Sinigang na baboy

Sinigang (pork in sour soup) is one of my favorite viands. The more sour the soup, the better! And you can have a variety of souring agents: tomatoes, sampaloc, miso. The miso part I still do not understand though (but I like it too!), but hands down, sampaloc is my favorite souring agent.

Strawberry Delight ni Dearest

We are quite lucky to be living in Baguio because we can have cheap and fresh veggies and fruits... especially strawberries! Strawberries become abundant in the cool months of December, with its peak reaching the months of March and April. The subsequent months will then see the price of these reddish morsels of delight increase five-fold while supply drastically decreases.

So while the strawberries are in season, try out this very simple dessert or merienda recipe that's sure to delight! My wife likes making this because it's so easy to do.

All you need is a bowl of strawberries in a bowl. Into this, pour cream and condensed milk (1:1). Mix using a wooden or a plastic sandok. Chill, then serve!





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Lelot Balatong

This merienda treat is called by many names: tinutong (which refers to the process of burning the mung beans), guinataang munggo, lelot balatong. I think the last term is Ilokano in origin, and is the one I'm familiar with. The nearby Jollijeep in our office sometimes sells this for merienda, and when I order lelot, they give me a puzzled stare. So I point out what I want instead. This is also one of the goodies my sister cooked for us when we were kids. We'd help her out in crushing the mung beans. The aroma of the mung beans would permeate the air and we'd know we're going to have a nice merienda break!

Ensalada

When having something fried on the table be it fish or veggies or meat, it's great to have ensalada to accompany it with! We regularly have this with our meal. The only problem is, it's a great appetite booster!

Get some onions and tomatoes and cut into small pieces. Place in a bowl.
Sprinkle this with a bit of vinegar and mix.
Next, pour a generous amount of soy sauce. Perhaps when 20% of the tomato and onion mix are submerged will be fine.



















Serve with your favorite fried dish!


















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Chicken dip with a bite

We were out in a chicken restaurant last weekend, and we usually love our fried chicken with ketchup. For me, it's sweet banana ketchup; I've never been fond of tomato ketchup, although I will take that when there are no options.

Well, here's a nice way to spice-up your ketchup dip as provided by friend Janice.

Place ketchup onto bowl.
Add a small amount of worcesterchire sauce.
Add a few drops of hot sauce, depending on your preference.
Mix three ingredients together.


















And you get a spicy, tangy, delicious dip for your crispy fried chicken!

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How to de-vein a shrimp

We cooked some shrimps last Holy Week, and the recipe called for de-veining these succulent things. Emily was around to help out with the de-veining and was glad to do a demonstration!


















Remove the shrimp's shell to get to the meat.
Slice through the spine, creating a shallow cut from end to end.
You will see a sort of black string exposed by the cut. Pull this out, also from end to end.
Voila! You get a de-veined shrimp. This makes the shrimp cleaner for consumption. An added bonus: the cut makes the shrimp puff out when fried, making it look even yummier.



















While browsing through my photos, I chanced upon these shots which my wife took while I was helping out with the guinataan. Thought I'd just post it here for posterity :-).

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