, beef, shrimp or pork), cooked quickly with vegetables such as bean sprouts, cabbage, and celery and bound in a starch-thickened sauce but Filipinos also have their own version of this dish. It is typically served with rice but can become the Chinese-American form of chow mein with the addition of deep-fried noodles.

Its origins are as mysterious as a dish itself is guileless. According to a favored bit of lore, chop suey is mispronounce of “chopped sewage”, an angered Chinese cook having mixed together the day’s garbage in a bit of broth and presented it to San Francisco restaurant patrons who’d earned his ire. Not knowing any better, those being insulted loved the dish, and much to the amused bewilderment of their tormentors, returned time and again to order it.

Ingredients:

•    1/4 kilo pork, sliced into small pieces
•    1/4 kilo shrimps, shelled, deveined and halved
•    1/4 kilo chicken liver and gizzard, sliced to small pieces
•    1/4 kilo cauliflower, broken to bite size
•    1/4 kilo string beans
•    1/4 kilo snow peas (sitsaro)
•    1/4 kilo cabbage, cut into squares
•    2 stalks of leeks, cut into 2″ long pieces
•    3 stalks celery, cut into 2″ long pieces
•    5 cloves garlic, diced
•    2 onions, diced
•    1 carrot, sliced thinly
•    1 piece red bell pepper, cut in strips
•    1 piece green bell pepper. cut in strips
•    2 tablespoons of cornstarch, dissolved in 1/4 cup of water
•    2 cups chicken stock (broth)
•    3 tablespoons of sesame oil
•    3 tablespoons of patis (fish sauce)
•    4 tablespoons of corn oil or vegetable oil
•    Salt to taste

Procedures:

•    In a big pan or wok, sauté garlic, onions then add in the pork. chicken liver and gizzard. Add 1 cup of stock, pinch of salt and simmer for 15 minutes or until pork and chicken giblets are cooked.
•    Mix in the shrimp then all the vegetables. Add the remaining 1 cup of stock, patis and the dissolved cornstarch. Cook for about 10 minutes or until the vegetables are done. Add the sesame oil.
•    Salt and pepper to taste.
•    Serve hot with rice.

Filipinos Loves to Eat Kare-kare

admin — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:33:38 +0000

Kare-kare is a Filipino stew with a rich nutty sauce and served with a variety of vegetables, stewed oxtail, beef, and occasionally offal or tripe. Meat variants may include goat meat or chicken. It is often eaten with bagoong (shrimp paste), sometimes spiced with chili, and sprinkled with calamansi juice. Traditionally, any Filipino fiesta particularly in the Tagalog region is not complete without kare-kare. In some Filipino-American versions of the dish, oxtail is exclusively used as the meat.

This dish originates from the curry eating Indians and Mexicans during the barter and galleon trades which the Filipinos further innovated during the Spanish era as a fiesta food. Kare-kare also remains a popular dish in the Philippines and said that the name comes from a corruption of the word “curry”. The combination of a beef, tripe, and vegetable stew cooked in peanut sauce and served with the pungent fermented shrimp paste (kare-kare) that is considered as an integral part of the dish (bagoong is always served with kare-kare), must seem particularly bizarre to non-Filipinos; yet it is one of the ultimate comfort foods for Filipinos worldwide, and is a perennial family favorite in both local and overseas Filipino households.

Ingredients:

1 kilo oxtail or beef
10 pcs string beans, cut into 2 inches lengths
2 stems of chinese spinach, cut
3 asian aubergine, cut into pieces
1 puso ng saging or banana blossom, cut into big pieces
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 cup achute seed or atsuete soaked and squeezed in water
1 big onion, chopped
1 cup rice
1 cup ground peanuts or peanut butter
Salt and pepper

Procedures:

Boil oxtail or beef in water with a little salt for 1 1/2 hours or 2. Meanwhile, roast rice until golden brown. Process it in food processor. Just heat the oil in a wok or large pan, sautee garlic and onion. Add in banana blossom and a cup of achute seed water. Boil then add aubergine, chinese spinach, and string beans. Stir in roasted peanuts or peanut butter and rice. Finally add tenderized oxtail or beef. Pour in 3 more cups of water, boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Season and serve with bagoong or fermented shrimp paste.