Filipino Food Festival Region 3: Binagis

Recipe from Region 3

Binagis (pork internal organs cooked in vinegar)

2 tbs. cooking oil
1 tsp. garlic, crushed
2 tbs. onion, sliced
1 cup pork, boiled and sliced
1 cup pork liver, cubed
¾ cup pork heart, boiled and sliced
¼ cup pork kidney, boiled and sliced
1 cup broth
1/3 cup vinegar
1 ½ tsp. salt
½ cup red bell peppers, cut into strips

Sauté garlic, onion, pork, liver, heart and kidney. Cover and cook for about 5 minutes on medium heat. Add broth, vinegar and salt. Cook and stir for a few minutes. Let it come to the boil. Add bell peppers and continues cooking for 5 minutes more. Serve hot. 6 servings.

Filipino Food Festival: Region 3 Introduction

Several incidents occured to in make up my mind to continue collecting Filipino recipes. First was the passing away of Tita Cancing, a good friend of my mother who works for the Department of Agriculture and second when I attended a worship service in Folks Arts Theatre. The service at Day by Day was a revelation to me, and I enjoyed the whole Filipiniana theme of the Church. Pastor Ed Lapis is the senior pastor of Day by Day Christian Ministries and he is also very heavily involved in reviving our cultural heritage.

Region 3 in the Philippines refers to Central Luzon and this is a very rich region in terms of food production, which shows in the ingredients of their recipes. This region is also where most of the rice supply of the country comes from earning it the nickname, the “rice bowl of the Philippines”. Provinces from this region includes: Aurora, Bataan, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Tarlac and Zambales.

All recipes adapted from Lutuing Pilipino Region 3 compiled by the Department of Agriculture.

Recipes:

Binagis
Dinuguang Manok
Kamaniang
Kare Kare with Coconut Milk
Kilawing Kambing
Kilawing Goto at Atay
Pinatisan
Sinampalukang Manok
Talangka Soup with Green Onions
Tamales
Mazapan de Pili

Glossary:

Aligue – fat
Coconut milk, 1st extraction – grated coconut mixed with 1-4 tbs water and squeezed to extract the milk. Save the coconut for 2nd extraction.
Coconut milk, 2nd extraction – milk extracted from leftover grated coconut from 1st extraction
Dayap – native lime
Goto – beef tripe
Kamias – bilimbi fruit
Miki noodles – a type of Chinese noodle
Patis – fish sauce
Sili – chili
Siling pang-sigang – a type of mild green chili popularly used to give heat to sinigang.
Siling labuyo – a fiery, small red chili. Named after the equally fiery small wild chicken – labuyo Sinigang – a sour soup commonly made with green sampalok as the souring agent.
Sampalok – tamarind
Talangka – shore crab
Tanduay gin – popular and common brand of gin

Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Cookies

Of all the cookies that our mom made for us when we were growing up peanut butter cookies remain my favorite kind. I love my mother’s recipe but being me I attempted to make some with major changes. Instead of 100% all-purpose flour I replaced most of it with stone ground organic whole wheat flour, added some natural wheat germ and used all brown sugar. For maximum peanut flavor I used Peter Pan (my favorite brand!) crunchy peanut butter. The resulting cookie was light, it almost melted on the tongue, and not overly sweet, delicious!

Here’s the recipe:

Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cups butter
1 cups crunchy peanut butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
2 large whole eggs
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 heaping tablespoons wheat germ
1 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Cream butter and sugar
2. Add peanut butter and continue creaming.
3. Add eggs one at a time and mix in well.
4. Add sifted dry ingredients (all-purpose flour, soda and baking powder sifted together), whole wheat flour and wheat germ. Mix well.
5. Chill the dough until ready to form and bake.
6. Roll dough into 1/4″ balls and place 3″ apart on lightly greased sheets. Flatten with a floured fork criss cross style. Bake in preheated 375*F oven for 10-12 mins. For softer, chewier cookies, bake for 10 minutes only.

Yield: 80 cookies

A Picture and an Apology from Robert Lamm

Well, the fans of Chicago finally got the news from the proverbial horse’s mouth. Posted in the ovation website is a strange person’s bandaged leg (still doesn’t prove it’s his, hmph) and an apology from Robert Lamm himself. Concert moved to Feb 16, 2010? We’ll see if we don’t end up with another miniscule announcement.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

I’ve been using the same oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe since high school so I decided that it’s time to try another recipe. I chose an interesting one from Cook’s Illustrated. The only difference I made to the recipe was to double it, replaced part of the chocolate chips with chopped dark chocolate and instead of shaping the dough into 2″ balls I used an ice cream scooper to scoop out uniform shaped of doughs to greased and floured sheets and slightly flattened them. My brother and I are the only ones in our family that like soft and chewy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies so to simplify matters I just baked all of the cookies until they were nice and crispy… sorry Chris Kimball.

Furikake Cheese Bread

I love furikake and I’m always looking for ways to incorporate it into my baking so it just seems like the logical step to make a savory cheese bread with a sprinkling of bright furikake on top. Furikake, for the uninitiated, is a Japanese condiment sprinkled on cooked rice, among other foods. Flavors and color vary, but the most common usually has some bonito flakes (or fish/seafood flavoring) in it, sesame seeds, egg, powdered miso and some are even spicy. It’s absolutely delicious. I found that it’s sublime with cheese, I used 2 kinds of furikake for this bread, nori tamago (egg and seaweed) and bonito. I also made a white cheese furikake variation that was awesome.

Valrhona Brownies

This recipe makes a nice gift for someone special or when you want to impress a boss who knows his chocolate. The resulting brownie is unbelievably light, almost melts in your mouth (the walnuts get in the way almost). When I was lucky enough to come across some Valrhona chocolate I knew right away what I wanted to do to it. This is not my mom’s brownie, but in my opinion it’s a close second favorite.
Valrhona Brownies

1 cup butter, room temperature but NOT soft
1 3/4 cup granulated sugar
120 grams Valrhona bittersweet Chocolate (min. 66% cacao)
3 large whole eggs
1/2 of 1 vanilla bean
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened natural cocoa (NOT alkalized or Dutched cocoa)
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup walnuts, roughly chopped

Preheat your oven to 350*F. Grease your 13×9″ pan with butter and then dust with sifted all purpose flour. Don’t forget to toss out the excess flour. Sift together dry indredients.

1. Lightly beat your butter just until malleable using the paddle attachment of your mixer. Open your vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape the seeds in. Save the pod by adding to your sugar bin. Add the sugar and beat until very fluffy and light colored. Do not hurry this process, if using an industrial strength mixer set at low speed only. Medium for conventional mixers. If done correctly you will be rewarded with a light and almost melt in your mouth brownie. Stop the mixer and scrape the sides and bottom of the paddle.

2. Add eggs one at a time and beat in after each addition. Not necessary to change the paddle attachment. Do not change the speed, beat in the eggs well.

3. Fold in the sifted dry ingredients using the same attachment, BUT stop when almost all the dry ingredients have been incorporated. Toss in the walnuts and fold in BY HAND. Make sure to scrape the bottom and sides until the mixture is uniform in color, no white streaks.

4. Gently scrape into the prepared pan and smooth out the top. Bake for 28 to 30 minutes (rotate the pan half-way through the cooking time to make sure the brownie is baked evenly) or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs still attached to it. The tops will look puffy at the edges and will have a nice shiny crust.

5. Cool completely on a cake rack. Chill then cut. Even more delicious after a few days of mellowing in the chiller.

Making Madeleines

Madeleines

1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup cake flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 large egg yolks
1 large egg
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon vanilla sugar
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup butter, melted and kept warm

Prepare pans by greasing them with softened butter and then dusting with sifted all purpose flour OR (easier) combining 2 teaspoons melted unsalted butter and 1 teaspoon sifted all purpose flour and then using this to brush on the molds. Half the battle is done when the molds are prepared properly. Sift together all dry ingredients and melt your butter. Preheat your oven to 375*F.

1. You can do this by hand with a large whisk : In a large bowl place all your eggs. Using a whipping motion, beat it, making sure that your wrist is tight and only your hand is moving with the whisk. In a few minutes your eggs will look lighter in color and will be a little thick.

2. Add all you vanilla sugar and vanilla extract and continue beating, occasionally scraping the sides of the bowl to get all the sugar in the mixture. Keep beating until the mixture looks very thick and very light in color. When you lift your whisk the mixture will look thick and will fall in light ribbons before combining with the rest of the batter.

3. Working quickly, sprinkle dry ingredients over the surface of the egg mixture and using a wide spatula fold in the dry ingredients until almost no flour is visible.

4. Pour in the melted butter in 3 stages and fold in after each addition until incorporated. Make sure there are no streaks of melted butter visible.

5. Spoon the mixture immediately into the prepared molds, make sure that the batter comes up to the rim of the molds.

6. Bake until the tops are golden brown and springs back when lightly touched, about 10 minutes (the time will vary, depends on the material and the number of madeleines for each mold).

7. Turn out immediately onto a clean tea towel placed over a cake rack. Cool completely and store in airtight containers. Makes 12 to 15 medium madeleines. Shelf life: 3-5 days in airtight container, 1 month frozen.

Good Eating from All Over

Jatujak Vegetarian Pho Phia, SM City The Block

Red Kimono “Order all you can”, The Fort

Murray and Vine Wagyu Burger, Serendra

Lamb Stew over Couscous, Rustan’s Makati

Beef Yakiniku Bento (Detail), Yakiniku Hiro Manila

The Omu Rice at Curry Curry House

Omu USDA Beef Curry

That is just so beautiful …. and delicious too. Imported beef, delicious sauce, perfectly cooked omelette and for the rice eater, a more than generous portion for a very reasonable P245. Yum!

Koji Salad

The dressing for their Koji Salad was pretty good! And you get pretty much a good value for your money.