Media Noche Memories at The Maya Kitchen

Last Saturday, my mom and I attended November's featured class - Media Noche Memories with Chef Fern Aracama at The Maya Kitchen. I first knew about Chef Fern from the culinary magazines then later on as a celebrity host/judge for the Philippine version of  Master Chef. Aside from being a celebrity chef, Chef Fern is the man behind Aracama Filipino Cuisine and is also the culinary consultant for Philippine Airlines.


This event focuses on dishes one can serve for the upcoming holidays, and were inspired by dishes the chef grew up eating as well as those inspired by his travels.

Dishes prepared:


Malunggay and Cheese Dip
A signature appetizer at Aramaca Filipino Cuisine, this one was the local response to the well known Artichoke and Spinach Dip, using Malunggay or Moringa to replace the artichoke. A very, very easy dish to make and was mom's favorite from all the dish prepared. Will prepare this at home this week and share you the recipe on Friday.


Patatas Riojana
A dish inspired from Chef Fern's Spanish trip. Another simple and easy dish to make, but I found the broth a little too salty for my taste. The chorizo tasted great, by the way.



Grilled Ensaimada - Media Noche Style
The heartiest and the richest dish of the day... Ensaimada cut in half and turned inside out and filled with Chinese Ham, mustard, Quezo de Bola then pressed and grilled in a butter greased pan. The dish prepared for the photo shoot was a little burnt, but the dish served at the end of the event was grilled perfectly. I loved this one as it had a great balance of sweetness and saltiness.


Insalata Uva
To counter the richness of the Grilled Ensaimada, Chef Fern prepared Insalata Uva, a signature salad dish chef's old restaurant called Uva. I do love to eat salad, but I rarely prepare vinaigrette, so this was something I am thankful for. Means I can now include vinaigrette on my salad as well.


Bunuelos with Spiced Chocolate Dip
A dessert that was my favorite dish that day. It was like profiteroles, but this one's lightly crunchy on the outside and very soft and moist inside. At the demo, this was paired with a chocolate dip, but at the buffet, this was served with another dip - Dulce de Leche. The Spiced Chocolate Dip was great, but I personally loved the Dulce de Leche more.

With the Christmas coming around the corner, people are not only stressed with thinking which gifts to wrap, stress from thinking what to serve also wears us down. All these dishes were very easy to make and not only would these make the Christmas table look great, these were also great Christmas gifts to family and friends.

I am not sure if there will be a featured class this December... if there will be one, I will share details here on my blog as soon as possible.

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Recipe | Sinampalukang Manok

It's been a long time since I last posted a recipe here on the blog... so allow me to share one, even if this dish is a basic Filipino dish that anyone can cook.

Sinampalukang Manok is Chicken cooked Sinigang style, but what made this different among the other sinigang dishes is that this uses young tamarind leaves as a souring agent, whereas other sinigang dishes used different kinds of fruits - calamansi, young tamarind fruit, guava, santol, kamias (bilimbi), and batuan.

I was able to cook this dish when I passed by a market and saw a vendor selling young tamarind leaves for 20 pesos per 1/4 kilo. Quite expensive, but then again, we don't have any neighbors who have tamarind trees in their yard, so I just have to go with it. There are so many ways to cook this dish, but this is how I cook mine.


Sinampalukang Manok
{serves 6}

Ingredients:

• 1 kilo chicken, cut into serving pieces
• 1/4 kilo young tamarind leaves
• 1 bundle string beans, cut 1-inch long
• 4 medium pieces taro, quartered 
• 1 small white radish, cut diagonally (1/4 inch wide)
• leaves from 1 bundle kangkong
• 1 big tomato, quartered
• 1 medium sized red onion, sliced
• 2-3 pieces finger chilies
• water
• salt (or patis)

How to Cook

• Place the young tamarind leaves in a cheesecloth and boil it in a pot of water with salt for about 5 to minutes. Take out the cheesecloth and squeeze out the water from the leaves. If you don't have cheesecloth, you can just boil the leaves in water and just use a strainer to take out the leaves.
• Add tomatoes, chilies, and onion into the pot and bring it to a boil.
• Add chicken and taro and continue simmering it until it's half cooked. Add the string beans and simmer further.
• Once the vegetables are cooked to your liking, adjust the seasoning and add the kangkong leaves. Stir lightly and cover the pot for few minutes, allowing the residual heat to cook the leaves. Serve hot.

Sinigang and Sinampalukan are flexible dishes, and it can be altered to go with one's preferences. Optional vegetables to use include eggplants and okra, and one can also add lemongrass or ginger to take out the "lansa" from the chicken (as well as adding flavors, too). Other people also saute the onions, tomatoes, and chicken in oil before adding the tamarind infused water, but here in our house, we don't go with that procedure because the chicken skin already gives the oil to the dish, we don't feel like adding more oil into it. What else? Oh... others also use rice washing water (the water you used in cleaning the rice before cooking it), although I don't really know the logic behind it, I do go for it once in a while. 

If young tamarind leaves is not available (as this is not widely available in markets), people also use the young tamarind fruit, as well as the store bought tamarind cube, powder, or paste. Since the objective of the dish is to have a bowl of hot, sour chicken soup, anyone can use whatever ingredients are available.

As for me, I enjoy my Sinampalukang Manok with hot steamed rice and a saucer of my favorite condiment - patis, calamansi juice, and mashed bird's eye chili. Hot and spicy. Yum.

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Flourish Pilipinas Media Launch

Last Wednesday, I was at the Ballroom B of Crowne Plaza Hotel (Ortigas) for the launch of "Flourish Pilipinas," spearheaded by the Universal Robina Corporation - Flour Division in partnership with the Department of Tourism, which aims to promote the bread and pastry industry in the country. There will be series of competition, and the mechanics as well as prizes will be on a separate post. For now, let me just share the sumptuous lunch served to us at the event.


The event was attended by different media people and some representatives from each of the sponsors and partners for the competition. As food was served, guests were serenaded by two of the most awesome voices in the Philippine music scene - Robert Sena and his wife Isay Alvarez. They performed timeless folk Filipino songs, and they were just amazing!



Beef Salpicao Salad
To start the meal, we were served this salad. Beef was tender and very flavorful, and the vinaigrette was so interesting that I want to try this at home - if only I know what's in it. Anyway, I tasted a little fruity tang to the vinaigrette (possibly calamansi or dayap), which really went well with the garlic bits in the Salpicao.


Molo Soup
The broth was a little salty for my liking, but the molo filling was good!


Bistek Tagalog
I found it a little weird that we were served yet another beef dish, but I am embracing it all in because the beef just tasted soooo good! The beef cuts were thick, but they were super tender. Unlike the typical Bistek Tagalog we serve at home, the sauce had this gravy consistency and it didn't have any souring agent. The veggies were crispy and cooked just right.


Crepe Samurai
When we heard it was "crepe," I became a little interested about it, because I usually see crepes served like blankets with filling. This, too, had its filling - a mix of mango slices and possibly mango ice cream (which already melted so I couldn't say for sure), and although I didn't eat the mango slices (personal reasons - I am not really into mangoes), I did enjoy the creamy sauce and the pastry.

If you're a baker and would like to take part of Flourish Pilipinas, you can click this link to get know the details and mechanics.

#bakeitfuninthephilippines

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Recipe | Pumpkin Soup

As promised yesterday, here's the recipe of the Pumpkin Soup, which I got from the June 2008 issue of Yummy Magazine.


Pumpkin Soup
{serves 5}

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 onion, sliced
• 2 carrots, peeled and diced
• 2 cups fresh pumpkin, roasted and diced
• 1 apple, peeled and diced
• 3 cups chicken stock
• 1 cup cream
• salt and pepper to taste

How to Cook:

• In a stockpot over medium heat, melt butter and saute onion, carrot, apple and  roasted pumpkin for about 8 to 10 minutes, until all are tender. Puree the mixture in food processor or blender.
• Return the puree to the stockpot, add chicken stock and simmer for 15 minutes.
• Add cream and simmer for 5 more minutes, lowering the heat if necessary to keep the soup from getting too thick. Season with salt and pepper.

My mom's cholesterol level is a little higher than normal, so I didn't put all the cream, I just used about 1/2 cup, enough to make the soup a little thick and creamy. The recipe didn't indicate exact measurements - it was difficult to determine how big the carrots and apples should be - but for this recipe, I used 2 carrots as long as my hand (from my wrist to the tip of my middle finger) and instead of 1 apple, I used 2 small ones, because it was the only size available in the nearby market.

This was the first time I cooked soup of this kind (the others didn't require pureeing), and since we don't have food processor, I used the old blender to puree the ingredients. Obviously, I need to push some ingredients down and I had a scare when the spoon I was using hit the blades of the blender. I sure hoped we have the stick blender, but for the mean time, the blender would do, I just had to be careful next time.

It wasn't as thick and creamy as the regular pumpkin soup, but it was comforting and really good. It paired well with the other dishes we cooked for that dinner, and now that I have cooked this, the idea of doing a "Soup for Dinner" diet is quite feasible.

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