rice cake confessional

Unless you’re a major NSync fan, the post title is strictly informative and not funny.

I had a fantastic 2 1/2 weeks at home in California. Two of those weeks I spent in Hanford with the family vegging out, eating lots, and hanging out with the brothers. Not too many new meals but lots of old favorites.

I spent 3 days in the Bay Area catching up with good friends. The grand finale there was a meal at Pho Vi Hoa. I ordered the sliced pork meal. It was as good as I remember it. (Thanks to Jane and Jlin for housing me while I was in the Bay!)

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I headed home to Hanford this weekend for the first time since the holidays. Since my middle brother started college, it’s been harder to get the whole family together. Whenever we are in the same place at the same time, fun and hilarity ensue. I have an awesome family. My mom feeds me until I burst and still lets me be a baby when I’m too lazy to take care of myself, my dad pretty much knows everything in the whole world and can fix/do/make anything, my three brothers are slightly crazy but in a good way.

The food portion of this post is about ginisang corned beef (ginisang = sauteed // corned beef = from the can). My mom asked me what I wanted to eat and I don’t know what possessed me but I picked this. It’s garlic, onions, and potatoes sauteed with canned corned beef. Comfort food for sure. It’s a dish that we had all the time growing up (very cost effective for a big family plus easy leftovers that can be made into torta).

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Welcome home to me!

After a week and a half in India, I finally found myself in our family house in Imus, Cavite, Philippines. My parents were also in town and my Mom wanted to make sure that I got good ol’ home cooking after my travels in India. I’ve featured this meal before so I won’t go into the details but we had fried tilapia and ginisang monggo with rice. Lovely, soft, sticky, Jasmine rice. The tilapia in the Philippines usually comes from fish farms that you can find all over the place (in Tagalog: palaisdahan – did I spell that right?). Usually they are smaller than the gigantor tilapia that you get in the US. Somehow this makes them a lil’ tastier.

Up ahead are a gillion posts about airplane food, Indian food, Filipino food, Singaporean food, snacks, fruits…. the list goes on and on.

This post goes out to MG. She ordered ukoy from Goldilocks a few weeks ago and ended up with something down right yucky littered with itty bitty baby shrimpies (aka hibi). My mom makes awesome ukoy. Golden brown and delicious.

What you’re gonna need (measurements are approximate):

• 2 large potatoes, peeled
• 2 medium carrots, julienned
• 1 large onion, cut into rings and then cut in half
• 2/3 cup of flour (feel free to add more to get the right consistency, keep the same proportions of flour to cornstarch)
• 1/3 cup of cornstarch
• 1 tsp of salt
• 3 stalks of green onion
• 1 1/2 lbs of shrimp, peeled, deveined, sliced in half (lengthwise)
• 1/4 cup of water
• fresh cracked black pepper

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My mom is the master of soups. She made some sopas the last weekend I was at home and boy it was yummy. This is the new super-easy version made with canned (yes, canned!) chicken.

Sopas is good ol’ down home Filipino cooking. Our version of chicken soup, if you will. My mom switched from the usual elbow macaroni to the big ziti because it stands up better to the constant reheating. To make, saute garlic, diced onions, diced carrots, diced celery (optional, my family prefers it without), and cabbage (julienned) in a pot. Add chicken, then your choice of pasta, and water. When the pasta is nearly cooked add hot dogs or Vienna sausages. Lastly, add evaporated milk (enough to make the broth cloudy) and bring to a boil. It’s important to keep on stirring because the stuff has the tendency to stick to the bottom. Serve with fresh cracked pepper and pandesal.

If you want to use fresh chicken, place one whole chicken in a pot and cover with water. Throw in chopped onions and salt and allow to cook. Afterwards, remove the chicken (save the broth to add to the soup later) and allow to cool. Shred the chicken and insert into steps above.

Every good Filipino celebration requires some sort of noodle dish. Pancit canton, pancit guisado, palabok… the list goes on and on. For Brother #2’s graduation my mom made palabok. I’ve heard it referred to as Filipino spaghetti, but other than the fact that it’s noodles and sauce it’s not spaghetti-y at all. Palabok can be made with either fat or skinny rice noodles. We use cream of mushroom soup as the base for the sauce and flavor it with garlic, onions, pork, and shrimp. Achuete gives it the traditional orange color.

My favorite part about palabok are all of the mix ins: ground pork rinds (chicharon), green onion, hard boiled eggs, lemon (or kalamansi if you have it). Tinapa flakes are also good but are a little labor intensive. If you ever get a chance to try palabok, give it a shot. It’s a taste that is uniquely Filipino!

PS: Palabok + Joann’s Famous Fried Chicken = PERFECT

If you’ve ever been to my crib (yah I totally said crib) for a get together, I have probably fed you this. My family loves this stuff and I love sharing it with friends. Really you can’t go wrong with fried wings but the seasoning on this is ADDICTIVE. What makes it kind of different is that the marinade is the batter – a delicate combo of green onions, garlic, sugar, and sesame seeds. At home we make it in 15 lbs batches marinated overnight and fried to a delicious golden brown. One day this chicken will make me famous so no recipe but feel free to drooooool.

Kare-kare is a family favorite. It’s a traditional oxtail stew with green beans, cabbage, eggplant, and bok choy in a peanut sauce. Perfectly stewed so that the oxtail is coming off the bone and complimented with a side of bagoong (fermented shrimp paste). Of course, you can speed this up with the use of a pressure cooker.

Back in the “olden days” kare-kare was prepared using roasted peanuts and rice ground in a mortar and pestle. I grew up on a doctored version of the kare-kare powder mix, achuete, and peanut butter (smooth not crunchy), so the texture of the ground bits of peanut and rice don’t suit me. I’m not even going to attempt to post a recipe. This is one of those things that my mom cooks by muscle memory. Seriously, you don’t get more Filipino than this.

I’ve been eating this since forever. I used to eat my mom’s version exclusively but slowly branched out to my aunt’s and, after a 6 month long stint in the Philippines, began eating it whenever/wherever the craving hit regardless of who prepared it. Let’s just get it out there. I am a big fan of diniguan. Here’s my mom’s version, all measurements are approximate. When I asked her “how much” of each ingredient she put in, there was a whole bunch of “I don’t know” involved.

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 5 cloves of garlic
• 1 1/2 lbs of diced pork
• 1/2 cup of vinegar
• salt to taste
• jalapenos (optional)
• 2 cups of beef blood
• water
• oil

1. “You have to gisa.” Heat the oil in a small pan over medium-high heat and saute the garlic and onions. Add the pork, pepper, and salt (about a tsp). Cook until the pork is white.
2. Add enough water to cover the pork and boil to soften.
3. When the pork is tender, add the vinegar. Allow to boil but do NOT stir. If you do, you’ll bruise the vinegar.
4. After 5 minutes of boiling, lower to medium heat and add the beef blood. Fill the same container you used for your beef blood with more water and add to the pot and stir.
5. Boil for 10 minutes.
6. The end result should be a stew-like consistency with a deep black color.
7. Serve hot with white rice or puto.

It’s nice being home! I drove the brothers back to the CV (read: Central Valley) after gallivanting around the Bay for a few days. We returned to massive amounts of home cookin’ courtesy of Mom. It’s pretty much enough food for the entire weekend. We attacked the munggo, pindang, and tilapia first. Expected weight gain by Sunday: 13 lbs.

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