Category Archives: fooding and food photos

Lumpia Shanghai

It’s been years since I made some; and none since I moved to Australia. So I made some. The meat mixture makes a good meatball too, but will need some breadcrumbs as binder. Consider the recipe below as a basic starter, and feel free to add other vegetables and seasonings and ingredients for your own lumpia.

I also put in how I wrap them, in case anyone needs a step by step. I hope it helps ^_^

Enjoy!

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Oven Dried Adobo Flakes Maho

The most common and popular adobo recipe seen around tends to revolve around pork belly or leg chunks, or pork AND chicken. Traditionally, fatty chicken and fatty pork = adobo especially for travelling, because Filipino style adobo was a cooking method that resulted in a dish not too dissimilar to English potted hare – with the broth thickening to jelly and the fat sealing the top of the jar. In a country where the heat would result in spoiled food while travelling, adobo was king, and still is one of the ‘traditional’ dishes to take with you to the beach picnic.

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Fat and Leftovers

I don’t really have a creative title for the post. My apologies.

Early this week I decided to marinade some simply massive chicken marylands (thigh and drumstick cut) in the juice of the limes our rental house comes with.  The limes that tiny, scrawny, greatly suffering tree bears are huge – they’re the size of baseballs, for one – and they’re very juicy. The minimum time I tend to marinade things is overnight; but for these I decided to ignore them until Friday, so that must’ve been around 3 days sitting in the fridge, marinating. I also stabbed the meatier sections of the cuts to let the meat REALLY soak in.

I had an extra piece though and I decided I’ll boil it for broth. I left it on the stovetop on low for a while, seasoned with salt, pepper and mixed herbs, then at the end of the day turned it off, let it cool and put the whole pot in the fridge, along with the marinating pieces.

The lime halves, which I originally was going to chuck out, I decided to put into plastic containers and tucked them into the corner of the more commonly used toilets. They’ve been working wonderfully as air fresheners.

Friday rolls around and I take out those marinating chicken marylands and season them – not too fancy, just with some seasoned salt. I roast those lime-marinated chickens and oh my goodness. The house smelled amazing. The drippings ended up on our rice and the chicken was utterly tender and flavorful. Me being me, I added a bit more salt to my share, but from the ‘mmm’ and ‘hyuuummm’ sounds I was getting, I’d say everyone else was quite happy with the result.

I still had the chicken in the pot though and I took it out a little while ago to remove the fat. There must’ve been a half centimetre worth of fat sitting on top of the jellied broth. I skimmed it out and put the chicken back on the stove to render some more.

I looked at it and found myself thinking, “Surely, back in the day this wasn’t thrown out,” and looked up the uses for chicken fat, and learned something new.

In Jewish cooking, it’s called schmaltz. And you can use it in place of butter, making your toast more savory than well, ‘breakfasty’ I guess. This page has plenty of ideas, including dipping oil infusions.

I think I can come up with ideas and ways to use this later on in my stories, as small side details.

As for the fat, I saved it in a jar and stuck it in the very back of my fridge. It’ll be useful for basting a chicken being reheated in the oven, or used as a pat when roasting vegetables, for a bit of extra flavour.

Meringues

I’ve been doing a lot of running around on errands so I haven’t posted recently. My blood sugar dropped a lot so I found myself craving sweet things.

So I decided to take the plunge and made meringues for the first time.

Sounds silly I know, but I’ve had this thing about being afraid of screwing up the egg whites. I had a box of egg whites in my fridge that I bought and felt, if I never take the risk, I’ll never do it!

So I made this batch of brain food and boy, am I glad I did! (here’s a BBC Food’s recipe for meringue, it’s slightly different.)

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Leche Flan

One of the easiest Filipino desserts for me to make here in Australia is Leche Flan. The kids love this recipe, but as you can see in the image, the caramel isn’t very dark. That’s because of my family’s preference, so you may need to experiment with the caramel to get it as dark as you like.

I hope you enjoy making this! This is a busy mom version; traditional Leche Flan  uses carefully separated egg yolks, careful hand beating with a whisk, and strains the mixture through cheesecloth several times, resulting in a silky creamy flan. I’m rather lazy and want my delicious treat with minimal effort; my answer to this is to tap the bubbles out and use either a blender or mixer.

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Homemade Wontons


As part of their holiday ‘fun thing’ I taught my eldest how to make chicken wonton filling / chicken meatballs. Eldest boy helped wrap up a few, but I had to take over or else we wouldn’t have dinner on time! Happily my little budding hearth witch mastered the wrapping of wontons quickly. We still have meat so we’ll make a packet of wontons to freeze, and make meatballs out of the rest.

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I miss this oh so delicious food

Doesn't it look delicious? Picture from Yummy.ph online

Doesn’t it look delicious? Picture from Yummy.ph online

 

Crispy Pata is one of those recipes where you chuck your diet out the window and just enjoy, especially if you have freshly steamed fluffy white rice, seasoned vinegar-and-soy-sauce dip, and is, well, for me anyway, one of those meals that is best enjoyed nagkakamay – eaten with one’s (freshly washed and clean) hands. Might be a Pinoy thing, but some meals are somehow more pleasurable to eat that way. Anyway, Crispy Pata is deep fried whole pork hock, and there’s an awesome recipe over at the Yummy.ph website. You can also use the recipe and method to do crispy fried pork belly. Or deep fried pork ribs. I like eating these delightful meaty dishes with balsamic vinegar as a dip, with rice. Or if you want, use spicy, seasoned vinegar. Here’s a wonderful recipe for it, or if you want it really hot, here’s another.

Or have some spicy bbq pork ribs.

If it’s something that’s a source of homesickness for me, it’s Filipino food. Lately I’ve been missing the barbecues and street food like fishballs and battered quail eggs, with that sweet brown sauce. That’s the right recipe by the way, because the person writing it studied at UP Diliman and that’s where I used to get the best fishballs and eggs.

I miss those simple comforts, and nothing is more comforting to me than comfort foods.

Yummy Hospital Food!

Yeah I know, there’re are people out there going O_o wtf at that title. It’s like saying “OMG YUMMY AIRPLANE FOOD.” (Which I have had. Emirates and Philippine Airlines international flights have delicious food, and I hear Singapore Airlines and JAL have also good inflight menus. So…yeah. ^^;;; )

So, hospital food here in Townsville Hospital? Is yum. I’m not saying that because “I don’t have a choice and hafta eat it because I’m admitted for baby-observation” but because I really do find the options delicious. Lunch was a meltingly soft beef curry with steamed green beans (that was my choice, since I get jabbed for blood tests as part of the monitoring) and I have a coffee. I chat up the lunch ladies here and they now know I ABSOLUTELY ADORE the hospital’s egg sandwiches. If someone rejects them please give them to me while I’m here. cute puppy eyes And well, extra protein for bubs! (I have some sealed fruit juices and fruit cups that were rejected and I’ve set aside to increase my vitamin C intake to help me absorb the goodness for the baby too.)

Hospital food is yummy here.

Anyway. It so happened someone rejected their egg and ham sandwiches, and the food cart lady asked if I wanted them. DO I EVER?! I love the boiled egg salad sandwiches here, but egg sandwiches in the hospital are om nom nom weakness for me. The egg sandwiches might not seem special to anyone but they’re light and creamy and flavorful eggs of perfection without being overwhelmingly eggy. Maybe next time I’ll remember to take a picture of them before snaffling them down. They’re so yummy… They have plenty of other sandwiches too, but the egg ones and the chicken ones are my faves.

There’s always a good meal too. You have the main dish (one of the meals scheduled that I picked will be chicken schnitzel with sides, and the dessert for that will be a fudge cake. OM NOM NOM, must remember to take photo). The tray will have a fruit cup, coffee or tea (I pick coffee) and often a slice of bread and options of jelly or Veeeeeeeegimite (I… prefer the jelly) and there’s often a fruit cup of diced fruit. I found out that people often turn up their noses on these things and sometimes, if lucky the fruit cups, extra sandwiches and such end up in the lounge fridge for anyone to have. If unlucky they get thrown away. Thrown. Away. HORRORS.

Now, the food served are also balanced diets. A serve of meat, carbs and steamed veg is the usual. The carbs can be mashed potatoes, rice, steamed and mashed pumpkin, or roasted potatoes or pumpkin/squash. They’re not overly salty, but also not bland. And they do serve a small packet of salt and pepper that if used, is just the right amount. Breakfast is typically cereal options, (I pick boiled oatmeal porridge), fruit cup, yogurt, fruit piece, coffee or tea, slice of bread with butter and jam option. It’s very filling, and usually afterward I walk around the ward to stretch my muscles and ensure I don’t encourage blood clots.

Milo, Chocolate Chip Cookies and ANZAC biscuits. Yum!!!!!!

Mid morning, mid afternoon and about 8 pm, there’s a coffee trolley that goes around too. I look forward to these because they have the option of hot Milo with the usual coffee and tea (and yes, I can ask for a milo-coffee!) and this is where I get the chance for little saltine crackers and cheese, or a packet or two of Arnott’s bikkies or cookies. =9 The cheese and cracker option it pure delight when eaten with the supply of cherries or grapes I have here with me for extra vitamin C snackies.

Milo coffee, saltines and a nibble of cheese - healthy snackie!

Healthy little nibbles

And I’ve taken so long writing this that they’ve come up with the tea / bikkie break. I asked for a Milo-coffee / mocha, and they gave me the saltines and cheese =9

Staying hydrated isn’t a problem either. The water bottles they give out have a sweet water that reminds me of Evian (which we used to drink when I lived back in Germany.) I often find myself surprised when I empty a bottle from idly sipping while writing. I also have my half-cup juice stash of apple juice, and there’s the tea trolley, and if I want more I can just meander down to the lounge and make myself a coffee, then toddle back to my room. I can also make myself a chamomille or Lady Grey tea since I brought some teabags from the house (because I do try to cut back on the coffee to just twice a day.)

I’m quite well fed and cared for here, and I really appreciate the efforts on that. So I thought I’d write about it.

And now that I have, I’m going to eat the food.

 

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update: dinner option:; shepherds pie, steamed veg, pea and ham soup.

shepherds pie, ham and pea soup, veg and all good and delicious!

shepherds pie, ham and pea soup, veg and all good and delicious!

=9