Paksiw na Isda - My Exotic Recipe (Inun-unan Recipe)

My Exotic Inun-onan Recipe 
... served and ready to eat...

I always do my own experiments with cooking.  And I am accustomed to mix ingredients that I want to try out.  Today, I have tried cooking one of the most famous dish for the common overseas Filipino workers.  It's Paksiw na Isda (Fish in Vinegar).  This is common to those working abroad because of its shelf life. It last for more than a week even if its not refrigerated.  It should last for a month if you keep it inside the fridge.  Hence, when you want to eat, you just take a portion bit-by-bit and heat it up in the microwave.

Here is my Paksiw na Isda Recipe.  I call it my very own Exotic Inun-onan Forever recipe!  What's with the "exotic" you may ask?  You'll soon find out.

Exotic Inun-onan Recipe

A Fish Paksiw Recipe by Jack Di

Pandesal

There used to be a famous bakery in our town.  The baker himself is a good friend of my father.   Their bakery is just in front of their house in the hill.  Gal's Bakery.  Every morning, around 5am, you can already smell the freshly baked bread - Pandesal.  Around 6am, I then run to the bakery which only 5 minutes away.  This would be breakfast!

Here is a recipe for this famous bread.

PANDESAL

Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups bread flour
½ cup white sugar
5 tbsp butter, melted
1 tsp baking powder
1¼ cup fresh milk, warm
1 pouch rapid rise yeast
1 tsp salt
1 cup bread crumbs
1 piece raw egg
1 tbsp cooking oil

Cooking procedure:
1. Combine the yeast, sugar, and warm milk and stir until the yeast and sugar are fully disolved

2. In the mixing bowl, combine the dry ingrdients starting with the flour then the sugar, salt, and baking powder . Mix well by stirring

3. Add the egg, butter, cooking oil, and yeast-sugar-milk mixture in the mixing bowl with the dry ingredients then mix again until a dough is formed. Use your clean hands to effectively mix the ingredients.

4. In a flat surface, knead the dough until the texture becomes fine.

5. Mold the dough until shape becomes round then put back in the mixing bowl. Cover the mixing bowl with damp cloth and let the dough rise for at least 1 hour

6. Put the dough back to the flat surface and divide into 4 equal parts using a dough slicer

7. Roll each part until it forms a cylindrical shape

8. Slice the cylindrical dough diagonally (These slices will be the individual pieces of the pandesal)

9. Roll the sliced dough over the breadcrumbs and place in a baking tray with wax paper (makes sure to provide gaps between doughs as this will rise later on)

10. Leave the sliced dough with breadcrumbs in the tray for another 10 to 15 minutes to rise

11. Pre heat the oven at 375 degrees fahrenheit for 10 minutes

12. Put the tray with dough in the oven and bake for 15 minutes

13. Turn off the oven and remove the freshly baked pandesal.

14. Serve hot. Share and enjoy!

Here is a video on how to bake the yummy Pandesal!  (courtesy of Panlasang Pinoy)

I fully suggest you try this yourself, preferably with the kids, the whole family!  This way, you all will enjoy baking it and enjoy eating it!

I like it sliced in the middle and eaten with sunny side up fried egg.  Plus, a cup of hot coffee on the side!
Yum! Yum!

Singapore Chili Crab

This food they say is authentic to Singapore.  I have tasted this once.  It was deliciously hot!   Since then, I've been wanting to cook one myself.  

But up until now, I haven't givin' it a try in my kitchen.

Here's the recipe.  You might be able to try it before i do.

Singapore Chili Crab

Makes 2-4 servings


2 Fresh whole crabs
1/2 Cup Flour
1/4 Cup Peanut oil
1 md Onion, finely chopped
5 Tbs Ginger, grated
4 Cloves, grated
5 Red chilies, finely chopped
2 Cups Ketchup
1 Cup Water
2 Tbs Soy sauce
2 Tbs Sweet chili sauce
1 Tbs Rice wine vinegar
2 Tbs Softened brown sugar


Wash the crabs well and scrub the shell.

Using a large cleaver, cut the crabs in half and rinse well under cold water, carefully removing the yellow gills or spongy parts. With the flat side of the cleaver, crack the legs and larger front claws. (This is to makes eating crab easier.)

Lightly and carefully coat the shells with a little flour.

Heat about 2 tablespoons peanut oil in a large wok and cook two crab halves at a time. Using a metal utensil, carefully turn and hold the crab in the hot oil until the shell just turns red. Repeat with the remaining crab halves.

Add the remaining oil to the wok and cook the onion, ginger, garlic and chili for 5 minutes over medium heat and stirring regularly.

Add the ketchup, water, soy sauce, chili sauce, vinegar and sugar. Bring to boil and cook for 15 minutes.

Return the crab to the wok and simmer, turning carefully in the sauce for 10 minutes or until the crab meat turns white. Do not overcook.

Serve with steamed rice.

Source:  The Straits Cafe

Crispy Cereal Butter Prawn

I have this officemate who is damn lucky.  Last Wednesday, she won S$20,000 in the 4D lottery.  The price is so much that she wanted to pay for our lunch.   There are only 5 of us in the office including the big Boss, who made the orders.   There were 5 different dishes in the table - meat, fish, seafood, veggies, noodles.  We also had fruit shakes as drinks.

Crispy Cereal Butter Prawns

And there goes the one i like the best:  Butter Prawn!  Its fragrantly drooling, with cereals.  The prawns were very crunchy and has this sweet and yummy taste.

Up until now, i still can smell it in my nose!  So it thought of posting the recipe here.  With Google's help of course.  The one in the picture is who exactly it was served to us.

Crispy Cereal Butter Prawn  

Serves 5 - 6

Ingredients

500 - 600 grams of medium prawns, trimmed and deveined

Handful of curry leaves (from about 2 stems)

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 bird eye chilli aka chilli padi, julienned

1 knob of butter (about 40 - 50 gram)

3 sachets of 3-in-1 Low-fat Cereal

Sprinkles of salt

Generous dashing of white ground pepper

Seasoning of prawns:

Sprinkle a mixture of sesame oil, pepper and light soy sauce

2 cups of cooking oil (for deep-frying)

Alternative: If you are NOT using 3in1 sachet, but having the original plain cereal, add the below:

6 tablespoons of cereal (Nestum)

4 teaspoons of non-dairy creamer (Nestlé)

3 teaspoons of sugar

* Mix all together, with salt and pepper.

Procedure:

1) Clean prawns with shell intact, trim legs. Use scissors to cut a slit at the back of prawns to devein. Pat dry the prawns with kitchen towel. Season prawns and leave aside for 10 minutes. You may leave it in the refrigerator.

2) Heat wok with oil over high heat. Add some salt into the oil. Make sure oil is heated till really hot before deep frying prawns for 1 minute or until pinked and crisped (You may fry prawns in deep fryer, as desired). Drain on kitchen towel and set aside.

3) In a clean small bowl, pour out and place the sachets of cereal all into it. Mix in salt and pepper. Set aside.

4) Remove exessive oil from the wok and heat up with butter over medium-low heat. Brown garlic, and add in chilli padi and curry leaves, stir fry till fragrant (beware of pungent scent of chilli padi). When done, heat off and immediately add in cereal mixture and crisped prawns. Stir vigorously to combine well. Serve hot.

A portion of fried cereal prawns counts about 500 - 600kcal! Yes, without the egg even.. So, you have to really try to limit your intake with this sinful savoury, if you are watching out your weight or having relatively high cholesterol level in your body.

Tips:

* If you are not confident to well mix the cereal and prawns quick enough upon heat off, you may choose to reduce heat to very low fire and do the mixing, just before heat off.

* Deep fry the prawns till really crisped in extremely high flame, so that you may chomp the whole prawn with its crispy shell altogether. **Beware of splashing oil when frying.

* Lightly coat the prawns with corn flour before deep frying for crispiness, if you intend to eat also the shell, optional. Otherwise, just fry prawns till cooked.

Kalamay

Kalamay

10 liters water
10 kilos white sugar
2 gantas malagkit
20 pieces coconut

Soak the malagkit overnight.
Grate the coconuts.
Extract the milk from the grated coconut two times: first, with 5 liters of water, then with 3 liters of water.
Pour the malagkit into the first coconut milk extract, and grind the mixture.
Mix sugar with the second coconut milk extract, and boil to make latik.
Pour the ground malagkit into the boiling latik, and stir for 4 hours or until the mixture becomes very sticky.
Put the mixture into half of a coconut shell.
Cool for 3 hours.
Then cover with the other half of the shell.

Torta Visaya

Torta Visaya

5 cups flour
1 cup tuba
3 cups sugar
20 eggs (yolk only)
1½ cups cooking oil
¼ teaspoon salt
a pinch of anise

Pour the tuba into the flour. Add the salt. Mix well.

Add the sugar gradually into the egg yolks while beating well. Add the oil, and put into a pan lined with paper and greased with butter or oil. Add anise. Wait for 7 hours before baking (to allow the batter to rise). However, if the weather is cold, wait for 8 hours before baking.

Bake at 325 deg F.

Palitaw

Palitaw

This one is very easy to do. Palitaw is a Tagalog term for this dessert or snack. In Aklan, we have our own version. My mother used to make this as quick snacks although she called it differently and instead of rolling the cake into white coconut flakes, she used bukayo (sweetened coconut flakes in brown sugar) as topping. I forgot how she called it though - I think inday-inday. I never thought that this was easy to do - but it is.

Ingredients:
Sweet rice flour - about a cup.
3/4 cup water
coconut flakes
Lots of white sugar
Toasted linga (sesame seeds).

Mix rice flour with water to make dough. Make little balls then flatten. Boil water in a saucepan. Drop flattened dough balls into boiling water. The cakes are cooked when they float. Remove from water, let cool a little bit, roll in combined sugar and toasted sesame seeds and coconut flakes.

That's it.

:D

Paklay

Paklay

Ingredients
1/4 k. pork liempo
2 pcs. pork kidney
1 pork spleen
1 pork heart
1/4 k. pork liver
2 tbsps. cooking oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium onion, minced
1/2 cup vinegar
1 MAGGI Pork Broth Cube
1/2 cup hot water
1 1/2 cups unripe pineapple, cubed
2 cups bamboo shoots, cubed
1 piece each red & green bell pepper, cubed
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Prepare pork organs for cooking; simmer just until tender.
Mince meats and set aside.
Heat cooking oil, saute garlic and onions until limp.
Add minced meats, vinegar and broth.
Bring to boil; stir in pineapple, bamboo shoots, peppers and seasonings.
Simmer just until flavors are blended and vegetables are crisp-tender, about 15 min.


Serves/Yields: 4

Nutrition Information
Carbohydrates: 25 g.
Fats: 27 g.
Protein: 19 g.
Calories: 423 Kcal.

BIKO recipe

Biko 
(Glutinous Rice Pudding)

A Philippine delicacy made of sweet glutinous rice.

Biko - using white glutinous sweet rice

Nghohiong Recipe

NGHOHIONG
Though it's a delicacy very popular with Cebuanos, its Chinese by origin.  It Cebu, its best paired with puso.

INGREDIENTS1 kl labong ng niyog stripped 
1/2 kl singkamas stripped 
3 tbsp ngohiong powder 
2 tbsp 5 spice powder 
1/2 kl ground pork 
season to taste with salt, pepper, msg, and soy sauce 
lumpia wrapper


BATTER
batter after wrapping with lumpia wrapper

2 cups cornstarch 
paprika/white pepper 5 tbsp 
700 grms water


LORBAK SAUCE
the dipping sauce that makes nghohiong a nghohiong!

2 tbsp dark soy sauce 
2 tbsp castor sugar 
1/8 tsp Chinese five spice powder (ng heong fun)/ Ngo hiong hun 
1/8 tsp salt
4-5 tbsp water 
1/2 tsp corn flour or tapioca flour 
1 egg white, lightly beaten 

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepot. Bring to a low simmering boil over a gentle heat and cook for 1½–2 minutes. Stir occasionally until sauce turns smooth. Add in egg white and stir with a fork to form fine strands. Set aside to cool then use.

Masareal Cebu Recipe

Masareal is one of the very known delicacy in Cebu, Philippines.  It originated in Mandaue City.  As what you can see from the picture below, its pieces are formed in rectangular shape and are packed in white paper.  Basic ingredients are peanuts and sugar.

This is an all-time favorite to the kids and adults like me.  :D  If there is a town fiesta, you surely can find one being sold along the side walk near the church.

You wanna make one by yourself?  Here's how:

Ingredients:

1 kilo peanuts
1 cup sugar
1 cup water

Procedure:

1.  Boil unshelled peanuts in water. When done, cool. Shell and grind the peanuts fine.

2.  Prepare a syrup of 1 cup white sugar and 1 cup water. 

3.  Before the syrup thickens, add the ground peanuts, and keep on stirring until thick. 

4.  Remove from fire, and pour over a thin baking sheet. 

5.  Flatten the surface. Cut into 1 inch by 5 inches rectangular strips. 

6.  Wrap each piece in white paper, if desired. 

Oh boy, my mouth's watering....  :D

my Pinaupong Manok Recipe

PINAUPONG MANOK  (Sitting Chicken)
by Jack Di

I live in a rural area. Native chicken are just grown in the backyards, roaming around freely. When i decide i want to cook one, i'll just grab one! :D Dont worry, i only grab our chicken!

So here is my very own version of Pinaupong Manok.

Humba'ng Pinakurog!

Humba'ng Pinakurog!

 
Ingredients:
1 kilo Pork (cut into chunk cubes) or 1 medium pig’s leg (pata), cleaned and cut into serving portions
6 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp black pepper
1 tbsp star anise
1 tbsp brown sugar
Black Beans
bay leaf
garlic
salt
MSG
Sprite
Water

Procedure :
- Separate lean meat
- In the wok, extract oil from lean meat through boiling the meat with water. Pls don't over cook, it will spoil the tenderness of your meat
- In the casserole add the meat (extracted & not extracted)
- Add sprite by ratio of 1/2 of the meat
- Put together black beans, black pepper, star anise, bay leaf, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, garlic & MSG
- add water until it reach above the meat level
- cook & simmer until the liquids subside to 1/4 level of the meat

Balbacua

Sorry to those who doesn't understand the following.  I purposely had this written in Cebuano dialect


Balbacua


Ingredients:
2 pcs tiil sa baka
1 kilo laman ng baka
3 tb. spoons ng lamas (cooked)
3 tb. spoons ng aswetes seeds
1 cup (bugas) rice ng giniling
10 pcs siling labuyo (more if you want it really hot)
salt and pepper to taste
MSG (ajinomoto) - optional
salt and pepper to taste

Procedure:

A) HOw to cook lamas!
1 kilo sibuyas dahon ung white part lang ang gamitin. dukdukon unya prituhon sa
small amount of oil sige ukayon para dili masunog slow fire lang until golden
brown 1/2 kilo garlic balatan and then dukdukon pud. prituhon gihapon sa small
amount of oil slow fire.. cook separately from sibuyas... until golden brown in a separate clean frying apn place about 3/4 cup of vinegar.. (apo vinegar if
possible but any cane vinegar will do) then place pritong sibuyas dahon and garlic and mix well. after yun lang ang lamas na gamitin wala ng iba pa. ang sobra ilagay sa jar sa ref... viable for six months ang lamas...

B) How to get the red color sloution of aswetes...
ang seeds ibabad sa tubig tapos i-squeez daw.. sabaw lang ang gamitin.

C) how to use bigas...
ang 1 cup ginaling na bugas i melt sa tubig.. make sure walang lumps.. pampalapot yan...

d) how to cook Balbacua..
Pakuluan ang tiil then itapon ang tubig... Add clean water ule then pakuluan
add all teh ingredients then pressure cook for 45 inutes then add the laman and
iluto until tender na ang meat.

I love to cook!

I have always been a cooking buddy.

I love to cook!  I love to explore the art of cooking.
But of course, i do understand that if you love to cook, it does not follow that you are a good cook.  He-he-he!  Well, that's me.

In my hometown in Cebu, most kids would know how to cook rice at the age as young as 6 years old.  Just scooping some cups of rice, put into the caldero, wash & rinse with water, add water, then cook over firewood.

By the way, we always measure the water in the rice using our fingers.  Its odd, but is precise.

At age 8, i made my first Leche Flan.
We got fresh eggs direct from our laying hen in the backyard so it was not a problem.
During those times, year 1985, the Government Health Office supplied us with milk, sugar, yellow corn....

All i had to do during that time was to try and do it.

I actually just flipped through my mothers very old and dusty recipe book and followed the steps from there.

We got to 4 linera molds so i got good use of it.

We never had toothpick during that time so i made use of coconut midribs from our only young coconut tree in the front of our house.

I do remembered to have 2 successful molds of Leche Flan.  The other 2 molds accidentally spilled because it was very hot when i lifted it.  It was a mess.   But my parents were not at home, so i  had enough time to clean it off.  He-he-he!

But the 2 molds were enough to make my younger brother and sister happy!

I guess that was the start of it.
The sight of happy faces in eating what i cooked.

I love to cook.

So i'll open a new category for this passion of mine.
Do take note that the recipes i will be posting are not really my own.
I had to compile them from various sources like newspapers, recipe fliers, internet, can lables, etc.

Cook with me.

:: bow ::