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Archive for the ‘Cooking’ Category

The Meaty Filipino Dish – Embutido

Monday, February 6th, 2012

Embutido is a meat roll kind of dish from the Philippines. Though you can often find it in feasts during special occasions, you can absolutely eat this any day at all, even take it to work for lunch, like I did.

For the international fiesta night, my sister and I had to prepare a Filipino dish. At first, we thought of having Adobo. After all, what’s more Filipino than Adobo, right? But sometime before the camp, my sister did a bit of research, saw a recipe for Embutido, decided to try it for our regular meals at home, then decided to have it for the international fiesta, instead of Adobo.

She actually tried two different recipes, but this one is what we liked of the two. Here’s how we made it…

First, she hard-boiled some eggs.

While waiting for them to cool down, she grated from carrots.

She set those two other ingredients aside. Then she sauteed some onions.

That should smell good. If it doesn’t, there’s something wrong with it. Lol!

Now, put the ground meat on a large container with enough space so you can mix all the other ingredients into it.

Add the carrots….

…the onions….

…pickle relish (we used Ram… a Philippine brand)…

(Doesn’t it look yucky? Lol!!!)

…raisins…

(This is what we used)

… and ketchup.

(KFC Banana Sauce… that’s so Filipino)

It surely won’t taste any good if you don’t add salt to it, so don’t forget this one.

And, of course, black pepper.

After every addition of every ingredient, she mixed, mixed, mixed everything that’s in the tray. They should be thoroughly mixed. Next, make a well at the center, so you can pop the eggs (not the hard-boiled ones) into it.

Put one and a half of the mixture on a tin foil. Even it out to form a rectangular shape, then put slices of sausages and hard-boiled eggs alternately in the center. Take one end over to turn it into a roll.

Seal the ends of the foil, then cook the embutido in a steamer, if you want to eat it right away.

If not, you can store the embutido in the freezer until you decided to steam and eat them.

And before throwing away the eggshells, you can take the remaining small amount of egg whites and wipe it on your face. That’s kitchen cosmetology, even though my seven-year-old nephew thought I was being weird.

Here’s what I packed into my lunch for work:

Foods From Home

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

…may or may not be the foods from my parents’ dining table, nevertheless, just in case you’re curious to know what’s there, here are some of the super yummy dishes I so miss!

Fried Boneless Milkfish

Bihon Guisado

Chicken Tinola… that’s with malunggay leaves and green papaya

So exotic! Grilled chicken intestines!!! So delicious with Sinamak!

One of the healthiest foods on earth!… Laswa – a mixture of fresh garden veggies

Kare-kare… what my sister calls The Peanut Butter Soup!

Milkfish Tinola… of course, it has been fished out of its soup…

…and I mean, this soup! Young sweet potato leaves…so rich in Vitamin K.

Another grilled milkfish… with chopped fresh tomatoes and onions.

Sardines in tomato sauce… fresh from the can!


(Note: This is a repost from one dying blog of mine. Just sharing some of the yummy, weird and interesting cuisines from my hometown.)

Chop Suey

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

Yesterday, the rest of the family were quite busy and I was left to take care of the important chores in the kitchen.

There was thawed chicken on the sink. What are we gonna do with it? Grilled chicken? Chicken curry? Chicken adobo? Chicken afritada? Basic fried chicken? Hmmmm….

My sister suggested chop suey. There’s a carrot, a couple of bell peppers, and a sayote in the fridge. And some pechay and lettuce. And that’s just about it. Yeah, a sort-of chop suey would do.

And I had to cook it. But… I have never cooked chop suey before… ever! In my entire life! That’s where the magical Google comes to the rescue. Type in “chop suey recipe” and, lo and behold, various types of it appear right before your very eyes.

I was missing a bunch of ingredients from the recipe. But what’s present in the kitchen will have to do. This is no cooking contest. Just an antidote to hunger.

So I found this: CHOP SUEY RECIPE

What I really needed was the process of how they cook it, plus the little spices that matter along the way.

…sauteed diced garlic and onion …added chicken to the pan …after a while, added water, chicken cube, salt, soy sauce …let it simmer for 15-20 minutes …added the vegies …mix a bit of flour with water in a tiny bowl …decided the chicken and vegies are all good, so added the flour mixture …checked the flavor if the salt content is ok or needed more …was finally convinced it was good enough for eating, so off went the stove. :-)

Here’s the final product… I told you, I wasn’t in a cooking contest.

Sporty Cakes

Friday, July 1st, 2011

What kind of cake would you give to a chess buff and a basketball addict?

Good thing, my dear old friend Ella, who maintains the delicious and adventurous blog Sugarcoated Kismet and who has just started her cake business early this year(?), is always game to create interesting cakes to make special occasions even more special and fun. Here are a couple of interestingly designed cakes I ordered from her this year:


For the hubby who loves chess, at Valentine’s

For the dad who loves basketball, on his birthday
(inspired by a similarly designed cake at pinkcakebox.com)

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