Lumpiang Shanghai ni Sis. Puring

My lola (Mama to me, Sis. Puring/Matandang Maganda/Mommy Pureza to everyone else) is largely responsible for igniting my passion for cooking. She is the family's original kitchenmaid -- she loves toiling in the kitchen and would cook for every possible reason or excuse. Even at a time when fastfood is the norm and catering is convenience, Mama would insist to cook everything for a family party. When she was younger, she even made desserts like Minatamis na Macapuno and Halayang Ube, on top of making 4-5 main courses!


One dish that's a staple in her party menu (and a frequent potluck party request to her) is this Lumpiang Shanghai. I used to sit and watch her mince the recados and then mix them all up. Then I'd wrap them for her on the eve of each party, enjoying our talks about anything under the sun. Now that she's based in NZ, I heard her Lumpiang Shanghai's been gracing many a Filipino family's dinner parties and is still the hit it was back here.



LUMPIANG SHANGHAI NI SIS. PURING


What's In It?


1/2 kg. pork pigue, ground finely
1 large onion, peeled and minced
1 small singkamas (turnip/jicama), peeled and minced
1 small carrot, peeled and minced
7-8 stalks kinchay (chinese parsley), washed and chopped finely
1 t salt
1 t ground black pepper
50 pcs. lumpia wrapper (small)
2 c cooking oil


Sealer: 2 t cornstarch dissolved in 1.5 t water


Kitchen Conjugations:

To make the filling: Combine all but the last two ingredients in a bowl. Set aside to let flavors meld.

Meantime, separate lumpia wrappers into individual pieces. Allow as little exposure to the air as possible to keep the wrappers from hardening and getting brittle. (Pile on a plate and cover with a slightly moist towel.)

To assemble lumpia: Lay one lumpia wrapper on a plate. Spoon one teaspoonful of the lumpia filing onto the center near the bottom edge of the wrapper. Fold this edge over the filling, then follow with both the right and left edges of the wrapper. Roll the lumpia and seal using the cornstarch mixture. Repeat until all the mixture has been wrapped and rolled.

Heat cooking oil in a deep pan or small wok over medium fire. (Oil should be hot but NOT smoking.) Deep fry the lumpia (about 6-7 pieces per batch) until golden brown and crisp.

Serve with sweet chili sauce or as is, Great with steamed rice, for cocktails or appetizer.

Inihaw na Porkchop

With cool and windy days about us it's easy to forget that it's already March and that Summer is about to pop in with customary heat and swelter by the Holy Week.

For most Catholics the Holy Week is observed with fasting and abstinence from meat, so this post seems anti-thematic. But wait, I'm not really going to talk about what we have for Holy Week, but more of how we welcome summer.

We welcome summer with grills and barbecues, eat-outs and smokes, apart from trips to the beach and lakeside picnics. My nieces usually spend the summer with us, so I have a full house and it seems like a children's party every single day. (Yep, 4 kids can be a party. Ask any mom.)

These pictures were taken in 2005, in our old house. Mama (my grandmother) was home from NZ then and we had a blast having a kamayan, dahon ng saging lunchout at the garage. Do you notice Mike's head peering out of the margins of the picture? He was grill manager that day and rushed to make it from the grill to the frame just as I pressed the shutter button. :)

It'll be a li'l different this summer; for one Mama won't be home and would be in NZ recuperating from surgery (awww.... we miss you, Ma) and there'd be a new kid on the block, Mika. But I suppose the grilling stays. I will always be a BBQ girl at heart. :)

INIHAW NA PORKCHOP

What's In It?

1 kg. pork chops (about 8 thick cuts, bone-in)

1 cup soy sauce (Datu Puti is for me, the best)

juice of 7 calamansi*

1/2 cup brown/washed sugar*

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 bulb red onion, peeled and sliced

1 head of garlic, peeled and crushed

Kitchen Conjugations:

Thaw and wash porkchops, drain. In a medium plastic mixing bowl combine soy sauce, calamansi juice, sugar, garlic, onions and black pepper together. Add in pork chops, stir and turn so that all slices are covered by the marinade. Leave for 30 minutes to one hour.

Grill porkchops over medium high heat until done (the meat should lose pinkish tint but should still be tender and juicy). Serve with your favorite sawsawan (dipping sauce). Ours is soy sauce with onion and tomato slices and a squeeze of calamansi.

Have a great summer!

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Notes:

1. Pineapple juice may be substituted in the absence of calamansi. Some people put a little vinegar but I find that the acid 'cooks' and hardens the meat.

2. Washed sugar is colored light brown; brown sugar is darker. You can this if you are watching your sugar intake or do not like sweet ulam.

Quail Egg Surprise

Once back in highschool we were grouped into teams and were asked to come up with extraordinary recipes in Home Economics class. The other teams came up with pretty interesting dishes; the most remarkable, Banana Cake made from banana peels. That tasted okay, up until I imagined where the banana peels could have come from, and gagged.*

Anyways, our group's recipe wasn't extraordinary (supplied at the last minute by the mom of one of my mates who rescued us from impending non-submission). 'Twas called Meatball Surprise, just a meatball with a quail egg inside.

I made this to reconcile two different requests - Kwek-kwek for Gambel and Meatballs for Jam.
(I've made kwek-kwek/tokneneng before, here.) I was on the phone with Claire while rounding the balls and wasn't paying attention to how centered/uncentered the eggs were. Sowee. :)


QUAIL EGG SURPRISE

What's In It?

12 quail eggs, hardboiled and peeled
1/2 kilo ground pork
1 medium carrot, peeled and grated (or diced, if you like)
1 small red bell pepper, diced finely
1 medium onion, peeled and diced finely
1/2 teaspoon iodized salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 cup flour or bread crumbs
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup flour (for coating the eggs)
1 1/2 cups cooking oil (for frying)

Kitchen Conjugations:

Heat cooking oil in a deep fryer or wok over low fire. While waiting, work on the meatball mixture.

In a bowl combine ground pork, carrots, bell peppers and onions. Season with salt and black pepper. Mix thoroughly, then add in flour or bread crumbs. Mix a few more strokes, then pour in beaten egg. Mix to ensure the egg wets and combines with the mixture. (I use my hands to mix, for a better feel.)

Roll quail eggs in flour to coat. Then take a tablespoon of the mixture and line each flour-coated egg with it, shaping into balls as you go. Carefully drop the meatballs into the waiting oil. Deep fry for 3 minutes or until brown and golden.

Serve with sweet and sour sauce or sweet chili sauce.

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By the way, you can do this using chicken eggs, and end up making what is called Scotch Eggs.

*Of course I trust my classmates have been very careful, but I do have a very active imagination. :P

Lemon Grass Meatballs

We usually joke that to the unknowing, we can be considered weird because we have pots of grasses in our garden. But hey, no, we're not actual potheads -- just people who love some lemon grass - or tanglad-- every now and then.

(Our lemon grass are potted because we just carried them over from when we were renting, and back then all our plants were potted for better portability.)

I made Lumpiang Shanghai and after a few dozen rolls, ran out of lumpia wrapper. What to do with the excess lumpia mix? Well, meatballs of course! I stuck in lemon grass stalks, courtesy of our potted-tanglad-garden, for interest. Okay, di ba?

Pork Steak

Last Sunday was one of those times when my husband and I craved for dissimilar food. For lunch, he wanted fish while I craved for meat. Para walang away, we had both. I made Pork Steak (the Pinoy Bistek using pork) while he grilled a Betilla (a relative of lapu-lapu, maya-maya and bisugo). I also made him some cucumber-pineapple salad to go with the fish.

It was also fantastically warm inside the house, and so we were one in saying it was time na kumain kami sa labas (eat out)-- literally. We had lunch in our breakfast nook, a table straight out of a fastfood court, near our pocket garden. :)





PORK STEAK

What's In It?

1 k pork kasim or pigue, sliced into 1" strips
juice of 4 to 5 calamansi*
3/4 c soy sauce
5 T brown sugar
1 t coarsely ground black pepper
1 small onion, sliced
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, cut into rings for garnish
5 T cooking oil



Kitchen Conjugations:

Marinate pork in calamansi, soy sauce, pepper and brown sugar for at least 20 minutes. Heat oil and saute garlic and sliced onions until onions are soft and translucent.

Add in pork slices (without the marinade) and stir fry for one minute. Cover and simmer until pork is half-cooked (or after about 10 minutes). Add in marinade and simmer for another 10 minutes or till meat becomes fork-tender.

Stir-in onion rings and let simmer for 30 seconds or so. Check seasonings, correct any over-saltiness by adding a teaspoon of vinegar and a teaspoon of sugar and simmering for another minute.

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I've already set my mind on Pork Steak when I realized that I've ran out of calamansi. So instead I used half a teaspoon of Knorr Sinigang sa Calamansi mix for the marinade.

This is a large-batch recipe; this dish serves 16 people (half a kilo of meat is good for 8). The leftovers will keep for half a month in the ref, or for at least two days in room temp. For food safety be sure to reheat before serving.

"Hurray It's Summer!" Kebabs

It's summer! Woo-hoo!!

Pretty soon, when school's off, it's time for road trips, hikes, beaches and....barbecues! Yey!!
(And oh yes...time for my garage sale, too!)

To officially herald the start of summer I decided to have a barbecue for lunch. For a more festive touch I made Kebabs, using the chicken breasts I marinated originally for Turbo Chicken. On a whim I threw in some Chorizo de Cebu that's been lingering in my freezer. :)

Here's to a great summer. Hope you get things smoking one weekend! :)

CHICKEN KEBABS

What's in It?

1 kg. chicken breast fillets, cut into bite-size cubes
1 pack McCormick Zesty Garlic chicken marinade*
1 med. cucumber, cubed
2 med. bell peppers, cubed
1 large onion, cubed
1 med. can pineapple tidbits
1 small can cut young corn
2 tablespoons cooking oil
1 tablespoon Knorr seasoning (or soy sauce if unavailable)

Kitchen Conjugations:

Marinate chicken in the zesty garlic marinade for at least 20 minutes, following package instructions. (For best results, marinate overnight in the refrigerator.)

Thread chicken cuts onto the skewer alternately with the vegetables and pineapple. (While doing this, have someone start the grill already.) Make sure to save about 1/2 cup of the pineapple juice/syrup.

Combine pineapple juice/syrup, cooking oil and Knorr seasoning.

Grill kebabs on hot grill, turning frequently to avoid scorching (grill about one minute each side), brushing lightly with the pineapple juice-oil mixture. Since chicken cooks quickly and it's best to leave it juicy, keep cooking to about 5 minutes only.

Serve with hot steaming rice. Masarap ya-an! :)

PS:

Kebab is a Turkish term which means "grilled meat," but non-Turkish cooks (like myself) have since turned kebab into a "grilled anything" dish, which means that apart from chicken, you can use firm-bodied fish (like tanigue, tuna, labahita) pork, shrimps or tender beef slices. And as I did, you can also kebab-ize whatever's in your freezer. The Chorizo de Cebu didn't need any marinating by the way. :)

If you want a marinade from scratch, combine pineapple juice (from the tidbits), 2 T sugar, a pinch of black pepper, 1 teaspoon salt, 3 cloves garlic crushed and minced, and use this instead of the McCormick marinade. (As I said, I've pre-marinated the chicken, for something else.) Then, after you've skewered the meat, combine this marinade with the cooking oil and use it for brushing.