Palitaw

This was one of our (me teaching my boys and two nieces) cooking projects last summer. It's pretty, easy to do, yummy, inexpensive, and the choosing of colors for the galapong makes it more interesting for kids. (Although I had to hold off requests for blue and fuschia palitaw. Hehe.)

Besides, Filipino snacks are becoming a rare species, quickly being replaced by foreign, fastfood items like french fries, pizza and waffles. I felt sad when my two sons and two nieces asked "Ano yung Palitaw?" when as children my brother and I excitedly waited for the manlalako each afternoon, excited to see which among our favorites Palitaw, Buchi, Lumpia, Cuchinta, Banana Cue, Puto, Calamay were there for the taking in his magic bilao. We had enjoyable summers putting out stands in front of our house, selling Sago't Gulaman, Kalingking, Turon and Ginataan.

So it was a MUST that I taught the kids some Filipino snacks!

BTW, Palitaw is so named because of the way each piece floats and appears (litaw) from the bottom of the pan during cooking.

Nowadays you don't need to soak glutinous rice and then bring it for grinding at the local market just to make galapong. Coconut vendors at local markets usually also sell galapong in P20.00 packs (which makes about a dozen Palitaws). Mine I bought from the vegetables section of South Supermarket, priced by weight.

PALITAW

What's In It?

250g. Galapong

various food coloring (optional)

5 cups tap water

1 coconut, meat shredded

1/3 cup white sugar

5-6 teaspoons sesame seeds

Kitchen Conjugations:

Toast sesame seeds in a pan over medium heat for about 2 minutes or until brown. Mix with the sugar and set aside.

Boil water in a wok or deep pan.

Meantime, if you're coloring the galapong, divide it into as many colors as you want. To each ball of galapong, pour 2-3 drops of food color (depending on how dark you want the shade to be) and work in and distribute the food color by mashing and stretching the galapong until the color is distributed.

Then cut away a small portion of the galapong (about the size of a large marble), roll into a ball then flatten into a disc. (You could have it round or oval. ) Repeat for the rest of the galapong.
Drop the flattened discs into the boiling water. Wait a few minutes for the palitaw to float to the surface of the water, then remove from the pan using a slotted spoon, onto the shredded coconut meat.

Roll / turn over the palitaw to coat both sides with the shredded coco meat. Sprinkle/top with the sugar-sesame seed mixture and serve.

Banana Q

Banana Q is my all-time favorite. It's very simple and easy to make that I found it incredible that my maid doesn't know how to cook it. **Aghast!**

When I was infanticipating, Banana Q was a staple craving, but goodness, I had to send off the driver to the nearest vendor/stall which was about 5 kilometers away! I couldn't fathom why, for the life of me, didn't the commercial building near us, which was a jeepney and bus stop, had a pedicab station and a host of other food vendors--Minute Burger, kakanin vendors and carinderias-- didn't have a Banana Q stall!

Kung kaya lang ng powers ko (timewise), pinapelan ko na! :P

And then, from where I live, the Banana Q stall is about a kilometer and a half away. And their Banana Q, being less sellable than their Turon, gets to me cold and tasting like it was cooked yesterday. So most of the time I buy saba bananas when I do my grocery shopping and cook my Banana Q myself. :P

BANANA Q (Fried Sugar-Coated Bananas)

What's In It?

6 fingers saba (plantain) bananas, peeled
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup cooking oil

Kitchen Conjugations:

Heat cooking oil in a wok or deep frying pan over medium heat.

Meantime, roll bananas in brown sugar. Drop each carefully into the hot oil. Let fry for 2 minutes and turn over. (The exposed side should be golden brown. If it hasn't browned, turn back to let it brown some more.)

As the oil boils the sugar coating the bananas will melt and caramelize. Move the bananas and rub them against the caramelized sugar to 1) make the sugar coat the bananas and 2) prevent the caramelized sugar from hardening and sticking to your pan. (This is hard to remove and clean, believe me.) Cook 2-3 minutes more then remove bananas from the pan. Serve skewered in bamboo Banana Q sticks or flat on the plate, ready for your fork.

Enjoy! :P

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It is important to keep the fire at medium. Overheating not only burns your cooking oil (which produces carcinogens) but will also burn and blacken the sugar and make it bitter in taste.

Ginisang Sitaw

I don't know why, but Mike's absence zaps all of my enthusiasm for cooking. Pag wala siya, automatic we eat out or buy something to eat. Or I cook the simplest thing that comes to mind.

Maybe it's because wala akong ganang kumain. Wala rin ganang magluto. (No appetite to eat, no zeal for cooking.)

And that's the story behind this very simple entree.

GINISING SITAW

What's in it?

1 bundle sitaw, washed, ends removed, cut into 1 1/2 " lengths
1 medium onion, peeled and sliced
1 medium ripe tomato, washed, sliced into thin wedges
3-5 cloves garlic, peeled and mashed
200 g. ground pork or beef
3 T fish sauce (patis)
1 t ground black pepper
5 T cooking oil


Kitchen Conjugations:

Heat cooking oil over medium heat in a wok or frying pan. Saute onions, garlic and tomatoes for 3 minutes or until tomatoes are soft and wilted. Add in ground meat, fish sauce and ground pepper. Stir fry for 1-2 minutes or until meat loses pinkish tint.

Add in sitaw, stir fry for 1-2 minutes more or until the sitaw sweats. Sitaw should keep bright green color. Remove from fire when it's a little tender but crisp.

I Heart Petite Palmiers!

Can you imagine how flaky yet crisp this is? Me I like to carefully separate the layers and slowly nibble from end to end. :) Great with Nescafe Relax. :)

Bought from S&R Alabang for P499.00. Each cookie cost about P20.00. Not bad for some instant cookie gratification. :)

In case you wanna try making your own, here's a recipe.

Ginataang Halo-Halo

How do you eat your Ginatan? Do you, like me, start with hurriedly eating the gabi/kamoteng kahoy, then poking at the kamote, before moving on to the langka, the sago, bilo-bilo, and then finally the saba?

Really? In that save-the-best-for-last-order too? :) Saba is my super-favorite. Promise. :)


As a little girl I used to help my lola make Ginatan, and my toka, being too young to handle knives for the slicing, was to round the galapong for bilo-bilo. Back then though the bilo-bilo we had was always white.

But not anymore, thanks to the availability and affordability of food coloring. :) Here I just divided my galapong into how many colors I wanted, poured about 3 drops of food coloring to each batch, mixed and mashed the galapong to spread the coloring and voila! Colored bilo-bilo! Nice, di ba?

GINATAANG HALO-HALO

What's In It?

6 fingers saba, peeled and sliced crosswise into rings about 1/3" thick

1 piece kamote (about 300g.), peeled and cubed

1 piece gabi or kamoteng kahoy (or both, each about 300g.), peeled and cubed

langka strips (fresh or sweetened)

200 g. galapong

1 can coconut milk + 1.5 cans of water

1/2 cup washed sugar

1 t pandan essence (optional)



Kitchen Conjugations:

In a wok or small pot heat coconut milk mixed with water over medium heat. Stir constantly with left to right motions to prevent curdling.

When milk boils, add kamoteng kahoy, gabi, kamote and saba. Simmer for 7-10 minutes or until fork-tender. Add in bilo-bilo and simmer for a minute or so, or until the bilo-bilo floats to the surface (which means it is cooked). Stir in pandan essence if using.

Tastes better at room temperature, but after all that work, I bet you'd be going for a spoonful. :)

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Glossary:

1. Gabi - taro root

2. Kamoteng kahoy - cassava

3. Kamote - sweet potato

4. Langka - jack fruit

5. Sago - tapioca balls

6. Bilo-bilo - glutinous rice balls

7. Saba - plantain bananas

Chopping an Onion

Many people do not like cooking not because of the cooking part per se, but because of the rigors of preparations cooking entails. There's defrosting, washing, peeling, slicing, dicing, chopping, marinating, measuring, and so on. So it is important to have techniques that will simplify or quicken some of these steps.

One of the basic preparations needed for cooking is chopping an onion. Onion is part of all sautes, and is part of some marinades, sawsawans (dipping sauces), and even savory breads. Here's how to do chopping easy and fast, courtesy of RealAge:

Don't Eat This Fish!

I was checking my stats at Statcounter, checked referring links and one thing led to another and I got to this page, warning against eating River Cobbler, which I featured in one of my posts (Cajun River Cobbler).

Apparently in France, Vietnamese River Cobbler has gained popularity and acceptance because of its texture, flavor and price.

However, the article warns against consuming Vietnamese River Cobbler or Pangas, claiming, among others:

1. That Pangas is grown in the Mekong River of Vietnam, one of the most polluted in Asia, teeming with industrial and other wastes.

2. That it is frozen in contaminated water, and

3. It is injected with hormones derived from urine.

I am wary about the article, not knowing who wrote it, if it is really true and if there aren't any hidden agendas for it. Yet I feel compelled to share it with you as I featured River Cobbler in one of my posts and might have unintentionally exposed you to the supposed dangers of eating this fish.

Looking back, my husband and a few family members including myself have eaten substantial quantities of this fish on several, separate occasions but (luckily) nothing untoward happened to us.

As I said in my post, I found and bought the fish at the South Supermarket in Alabang. I don't know if they know of the origins of this fish or if they know of the issues surrounding it. Personally I am not inclined to buy or eat it again after reading the article. Better safe than sorry!

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.

Bangus Steak / Bangus Bistek

While pregnant with Mika bangus (milkfish) was one of the things I always craved. I had it inihaw, sinigang, prito and of course, Filipino bistek style.

Many people I know do not like eating bangus because it's so fussy to eat, having lots of bones to pick. But did you know that for a small charge (P20.00) you can have your suki fish vendor debone your bangus? And of course boneless bangus is available in supermarkets, some of them already marinated/seasoned, some of them in fillets (belly and back). For this recipe I used back fillets bought from the South Supermarket. People say I am strange for liking the flesh better than the (more flavorful) belly, but hey, to each his own! :P

BANGUS STEAK / BANGUS BISTEK

What's In It?

1 pack SeaKing Bangus Back Fillets, about 450g.

1/2 t salt

1 c cooking oil

1/3 c soy sauce

1/8 c calamansi juice (squeezed from 6-8 med.-sized calamansi)

1 1/2 c water

3-4 T sugar (I prefer brown/washed)

1 med. onion, peeled and sliced into rings

6 cloves garlic, peeled and mashed

1 t ground black peppercorns

Kitchen Conjugations:

Heat oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Fry bangus fillets until golden brown and a little crisp.

While waiting for bangus to fry, in another pan or wok, saute onions and garlic for 2 minutes or until onions become soft and translucent. Remove some of the onions from pan and set aside to use as garnish later.

Stir in sugar, peppercorns, soy sauce and water. Let boil and simmer for one minute. Pour in calamansi juice but DO NOT stir until after the mixture boils. Simmer for 3 minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings. (You may want it to be on the sweeter or more sour side.) Remove from heat and set aside.

Arrange cooked bangus in a semi-deep dish and pour soy sauce-calamansi mixture. Garnish with the onion rings and serve with hot, steaming rice.

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Substitution notes:

1) You can always use bone-in bangus, bangus belly and other fish for this recipe. Tanigue, alumahan work just as well.

2) No fresh calamansi? Use 1/2 teaspoon Knorr Sinigang sa Calamansi mix. :)

Wine and Cheese

What's better than eating?

Eating and drinking.

What's better than eating and drinking?

Eating and drinking and chatting with friends.

Our good friend Mama Norms came for a visit one Sunday bearing this tray of cold cuts and cheese. All Mike had to do was whip out the wine and there we had it -- eating and drinking and chatting. (Although I wasn't drinking wine, but green tea. ) This was waaay before I got pregnant.

Now with work, two school-age boys and a 3-month old breastfed baby, I wonder when I can have an afternoon as leisurely as this again?

Inside Kitchen Conjugations

This afternoon while we were snacking at Cheesecake Etc., Food Magazine (or so I overheard) was doing a photoshoot of the --whatelse -- cheesecakes. As I pointed this out to my hubby, I said, "Yung ginagawa ko, ginagawa din nila," insinuating that staging and taking pictures of food is a normal thing. He said something like, "Dapat ganu'n din ang camera mo," insinuating how underhanded my Optio A10 was compared to the digital SLR the fotog was using, with a tripod to boot.

I said, "Di ko naman kayang bumili ng ganun," to which he replied, "Ibibili kita."
Sweet. :)

Anyway, the ongoing photo shoot got me thinking about how different food blogging is to food magazine writing.

Magazines are armed with editors, writers, researchers, photographers, the kitchen crew and the publication staff. Foodbloggers usually (I for one) do all the work -- the research, the shopping (for ingredients), the cooking/testing, food styling, taking of pictures, writing, editing and publishing.

Magazines have budgets for testing and re-testing and have assistants documenting and testing measurements and procedures. One-(wo)man foodblogging teams do it all in one-go (with little or nothing to spare for retesting), with measurements done by approximations (a sandok of this, a handful of that, a pinch of this, a dash or so of that). And so as I write the recipes for my posts I have to go over what I put in and what I did in my head and try to come up with the nearest approximations in terms of standard quantities. Thankfully so far no one has commented nor complained that their cooking from my recipes has come out salty or tasteless or inedible. :)

Magazines have the luxury of food styling and the ability to use even non-edible chemicals for the sake of making the food picture-pretty. My products need to be edible, palate-pleasing AND picture-pretty. Magazines have the luxury of long photo shoots; while I've held up countless lunches and dinners (at home and outside) taking shots of the food for my foodblog, I don't take longer than two minutes and sometimes settle for a not-so-pretty picture in the interest of feeding my already hungry family.

And because it's a one-woman team behind Kitchen Conjugations, life sometimes gets in the way and posts come far in between. (As is the case now.) And the biggest difference? You get the recipes (sometimes with a dash of humor and entertainment) virtually free. The cheapest food mag costs P50.00 I think.

So why do I keep at it? Gee, I don't know. Perhaps the need to share and connect? The need to glorify my creative spirit? Or just plain KSP? Hahaha.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Those of you who know me personally know that I am a chocolate addict. Even on a diet, I couldn't and wouldn't say no to chocolate.

Mika is now two months and a week old and I'm still stuck with excessive poundage. I know I need to lose weight, but breastfeeding is such hungry and thirsty work. A friend suggested I forego rice altogether and subsist on sabaw, but that's easier said than done, considering I carry and care for a 7 kg baby 24-7.

And so the challenge is to find healthier substitutes for the food I need/want to eat. Flourless Chocolate Cake is one, don't you think? It's flourless so there's less carbohydrate to worry about, and chocolate comes from a bean, which is a vegetable, so it's healthy, right? Hahaha.

That one up there was a birthday gift by my friend Beth back in 2005. But I still remember how gooey and heavenly it was. Maybe you need a chocolate fix too? CacaoWeb's a chocolate recipe haven. Maybe the toiling before the munching (nay, cheating) will burn some calories and take away some of the guilt. :)

Kitchen Boy

Of my two boys, it is Gabriel who shares my interest in toiling in the kitchen. He's always volunteering to help, is always around watching what I do, and has since cooked Tinolang Manok (Gingered Chicken Soup) with only a little guidance and instruction from me.

The pic above was taken in my mother in law's kitchen in North Cotabato back in 2006. The stove is typical of houses in the provinces and is fed with firewood. (It is however quickly losing out to the more convenient, air-friendly gas stoves.) This stove had a pugon (wood-fired oven) which my husband said has seen better days.

On that vacation I tried baking a cake in a pugon at my sister-in-law's house and it was quite an adventure -- having no thermostat to rely on, having no see-through oven door, and having have to go back out every so often to feed wood to the fire was arduous. (And to think back then this was the only way to go..)

The difficulty was compounded by the fact that I didn't have tools (no measuring cups, no mixer) and was quadrupling the recipe to have cake good for 50 people.

I wasn't too happy with the results -- the banana cake was harder and less flavorful than I wanted it to be, but oddly enough, twas wiped out to the last morsel. Maybe the folks were plain hungry. :)

Ginataang Alimango (Crabs in Coconut Milk)

Tong-tong-tong, pakitong-kitong, alimango, sa dagat, kaylaki at kay-sarap...

I was doing this song while cooking this dish and my son goes, "Mommy, ano 'yung alimango?"
I explained while digesting the fact that it's true there are always two sides to a coin. While using English as a medium of instruction has its advantages, there are downsides too. In the course of our tutorials my sons have asked for definitions of namumuno, sentenaryo, takwil and some more common words I forget at this time.

Anyway, back to the Alimango.

My husband, a Cebuano at heart who hails from the still-fertile lands of Mindanao is used to big things. Big bananas a foot long, bigger-variety fish (lapu-lapu, labahita, maya-maya, tanigue), lanzones that get to be 3 inches in diameter (I'll post a picture later) -- even atis that's the size of a child's head. And so, even for crabs he'd go for alimango instead of alimasag, and even then he'd go for the big alimango. (The plate that crab is sitting on is 12 inches wide, the crab about 9 inches wide.) When he saw these big, live crabs at South Supermarket he wasn't able to resist, bought them and presented me with the task of cooking them.

I decided to make ginataan and throw in malunggay leaves for good measure. :)

GINATAANG ALIMANGO (Crabs in Coconut Milk)

What's In It?

2 kgs. Crabs, cleaned
3-4 cups water + 1 tablespoon salt (for steaming crabs)
5-7 cups coconut milk (instant/canned/freshly squeezed)
half a head (about 5 cloves) garlic, peeled and mashed
1 large onion, peeled and sliced
3-4 cups malunggay leaves -- see notes
1 teaspoon iodized salt
3-4 siling labuyo (finger chilis), optional

Kitchen Conjugations:

In a large pot or wok pour saline water, line crabs, cover and steam for 5 to 7 minutes or until the crabs turn dark orange.

Meanwhile, in another wok or pot heat coconut milk over medium fire, stirring constantly until it boils. Add in garlic, onions, salt and siling labuyo. Continue stirring while simmering the mixture for 2 more minutes.

Add in cooked crabs and let the milk simmer until thick. Add in malunggay leaves. Let the mixture boil for a minute more or just about when the leaves turn a little dark green. (Malunggay turns bitter when overcooked.) Remove from fire and serve. Best with steamed rice.
Notes:

1. Substitutes for alimango: Alimasag, talangka, crab sticks, frozen crab claws, shrimps
2. Instead of malunggay, you can also use kalabasa (squash) and/or sitaw (string beans).
3. For instant gata, follow package directions for making thin coconut milk.
4. Did you know, malunggay is known as Sajina in the Indian subcontinent, and Moringa in English?

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Sigh. If I had read the announcement any earlier, this would have been my entry to the February challenge/ 24th edition of Lasang Pinoy, titled Loco Over Coco. . :(

My previous posts that also involved Coconuts:
1. Buko Tarts
2. Laing
3. Ginataang Santol
4. Ginataang Kalabasa at Sitaw
5. Sinuglaw na Bariles

UPDATE: I did get in afterall! Yay! (Thanks, Kai!) Hop on over here to see the rest of entries to Lasang Pinoy 24, all about coconuts.

I Miss...

... coffee. One of the last fancy cups I had was in Bellevue, last year. I turned tea-drinker then got pregnant after.

Soy Chicken

[For yet another time I wake up and find I can no longer go back to sleep. (Well, not right away at least.) So here I am tweaking away at my posts.]

If the picture above loooks familiar, it'd be because you have really seen it before, in my post titled 'One Beginning, Three Endings,' where I present a recipe that starts with a simple saute and finishes into Mock Chicken Pastel, Chicken Afritada and this, Soy Chicken with Mushrooms.

I figured the post was rather long (having 3 mini-recipes) and wasn't indexed properly, so I am reposting the three recipes individually, with the original starter chicken saute scaled down.

SOY CHICKEN WITH MUSHROOMS

What's In It?

1/2 kgs chicken breast, chopped into small portions
1 medium onion, peeled and sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 T fish sauce
1/2 t ground pepper
3 T c cooking oil
1/4 c soy sauce
1 c hot water
1 small can button mushrooms (pieces and stems)
3-4 stalks green onion, minced, for garnish

Kitchen Conjugations:

Heat wok or frying pan, add in cooking oil, then saute garlic and onions for one minute or until onions are soft.

Add in chicken, fish sauce and ground black pepper. Stir fry for 1 minute or until chicken loses its pink tint, then cover and simmer for 2 minutes to allow the chicken to sweat out its juice.

Pour in the soy sauce and hot water, let boil then simmer for 3 minutes more. Stir in mushrooms and cook for another minute. Check seasonings and adjust if needed. Transfer onto a serving plate and garnish with spring onions.

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Note: You can substitute young corn, broccoli, or shiitake mushrooms for the button mushrooms.

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.