Adobong Manok and Ginisang Togue

Hubby is not fond of Filipino dish so I l eventually learn how to cook most of his favourite food even if I only know how to fry my food when we got married. I only started learning how to cook my native dish 4 years ago in Singapore. I had a group of Filipino friends there who loves to cook! So they became my inspiration to learn more about my food.

For our lunch today (hubby is not here), we had adobong manok and ginisang togue. Adobong manok is also known as “chicken adobo” and adobo means vinegar marinade if I am not mistaken. This is cooked with garlic, whole peppercorns, bay leaf, vinegar, soy sauce and oil for frying. I unfortunately didn’t get the right measurements today to share, sorry. I kept adding soy sauce and vinegar as I go on and it tasted so great! My classmate in college who now lives in Texas told me she couldn’t get the right taste when she cooks her adodo. Reyma if you happen to read this, I recommend that you try adobong manok from Pinoy Cook   http://pinoycook.net/myras-chicken-adobo/ . This is so easy to follow, not our usual version of cooking adobo but I promise that you get the taste you are looking for.

Ginisang togue is a sautéed mung bean sprout cooked in oil, garlic, onion, togue, bukchoy, water, and soy sauce. There are different ways to cook it but I opted for simple ingredients (which I normally do ;) ).

Plum Pudding with Vanilla Custard

We wanted to have plum pudding as a dessert for Christmas dinner, however we were not able to eat it  because everyone is full. I was hoping to serve it the following day which is another celebrated day in Australia; they call this day “Boxing Day”. Oh no, they don’t fight inside the ring with their boxing gloves on lol. I asked hubby and my in-laws why it’s called Boxing Day and unfortunately most of them have no idea why it was called boxing, they said there were a few stories blah blah blah . So, I went to find it myself instead.


According to the Wikipedia, this day is also celebrated in United Kingdom, New Zealand and amongst other countries. The traditional recorded celebration of Boxing Day has long included giving money and other gifts to those who were needy and in service positions. The European tradition has been dated to the middle Ages, but the exact origin is unknown and there are some claims that it goes back to the late Roman/early Christian era; metal boxes were placed outside churches used to collect special offerings tied to the Feast of Saint Stephen.[4] In the United Kingdom it certainly became a custom of the nineteenth century Victorians for tradesmen to collect their "Christmas boxes" or gifts in return for good and reliable service throughout the year on the day after Christmas.[5] However, the exact etymology of the term "Boxing" is unclear, with several competing theories, none of which is definitively true.[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_Day

So there.


Going back to the pudding, we invited my Mum in-law, Mum’s sister who happened to visit her so they can spend a New Year together (how sweet!), my brother in-law and his wife for dinner the 2nd January. A few minutes after dinner my hubby approached and asked me what I prepared for dessert so I told him “pudding”! He agreed right away! So I started boiling the water in the pot because it takes 45 minutes to get a warm pudding. All I did was boil enough water in the pot to make sure the tin is almost covered. Once we put the tin inside the pot let it simmer in a low heat. The photo below has been simmering for 35 minutes so most of the water had evaporated already. Instructions are on the back of the tin so you will be alright if you want to try the same brand next Christmas. Just let me know if it was in fact 45 or 50 minutes because I am not sure now lol. We had 2,000 grams of vanilla custard in the fridge but the seven of us only used half of it, that’s 2 small bottles of custard. We had a bit of left over because I believe this is good for 10 people.

My verdict is this.... it was the nicest plum pudding I have tasted from a can! It was moist and simply perfect! I will never hesitate to buy the Big Sister brand again next Christmas and paired it with Oak Vanilla Traditional Custard from Dairy Farmers.

Now if you excuse me, I need to run around the house to get rid of the excess fat I have gained since last month hahaha...

Eggplant in Honey and Soy Sauce

My husband’s Christmas gift is a new camera hurray! That means I can capture the food that I cooked, if I am not too hungry to put them in my mouth first before I can grab the camera lol. Well it happens most of the time just like our lunch and dinner yesterday. Today though I managed to take a photo of this dish that I cooked for lunch, I was very hungry but I told myself it will only take a few seconds hehehe. Now I like my eggplant to be soggy and brown in colour for this dish so if you prefer to see a little bit of whitest colour in your eggplant you may do so. This dish is for 1 serving but if you don’t eat as much as me then guess what the left over tasted much better.

By the way, I don’t normally follow the exact measurements of any recipes unless I am intimidated in the dish like my disaster roast turkey for our Christmas dinner last month. I am not going into details about that hehehe.. So may I suggest that you add a little bit of water and honey first, and then keep adding more of each until you are satisfied with the taste? I eat this with steam rice and a grilled salmon. Yummy!

You need:

1 tsp Olive oil

1 clove garlic

1 small Onion

1 big tomato or 2 medium size tomato

1 Eggplant – medium size – cut into bite size

¼ cup Soy Sauce (I always use Kikkoman)

½ cup Water

1 ½ tsp Honey

1. Heat oil in the pan then sauté garlic, then the chopped onion once garlic is almost brown.

2. Add tomato then the eggplant and sauté for another minute or so.

3. Add the eggplant stirring for a minute then pour the soy sauce over. Cover the pan and leave it until it boils in a medium heat. Please do check to make sure the soy sauce doesn’t dry up.

4. Taste it and add a little bit of water if the taste of soy sauce is too strong for you. Add more if you wish then let it simmer for another minute.

5. You can then add honey probably 1 tsp to start with. If you think the soy sauce was still strong add more water. Let it simmer again for 3 minutes.

6. Keep adjusting the taste by adding more honey and water until you are satisfied with the taste.

7. Serve it hot.

Roast Chicken in Pepper Steak Seasoning

My apologies for not updating my love for food blog. Some friends are complaining because I don't have new entries but the truth is that we moved to Australia from Indonesia and we were busy looking for a house and trying to settle in. I also got a new computer that needs a different SD card reader so I can't upload the  photos of the food that I took straight away. I wish to have a new camera as a christmas gift... Santa Claus please hear me? hehehe...

Let me tell you this though, the roast chicken I cooked tonight was very tasty! I have no photos to share unfortunately and I hope you can just imagine how we enjoyed our dinner. The meat was juicy and tasty even without a gravy, yummmmmm!

All you need are:

• 1 medium-size chicken
• salt
• pepper steak seasoning
• butter
• 1 stick celery (slice into 4)
• 1 small carrot (slice into 4)
• 1 whole onion
• a few cloves of garlic ( I didn't want a strong garlicky flavour )

-Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
-First of all rinse the chicken thoroughly then pat it dry using a kitchen paper towel.
-Rub salt inside and outside the chicken, sprinkle the seasoning inside and outside of chicken as well. You can put a few whole peppercorns into the chicken cavity if you don't like pepper sprinkled on the skin.
-Put 2 or 3 slices of butter like the size of your thumb inside the cavity then the celery, onion, carrot and garlic. I had about 3 cloves, if you are not too fussy about garlic you can add the whole garlic making sure you prick each clove to release it's flavour and aroma. I did pricked the garlic I put into the chicken cavity.
-Slide 2 or 3 fingers between the breast skin and meat and move from side to side to loosen (the skin stretches easily, but be careful to move slowly to prevent tears) and put some butter.
-Place the chicken breast side up, on rack in roasting pan for about 1 hour and 30 minutes to 2 hours.
-Turn the chicken over once it turns brown then I suggest you start basting from the juices or dripping of the chicken every now and then.

Serve it with steam broccoli and asparagus or mashed potato once cooked. Enjoy!

Salmon Burger

I have been following the book “Eat Right for Your Blood Type” by Dr. Peter D'Adamo (http://www.dadamo.com/program.htm ) since the last week of November 2008. I had been feeling sick before I started this and my cough and cold just won’t go away. It has been quite a challenge to eat right and at the same time enjoy the food that is supposed to be right for my blood type. My blood type is B, hubby is A and our daughter is AB. There are food that I can’t eat that my husband can eat while our daughter is just in between, but she eats most of the food I can have. For dinner though I make sure we have something that we can all eat. Tonight I thought I experiment my own style of salmon patty which turned out to be really good! It will be added on my recipe list of course.


Here are the ingredients:

A.

2 pcs. Salmon fillet (skin removed)
Onion powder
Garlic powder
Dried Parsley
Breadcrumbs
1 Egg
Salt

B.
Cooking oil

C.
White bread or burger bun (or your preferred bread)
Lettuce
Carrots
Beetroot
Cheese

1. Minced salmon fillet and add the rest of the ingredients in A.
2. Heat oil in the pan. Make a tiny patty and fry it. Taste it and check if you need to add more salt or the other ingredients in A.
3. If you are satisfies you can then make big patties (two salmon fillets make 2 or 3 patties) and fry under medium heat until brown.
4. Prepare bread on the plate. Put the lettuce, carrots, beetroot, salmon patty and cheese.
5. Serve hot.

May's Sauteed Prawn

I had a wonderful lunch with my Mum one time at their home in the Philippines and this was one of the dishes served. I wanted to have a prawn or a shrimp one day and thought of this dish. I asked Mum how she cooked the prawn dish and she told me my elder sister made it not her. Thankfully it is easier to get in touch with our family and friends nowadays because of the internet. We both have YM (yahoo messenger) and it is on every day, so I asked her secret prawn recipe. She laughed and said it is so easy to cook. Now remember, the amount of oil, salt and sugar depends on how much prawn you are going to cook.

WHAT YOU NEED:

Prawn/ Shrimp
Olive oil
Garlic
Salt
Sugar

WHAT TO DO:

1. Wash prawn with water.
2. Put the prawn in the heated pan.
3. When water from the prawn had dried up on the pan add the oil.
4. Put the garlic and add salt.
5. Cook for 10 minutes or until the color of the prawn changes to orange.
6. Add a little bit of sugar, preferably brown sugar.
7. Adjust the taste and serve while hot.

Fish with Teriyaki Sauce

I told Mini to cook my daughter her lunch a few days ago. I had an appointment for my hair that day and I told her not to cook anything for me. But then I finished my appointment earlier than I thought. I decided to go home and see what I can have. Trinity (my daughter) had rice and fish with some sort of sauce in it. I wasn’t interested in her food because I was thinking of the ‘chicken macaroni salad’ that I made. As I was about to open the fridge Trinity said she had enough of her lunch. There is something about being a mother that told me I better eat her left over or else it will go to the bin. So there I go, grabbing her plate and started eating half of the fish and the left over rice. I enjoyed eating it and asked Mini what was in the sauce. She said it’s JUST teriyaki sauce. I asked her to cook the same dish today and I still enjoyed it.


YOU NEED:

3 tsp of teriyaki sauce
3 tsp of Maggi seasoning
1 tsp of corn flour (mix with 3 tsp of water)
1 cup of water
1 clove garlic
1 small sized onion
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 pcs of fish

WHAT YOU NEED:

1. Sprinkle fish with salt
2. Heat enough oil in the pan and fry the fish
3. Heat 2 tbsp of vegetable oil in another pan
4. Sauté garlic and onion till wilted
5. Add water, teriyaki sauce and Maggi seasoning
6. Cover and boil for 3-5 minutes
7. Pour the mixture of corn flour to the sauce
8. Transfer cooked fish to the other pan where you are cooking the teriyaki sauce
9. Cover again and let it boil for another 3 minutes
10. Serve at once while hot.

NOTE:

I believe we all have different taste so always adjust your seasonings and other sauces.