The Best Fish Dish Ever: Bangus Sardines

                    We love Bangus. We always buy a lot of fresh Bangus from Pangasinan. On top of that, we also love Bangus Spanish Sardines, that is why we always buy a box of it from our favorite store in the province. We sell it and we keep some for our own consumption. Due to the quarantine, we were not able to go home for a long time so we decided to make Bangus Sardines on our own.

                    Since it is just for our own consumption, we skipped the preservation process. We came up with 2 flavors, Bangus Sardines in Spicy Sauce and Bangus Sardines in Salt and Oil Sauce.

 

 Bangus Sardines

Ingredients:

water

rock salt

2 large bangus, cleaned, scales intact

1/4 cup bay leaves

1 large carrot, peeled and cut into florets

1 head garlic, peeled and crushed

1/4 cup green olives, pitted

1/4 cup pickles

1 tablespoon peppercorns

2 cups olive oil

 

For Spicy Sauce just add:

12 chili peppers

2 tablespoon gochugaru powder

Procedure:

1. Combine 6 cups cold water and 3/4 cup rock salt. Stir until salt is dissolved. Soak sliced Bangus for about 30 minutes. Drain well.

2. In a pressure cooker, layer bay leaves, carrots, and garlic to cover the bottom of the cooker. Arrange fish in a single layer over the vegetable and spices.

3. Add green olives, sliced sweet pickles, peppercorns. (Add chili peppers and gochugaru powder for spicy sauce)

4. Season with 1 tablespoon rock salt.

5. Add olive oil over the fish.

6. Add enough water to fully cover the fish at about 1 inch.

7. Close and lock the lid of the pressure cooker. Cook over medium heat until the valve begins to whistle.

8. Lower heat and continue to cook for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and release the pressure.

9. Transfer into airtight containers or microwavable containers.

                    We also sell the Homemade Bangus Sardines for just 100 pesos per microwavable container. It is also a versatile dish. We sometimes use it to make pasta or to simply eat it with some lettuce salad or tomato and onion salad.

                    It is also our favorite breakfast dish, it is best eaten with spiced sunny side up egg. We love making it as well for family getaways since it can be prepared in advance.

                    And of course, it is also meant as a gift to family and friends. We usually prepare it as a pasalubong from the province or as a simple gift during the holidays.

Food Planning and Organizing Part II

                    We make sure there is a variety of a food supply in the fridge. Aside from meat, we also have some seafood. Our fave is Tuna Belly, We love to grill it, steam it or use it for Sinigang. 

                    Also, we keep some cooked shrimp in the fridge, which we sauté with butter and garlic or sometimes we cook it with coconut milk and kangkong leaves. 

                                                                             We also keep some cleaned milkfish for grilling.

 

                        I also keep some tufo in the fridge to lose weight. When I feel like I need to eat more meat, I eat tufo instead.

 

                    We also keep some food for family weekends like chicken pastel, chicken wings and some ingredients for takoyaki.

 

                    The COVID-19 quarantine made us create good food family weekends spent at home. We realized cooking some good food at home and spending hours of time together during dinner is more enjoyable.

Weekend Foodie: Callos, Chicken Pastel and Cinnamon Rolls

                    This weekend I cooked some food as requested by hubby. We are going to visit Hubby's relatives-- I honestly wanted to cook more, but hubby would go ballistic if I cook more than what we agreed upon. I love cooking, so every time there is an opportunity to cook food for certain occasions, I get excited-- I plan to cook like 5 dishes or even more. For this weekend I just made some Kimchi together with Chicken Pastel and Callos with some Cinnamon Rolls.

                    I wanted to cook Chicken Pastel since last week, but I decided to just cook it this weekend. Aside from Chicken Pastel, I also made some Callos. I was also planning to cook Korean Chicken, Fresh Lumpia, Vietnamese Spring Roll and Kimbap, but I held on --I just narrowed it down to 3 dishes.

                    For the Chicken Pastel, I decided to add some parsley on the dough to make it pretty. I also added turmeric powder to the egg wash to enhance the color.

Chicken Pastel 

Ingredients:

Filling

1 kg deboned chicken thigh or breast cut into cube

1 can cream of mushroom

3 tbsp butter

1 head garlic, minced

1 pc large onion, chopped

1 pc potato, diced

1 pc carrot, diced

1/4 cup celery stalked diced

1/4 cup red and green bell pepper diced

1 pc chorizo de bilbao, sliced (optional)

1/2 cup chicken hotdog

1 can whole button mushroom, rinsed and quartered

2 tbsp all purpose flour

3 cups water

1 pack All Purpose Cream

12 pc quail eggs, boiled and peeled

¼ cup green peas

Crust

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

½ cup butter chilled and cut into small pieces

½ cup vegetable shortening 

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons sugar

4 tablespoons ice cold water

Procedure:

Make the crust

1. Stir together the flour, salt and sugar. Add the butter and shortening.

2. Cut the butter and shortening into the flour 

3. Add ice cold water, little by little, mixing as you go until the dough can be gathered into a ball. 

4. Roll the dough into a thick disc.

5. Wrap the dough in cling film and keep in the fridge

Make the filling

1. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Sauté chorizo and chicken in butter. Set aside. 

2. Sauté all the vegetables in the same pan. .

3. Add flour and cook for 2 minutes while stirring. Pour water and bring to simmer. Add chicken and cook for 15 minutes. (20 minutes).

4. Stir in Cream of Mushroom, All Purpose Cream, hotdogs and green peas. Let it cool.

Assemble and bake

1. Roll the dough between two large pieces of baking (wax) paper, starting at the center and rolling outward in all directions. Keep rolling until the dough is less than a quarter of an inch thick.

2. Lay the crust over the filling. Tuck in the sides then press around the edges to remove the excess. 

3. Bake at 350F for 25 to 30 minutes. Serve hot.

                    Rhian's fave though is the Callos. I never cooked Callos before, but it was quite easy, no need to practice. I have saved half of the Callos for the week, Rhian and Hubby ate all of it before the week ended. They said it was so good. 

Callos

Ingredients:

1 kg beef tripe, cleaned and sliced

1 kg beef meat, cut into strips 

5 cups water

1/2 Tbsp peppercorn

1 tsp salt

2 pcs bay leaf/laurel leaf

3 Tbsp olive oil

3 Tbsp garlic, crushed

2/3 cup onion, red, sliced

5 pcs large tomatoes, diced

1/4 cup chorizo de bilbao, sliced

1 1/3 cups carrot, sliced

2 pouches tomato sauce

1 cup garbanzos, cooked

1/2 cup green/black olives, pitted

2 Tbsp red wine or mompo

1/4 cup bell pepper, red, cut into strips

1/4 cup bell pepper, green, cut into strips

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper, black

Procedure:

1. Boil tripe and beef meat in enough water for 5 minutes to remove the scum. Drain and discard the broth.

2. Boil again in 5 cups water with peppercorn, salt, and laurel 1 hour and 30 minutes or until tender. Drain. Reserve broth.

3. Sauté garlic, onion, tomatoes, tripe, beef meat chorizo, and carrot in olive oil for 3 minutes. Add Tomato Sauce, 1 1/2 to 2 cups broth, and remaining ingredients.

Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve hot.

                   

                     And finally, I also made some Cinnamon Rolls, I was planning to make Blueberry Rolls but I decided this is not the time to experiment. :)

Food Planning and Organizing Part I

                Weekend is both a family time and a time to plan for the week ahead. Every week I check the fridge to make sure it is well organized. I also make meals that can be made in advance, to save time during weekdays. Sometimes, I get so tired to cook, so I always make sure something healthy and ready to eat is kept in the fridge. Most of time if no meal is available, Rhian and Hubby go for some canned corned beef, sausages or sardines. 

                Aside from that I also need to make sure veggies are organized so that I can just cook some veggie dishes when I am starving. I try to avoid carbohydrates when I am hungry to avoid gaining weight.

                Here are a few prepared meals that can be cooked in just  minutes. This prepared meals will be cooked for breakfast.

                I am including my favorite kitchen gadget here. It is a mini food processor. It can be charged via USB, I use it when I need to have some aromatics crushed. It makes life so easy, no more chopping and smelly hands. 

                    The above is liempo, marinated with some siling labuyo, dalandan juice, soy sauce with salt and pepper. It can be cooked within minutes and it is best paired with egg, fried rice and kimchi. 

                    

                    Next would be some pork tapa with a lots of garlic, it is marinated with soy sauce and pepper. I also prepared some ham and sliced hungarian sausage. Both are usually paired with garlic rice and egg. Sometimes we also add in some eggplant cooked in air fryer or some bean sprouts with oyster sauce.

                    Chicken hotdog and salt and pepper bacon on the other hand is paired with chicken sopas or crab and corn soup. 

                The one above is a salt and pepper ribs, we drench it with flour and then we fry it in olive oil. It is best eaten with egg salad, vegetable salad or garlic pasta.

            Pork prepared in 3 ways: sweet and sour pork, home made tocino and pork steak in calamansi. All of which is served on top of rice. 

                    And finally, we have some staples in the fridge. Usually we also have dried fish which is usually paired with tsamporado. The one above though is bangus belly, bangus tinapa and of course rellenong bangus. It can be kept in the freezer for months, it is way much better that eating processed meats. We buy this stuff in the province. It is freshly made and definitely better since it is made fresh from the source. 

It's Saturday! It's Market Day!

                Since the pandemic started we avoided going to the market and doing groceries often. We love the market, when we travel we visit the market and we look for the authentic delicacies in the area. We also buy a lot of veggies and local delicacies.

                For today we kinda miss the breakfast in the province. So we had a traditional breakfast that we usually eat when we go to our other home. In Pangasinan, we usually go to the beach to buy some fresh fish. We still have some from our recent trip back home. Hubby on the other hand had bought some “daing na pusit" from Bicol. On top of that we also had "daing na hipon".

                I also made the "Ginisang Lamang Loob ng Bangus". It is not a common dish. This appetizing dish was traditionally made by my Aunties. I spent my childhood days with conservative and super strict Titas who loves to cook "kakanins" and not so common dishes. Nowadays, I cook this dish when we buy a lot of deboned milkfish/bangus. We cleaned and cook the innards of the fish and turn it into a super yummy appetizer. Hubby loves it so much as well. I keep a bottle of it in the fridge for him to munch on with a hot bowl of rice.

                Just before we start breakfast, our neighbor delivered our order of Moron from Leyte. It has a lot of chocolates and a slice of cheese.

                So right after breakfast, we went out to do our groceries, we are planning to cook some Callos or maybe Chicken Pastel-- but for sure I will make some Cinnamon Rolls :)

  

Breakfast Rush

                  It is Friday! So it means we are too tired to cook breakfast, and also we are looking forward to our weekend breakfast so we keep Friday breakfast simple and quick.

                I always plan our meals a week ahead. A 30 minute dish needs to be done in 5 minutes. So during weekends or rest days I do a lot of prep and meal planning and just stuff them in the freezer.

                This food story is just all about a simple Pancit -- with no veggies though. Ate neighbor who delivers veggies regularly is on a 2 week vacation and I do not feel like running to the groceries for some veggies. I try to avoid frequent trips outside due to COVID-19.

                This Pancit can be cooked in approximately 15 minutes as long as the ingredients are prepared in advanced. During weekends I make some chicken broth after deboning whole chickens. I usually buy whole chickens and use each part in different recipes like chicken cordon bleu, chicken fingers, chicken nuggets, chicken adobo, chicken curry, chicken tinola etc.

                In a large pot I boil all thed is drained and kept frozen until needed.

                After my Thursday work I sta chicken bones with some celery, carrots and white onion. I season the broth with pepper and salt and I boil it for at least an hour. I use some of the chicken meat and freeze them. The broth on the other harrt cooking breakfast around 6:00 AM. For today we are also pairing it with some suman that was given to us. I am not really a fan of "kakanin", maybe because my Tita's always cooks it perfectly none comes close to it. I have my favorites though and that would be Puto Calasiao, Don Benito's Cassava Cake and Suman Ibos. I think I will also add to my list my Chocolate Moron from Leyte -- a delicacy that I got to taste when I was in college, a friend from Leyte always brings a lot of those after sembreak. For today Rhian and Hubby would be eating Pancit suman from Bicol.

                Now back to our Pancit for breakfast. I think this is much better than the usual instant pancit, at least the flavorings are all natural. Here is the recipe for our 15 minute pancit.

15 Minute Pancit 

Ingredients:

Pancit Bihon

Pancit Bato (from Bicol)/Canton (optional)

Chicken Broth

Chicken Meat

Chopped Garlic

Oil

Salt or Patis

Pepper

Procedure:

1. Toast garlic in oil. You may leave some for toppings.

2. Add the chicken meat, salt/patis. Sauté.

3. Add the chicken broth, bring to boil.

4. Then add the pancit bihon and pancit bato/canton

5. Once the broth is absorbed by the noodles, drizzle it with oil

6. Serve hot with garlic toppings.

Viola! After 15 minutes breakfast is ready.

Dinner: Father's Day 2021

                    I prepared some of Hubby's favorite dishes for dinner. I prepared the things in advance so that there is no need to tire myself. After all, it is Father's Day and we need to spend time together.

                    To make the Baked Salmon special, I got some dill from the garden. During quarantine we got a bit obsessed about gardening, and hubby planted some malunggay, dill, rosemary, peanuts, radish, pandan, mustard -- and some ornamentals. We also have an overaged pineapple plant :)

  The Baked Salmon is simple but it is super delicious.

Baked Salmon

Ingredients:

Salmon

Salt

Pepper

Dill

Lemon

Procedure:

1. Put Salmon in the foil, add salt and pepper.

2. Squeeze some lemon juice.

3. Add dill on top, then steam for 15 minutes.

                    I also made the remaining crusty bread rolls in to pesto toast. For the pasta, I just made some mushroom garlic pasta.

Mushroom Garlic Pasta

Ingredients:

Diced Mixed Mushroom

Garlic

Pasta

Olive Oil

Chili Flakes

Parmesan Cheese

Procedure:

1. Cook garlic in oil, do not brown the garlic.

2. Add mushroom, sauté.

3. Add the pasta, mix until sauce is incorporated.

4. Serve with pesto toast. Add some parmesan cheese on top of the pasta.

                    We also made some baked ribs. It was not sweet but it was super spicy. Rhian is now old enough to love spicy foods. So instead of making sweet ribs, I made it savory and spicy. 

Baked Spare Ribs

Ingredients:

Spare Ribs

Oyster Sauce

Rosemary

Sriracha Sauce

Sugar

Cornstarch

Water

Salt and Pepper

Procedure:

1. Marinate the ribs in oyster sauce, lemon and rosemary overnight. Add salt and pepper to taste

2. Boil some oyster sauce, Sirach sauce and sugar.

3. Add the slurry or the mixture of cornstarch and water. Set the sauce aside.

4. Bake the ribs with the sauce until golden brown.

                    

                    It was a fast dinner preparation -- but a super long and happy dinner with the family. I almost forgot, I also made some strawberry cheesecake-- the strawberries was from Tita Vi and Ate Lulu.

Food and Memories: Sinigang na Malaga sa Dalandan

                Finally I decided to write again on my blog. It has been a while. I was very busy about a lot of things. Oh well, the good thing though is that I have the motivation to write again.

                 I always make some time to cook, no matter how busy I am, it is my way of reliving the good memories. For this weekend we had Sinigang na Malaga sa Dalandan. We went home to the province and luckily Aunt Deling harvested from from her fishpond, and she gave us some crabs and Malaga/Samaral/Sandig.

                 We also had a lot of Dalandans that are not too sweet and not too sour. In front of our house was a Dalandan Tree-- bearing fruit all year round. So for this weekend, I will try to recreate what we craved to eat on the way to Manila, which is of course Sinigang na Malaga.

                 In cooking fish, my Aunties were very particular with the process. It is always a must to cook the fish with minimal water and lots of salt in high heat. This is to remove the fishy smell of the fish.

                 Another thing to remember is that cleaning this kind of fish is not that easy – hubby does it for me, always. I am so clumsy I always end up pricking my fingers and getting sick afterwards.  After we harvested our pechay from our mini garden,it is now time to cook some hearty lunch.

 

        Sinigang na Malaga Sa Dalandan

 

Ingredients:

1 kilo medium size samaral, about 3 pieces

1 medium size onion, quartered

1 medium size tomato, quartered

1 medium size onion, chopped

1 medium size tomato, chopped

1 bundle pechay, cleaned

1/2 cup dalandandan

4-5 pcs. siling haba

salt

Procedure:

1. Cleaned the fish.

2. In a pot bring to a boil 1 and 1/2 cups of water, chopped onion, chopped tomatoes and salt.  Cook the fish in high heat until it boils and half cooked.

3. Add 2 more cups of water, bring to boil.

4. Add the peachy and siling haba on top of the fish then continue to simmer for 2 to 3 more minutes.

5. Season with more salt if needed. Add the diced tomatoes and onions, do not overcooked.

6. Add the dalandan juice before serving. Arrange the half cooked tomatoes and onions with the pechay for aesthetic purposes. :)

And so after 30 minutes-- it is done! Lunch is ready. It is best eaten with patis and chopped sili.

 

Brunch: Father's Day 2021

                I am a morning person. Most of the time I am up as early as 2:00 AM. For Father's Day Brunch I made some Crusty Bread Rolls. Thanks to my Bear Bread Maker, I do not need to spend time kneading the dough. After the breakfast preparation, the table is set.

             We do not usually go out during weekends, even before the COVID-19 pandemic. We love spending time and sharing stories during meal time. We find it more relaxing than dining out. We also get to cook the food that we want and we also get to try new recipes as well.

                I love writing about our travel and food escapades. My daughter on the other hand loves to vlog and creates videos of our time together as a family. It gives us the time to really go back to the precious moments of the past.

                I also find it comforting when I spend time in the kitchen. When I see Hubby and Rhian's laughter during meal time-- I know it is happiness.

                So here is what we have for Brunch, Mushroom Seaweed Hotpot and Grilled Tuna Belly.

                It is easy and simple-- but absolutely delish. The Crusty Bread Rolls though that I made for the first time from scratch is quite complicated and I think I have not yet attained perfection in making it, so I would probably share the recipe next time.

Mushroom Seaweed Hotpot

Ingredients: 

Fresh Pork Bacon

Mixed Mushroom, which can be bought for just 100 pesos in grocery stores

Green Onions

Grated Garlic

Ottogi Beef Seaweed Soup

Procedure:

1. Boil the broth mix with grated garlic.

2. Add green onions.

3. Cook the rest of the ingredients during meal time.

 

Grilled Tuna Belly

Ingredients:  

Tuna Belly

Salt

Pepper

Oyster Sauce

Lemon

Procedure: 

1. Marinate the Tuna in salt, pepper, oyster sauce and lemon.

2. Grill

3. Serve with spicy toyomansi.

Then, we rise and shine for the Sunday Fam Day!