Finally, Tuna Pasta Sauce

WITH Turkish Saffron. Don't exactly know what kind of flavor it added, but the overall taste was nice and a little woody. Good wood, haha. And the sauce looked pretty, with the tiny red stringy bits. I think this is healthy too.
Cut up around 8-10 medium-sized tomatoes and boil them. No need to add water. This will be your very own healthier, homemade tomato sauce. When it's cooking, lower the flame and stir from time to time because it easily burns. Give it about 45 minutes to an hour.

WHEN the tomatoes are just about done stewing, Chop some onions, garlic, a little celery and carrots. Sauté in olive oil, add a can of tuna, stir well, add the tomatoes, stir some more. Pour some mushroom water (soak some shiitake mushroom in hot water and use the water. You can chop up the mushrooms and put it in the sauce too!). Reduce the liquid. Season with ground black pepper, celery salt, fresh basil leaves and Turkish saffron. Keep stirring till the sauce thickens. That's it.

Don't forget to cook some good pasta while doing this.

If you want a stronger basil taste, add it to the tomatoes when you stew them.

Calamansi Fried Chicken

HAD THIS with the beef stew. Just to have something fried. I know, I know, it's bad, but hey...

Rub some celery salt into the chicken (don't know where I got this. Just found it in the kitchen. It's celery-flavored salt granules) till the outside of the chicken feels squishy. When I do this, somehow, the flavor seeps in better. And it fries well. I don't know, maybe it's some kitchen superstition. Sprinkled a bit of ground pepper, a little soy sauce, just for color and some calamansi juice. Massage everything into the chicken and leave for a bit.Then deep fry. Add some toasted sesame seeds and sliced leeks on top when serving (in case you left some unused from the beef stew) to make it purty, haha.

Korean Beef Stew, Light.

Linda Floro shared this recipe to me at one shooting session and since then, this has been one of the family's favorites. I've twisted the recipe a little by not putting too much soy sauce, taking out sugar and adding some pepper.

BOIL some beef ribs in water. A kilo and a half of beef is a good amount. When oil starts collecting above the water, take it out. If you don't care about it, leave it. It adds a lot of flavor and well, a lot of heart disease too. :-) Careful. On the side, soak some dried shiitake mushrooms in very hot water for 30 minutes. Cube some carrots, slice thinly some leeks, crush garlic, cut onions, toast sesame seeds.

Ok, in between putting in the ingredients, give it about 5-1o minutes for each flavor to cook into the meat and the broth:

Add some peppercorns and the garlic.

Pour about a a fourth of a cup soy sauce, use the real, premium kind. Add about 2 tablespoonful of oyster sauce, and a third of a cup of mirin. Use a little of your own judgement here. The soup should not be too dark, but not too light. The amount of each flavoring you put depends on how much water you used. Better to start with a little of each and add gradually till you strike the balance that you prefer. Sip a little of it, do a quick chp chp chp chp chp chp sound, say hmmm when it's right.

Throw in the onions, the sliced shiitake and the water it's soaked in, and the carrots. I add some young corns too.
Add the toasted sesame seeds.

Wait till the carrots and corns are soft. Turn off the heat, sprinkle a little sesame oil (or not, if there's too much oil already.). Add the leeks on top when serving.

I wonder what the Koreans will say about what I did to their stew? O well, it tastes good to me.

CucumberPandan Ice Cream

Special thanks goes out to Paolo Toledo for hating cucumber and giving me the idea to do this! Love you my friend, this is very "delightful" (yes, I just used one of my most-hated words). The ice cream's not perfect yet. It tends to have some crunchy iced cucumber, as it doesn't completely meld with the cream. I'll try to fix that next time. It's probably in the mixing process. Didn't spoil the fun though.

Popped some sliced cucumber in the blender, poured in a can of condensed milk and a small can of evaporated milk. Added a little sugar and a few drops of Pandan extract, and set it on high speed for a few seconds intermittently. Then I poured it into a large bowl where I have the chilled cream ready. Mom used an electric mixer and mixed away. While that's being done, I made a thick mix of Pandan Gulaman and cooled it down a bit and folded (hah! A cooking term I just learned!) it into the cream mix. Sorry, I'm using so many "mix". I have to learn more kitchen words. Blend? Melange? Medley? Hmm, mix is just right.

Anyway, that's it! Freeze the thing for about half a day or till the kids'patience wear out, and enjoy! Might be nice to add a few mint leaves to complete the coolness, as another friend suggested. I mean coolness literally ok? :-)

This is one of the things we had at Fontana.

Hey!

091909 A weekend at Fontana. Missed having my brothers around. But we still had a good time. My first time to join the family at the pool. Relaxing. But of course, an out of town getaway is a nice excuse to experiment with cooking, hehehe. Just brought a few, easy-to-carry ingredients and we had some excellent food, if I may say so myself.

FIRE & ORDER

MOST OF THE TIME, it's not about the recipe or the pinch or gram or kilo that you stir into the cooking that makes or breaks it. It's how much heat you use, and in which order you put in the ingredients. Genereally, if it's something that starts with sautéeing, I use medium heat first, gradually setting it to high as i mix in the rest of the ingredients, and then gradually lowering the flame when it's almost done.

Use your flame wisely. :-)

Corned Beef Cake

Was lazy to prepare anything, so I grabbed a can of corned beef, some tomatoes, onions and garlic and an egg, and made a fried "cake" out of it.

There's too much salt in the corned beef so I put it in a strainer and ran water through it. Sautéed the onions and garlic and tomatoes (in that order) in high heat. Don't stop stirring, or it'll burn.When the tomatoes are soggy and look "melted", mix in the corned beef. Stir for around 2 minutes and take it out of the pan. Cool a little then mix one egg. Pour back into the pan and fry on low heat till it's brown and a little crispy.

That's it! Have it with catsup and some garlic fried rice!