Local Supermarket Challenge: Trifle Dessert

Don't you wish that sometimes, when cooking, you live in a cosmopolitan city like New York or London where sourcing for good quality ingredients is a simple affair? I do. Ever since home economics in high school (who can ever forget Ms. Paragas) where I learned the difference between mixing and folding, blanching and boiling, I have been drawn to foreign cooking. My mother describes my style in cooking as "exotic". I guess for her anything non-Filipino/Spanish (i.e. sinigang, afritada and dinuguan) is unusual. Ten years ago, I was raving about anything Italian. I bought cookbooks on Italian-style cooking. My favorite dish was a baked zitti. Sbarro was my happy place. In medical school my taste for Japanese cuisine was cultivated thanks to my godmother who’s married to one. Have you ever tasted tomago with Kikoman? It’s simple yet, surprisingly tasty.

At the moment, I am stuck in what I call my British invasion phase. My favorites are Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson. Unfortunately, most of their recipes call for ingredients not exactly indigenous to a tropical country such as mine. I can just imagine myself asking a vegetable guy from the wet market: "Manong, tag-isang tali nga po ng rosemary at thyme" (Dude, give me a sprig of rosemary and thyme). Although, if you live in Ayala-Alabang or Forbes Park, your experience might be a little different. Your manong, when asked, might actually have a sprig of rosemary and thyme. On my side of Manila, asking for such things will only earn you weird looks.

So, what can a budding gourmand, such as myself, do given the limited resources? Improvise! I find every recipe a challenge to both my ingenuity and creativity — at least until my local grocer improves his inventory or I immigrate.

The Challenge: Make a trifle dessert using locally available products

Location: Ever-Gotesco Supermarket, Commonwealth Branch

Blueberry Trifle

~ 3 Goldilocks butter slices

~ Smuckers Blueberry preserve (I know, not really local, but it's the only one on the list)

~ 20 gm Chips Delight chocolate chip cookie, crumbled

~ 2 pcs Graham crackers, crumbled

~ 50 ml Tondeña dark rum mixed with juice of 5 lemon, reserve 2 tsp of juice

~ 2 eggs, separated

~ 100 g white sugar

~ 225 gm Magnolia cream cheese

~ Crumbled Toby pistachio nuts, toasted

Split the butter slices and generously spread blueberry jam to make sandwiches. In a deep dish (I used a 1000ml microwave container) layer the sandwiches on the bottom. Scatter chocolate chip cookie-graham cracker crumble mix over the butter slices. Pour 50 ml of the rum-lemon mixture over them. (Note: if you're not a fan of liqueur, I suggest using fruit juice instead.)

In a saucepan, combine the remaining lemon juice with 100 gms of blueberry jam, heating it for a minute or two until the juice runs. Spread it over the liqueur soaked biscuit covered blueberry butter slice sandwiches. Sprinkle a light layer of toasted crumbled pistachio on top. Cover and set a side for a bit.

Combine egg yolks and sugar in a bowl. Whisk until it turns into a thick yellow paste. Pour in 25 ml of the rum-lemon mix and continue whisking until it's a mousse. Whisk in the cream cheese until smooth. Add in the remaining 25 ml of rum-lemon mix.

In another bowl, whisk egg whites until firm and fold these into the lemony eggy cream cheese mixture. Spread this gently over the pistachio-covered blueberry layer.

Cover the assembled trifle and leave in the fridge for at least 24 hours.

Serve with a light dusting of cookie-pistachio crumbs.

Cheesecakelets: Inspired by Nigella Lawson

This is my adaptation of Nigella Lawson's Cheesecakelets.

For the last couple of days, I have been experimenting with the recipe using a hotcake mix in lieu of plain flour. Also, I reduced the number of eggs, following the mix's directions instead. The original recipe calls for strawberries, but since my neighborhood grocer does not keep these rare little beauties in stock, I had to improvise. I believe I've finally tweaked it to perfection! My fan club of one claims it tastes like bibingka.

Try it so you too can worship at its cheesy golden fluffiness.

Cheesecakelets
~ 135-gms Pillsbury Hotcake Mix
~ 1 egg, set aside the whites
~ 1 to 1/2 cup cottage cheese (more the tastier)
~ 1/3 cup buttermilk
~ 2 Tbsp brown sugar
~ 2 tsp Vanilla extract
~ 1 Tbsp oil

Topping:
~ Sliced ripe papaya and mango
~ 1 tsp sugar
~ 1 tsp Balsamic vinegar

Combine fruit, sugar and vinegar in a covered container. Shake well. Set aside.

Mix the remaining ingredients (except the egg whites) together in a bowl.

Beat the egg whites until frothy. Mix it into the batter.

Pour a ladle of batter into a hot non-stick skillet. Cook for about 1 1/2 minutes or until bubbles break. Flip, and cook until golden brown.

Serve with papaya-mango topping and a hefty dollop of maple syrup.

Review Bites: My New Swanky "Genetic Anomalies" Chart

After taking a two-day hiatus from my USMLE review, I am now back in my overly-obsessive-absolutely-anal study mode. Case in point - today's genetics review session. Half-way through the chapter on Unstable Expanding Repeat Mutations (side bar: try saying that 5 times -- quickly!) , I asked myself: "what if I organize all the common genetic anomalies in a quick-reference table using Excel?" Since I prefer to study alone rather than join a study group, there was no one to gainsay this exceedingly pedantic plan (someone, please stop me). I began to layout my worksheet -- center aligning the heading in bold size-14 teal-colored fonts. Then, I proceeded to cram as much high-yield material as I could in that size 8 x 11 table. If this doesn't help me assimilate all the chromosomal defects, at least it's turning out to be quite a beautiful chart.

An hour later, while mentally digesting the finer points of cystic fibrosis, my belly began sending distress signals, hailing me to feed it something more substantial. The debate went something like this --

Belly : "Pst, me hungry."


Brain: "..."


Belly: "Me hungry, NOW!"


Brain: "Cheesecakelets, ok?"


Belly: (big smile)



It was over v. quickly. No blood, no gore and no prisoners.


Oh, and about my genetics chart, good thing I had the sense to reference the textbook with First Aid. It turned out well - concise, relevant . . . and pretty!

Tita Linda's Special Cassava Cake

I came across this particularly tasty version of the simple cassava cake while visiting some friends in New Jersey. Its almost custard-like texture makes it a far cry from the gummy, fibrous and almost bitter version they sell in kakanin stalls. It keeps well — in fact, it tastes better after a day or two. And the recipe is very easy to follow. Trust me. If you saw the way Tito Benny mix the ingredients in an aluminum pan, you’ll be as smug as I am. “Hah! That’s it”, you’ll say. But once it’s out of the oven, with the crust happily bubbling, you’ll never believe it was that simple to make.

Ingredients

• 1/2 kg Cassava grated (you can use frozen ones)
• 1 can (355 ml) Evaporated milk
• 1 can (300 ml) Condensed milk
• 1 can (400 ml) Coconut milk
• 1 1/2 cup Macapuno, string
• 1 cup Sweetened Langka (Jackfruit)
• Pasteurized cheddar cheese, crumbled
• 4 large eggs

Here’s how

Preheat oven to 350 degree F (~ 175 C).

Set aside 1/4 cup condensed milk and 1 egg yolk for the topping.

Combine the remaining ingredients (told you it was easy) in a non-stick baking dish. Or you can just spray a regular baking dish with cooking spray. Mix well making sure that the cheese, macapuno and langka bits are evenly distributed.

Bake until top is lightly brown.

Mix together the condensed milk and egg yolk. Spread over the top. Put back into the oven until golden brown or bubbling.

Let it cool completely before serving.

When the living visit the dead (or Lola Oya's Pork Adobo)

Two out of the three hundred sixty five days, we commemorate the dead. Like any other Pinoy family, All Saints and All Souls are traditionally spent like a "family day" albeit the location is a little different from the usual. With mine it means trudging to the cemetery complete with candles, match box and pork adobo. At least that was how we did it before fast food chains realized the commercial impact of this quintessential Filipino tradition.

We left home at around 10:00 pm to visit my maternal grandparents at their final resting place, to avoid the horrendous traffic common during this time of the year, with the usual paraphernalia sans the pork adobo, of course. For one, we had just finished dinner and two, if we do get hungry, there's a multitude of food stalls lining the streets of the cemetery anyway. At Holy Cross, there seem to be more food stalls than there are people -- both living and dead. We almost missed the entrance to the park because part of the cobble-stoned pathway was occupied by a popular pizza parlor (side bar: sigh and shake head side to side).

In front of my grandparents' tombstone someone (presumably one of my cousins) left a vase of white mums. Although by now they look a little worn and tired, it still made the spot look festive. After we lit the candles (two, one for each) and prayed, I surreptiously looked around the other plots, noticing that some had been visited while a few looked forgotten. Nothing is lonelier than a tombstone with no flowers or candles, I say.

At this point, it is customary to stay a few hours. Had it been daylight, we would have laid out the picnic mat and brought out the adobo and rice. But since it’s night time, we stayed to stand guard over the candles. Yes, another sad fact — candles are valued commodities so it’s fairly common to see a street urchin roaming with a plastic bag in one hand and a mini spatula in the other.

While waiting for the candles to burn half-way, I started reminiscing about the days when going to the cemetery was a big family event. Everyone would meet up at my Tita Lota’s Carmel residence before heading up to Holy Cross. Tonight, it’s just my mom and myself. The rest either came already or will come at some convenient time.

So, in memory of those good ‘ol days and my Lola Oya, I would like to share with you her pork adobo recipe — the ultimate Filipino comfort food. Incidentally, this recipe works well with chicken or a combination of both.

Pork Adobo

~ 1/2 k pork, cut up

~ 1 cup water

~ 1/2 cup white vinegar

~ 3 Tbs soy sauce

~ 5–7 cloves garlic, crushed

~ black pepper, crushed

~ 1 tsp cooking oil

~ 1 tsp brown sugar (in place of MSG)

~ 1 can of liver spread, plain

Combine pork, water, white vinegar, garlic and pepper in a wok. Let it cook until pork is half-way done.

Remove the sauce. Set aside for later use. Sautee the pork using the same wok by adding the oil until the top layer turns into a golden crispy brown. In Filipino we call this method sangkutsa.

Add a little brown sugar and soy sauce into the pork.

Mix the liver spread until the meat is evenly covered.

Put the sauce back into the wok with the pork and let it simmer until the meat is cooked and the sauce reduced to half its original amount.

Serve hot with a generous heaping of steamed rice.

* Note: This is a dry version of the adobo. If you want more sauce, adjust the amount of water in the recipe.

The search for Ruby Sipper

“Great love affairs start with champagne and end with tisane.”

– Honore de Balzac

When I was in New York City several months ago, I had the opportunity to sample the best (in my opinion) tisane that side of the upper east in a quaint little coffee shop off Lexington Ave and 83^rd Street. Since I’m not much of a tea drinker — often equating this ubiquitous beverage to dieting and Chinese restaurants — this is quite an epiphany for me. I use the term “tea” rather loosely here because I know that a purist will argue that tisanes are not REAL TEA, but rather they are herbal infusions (sidebar: happy, Brian?)

So, going back to the topic of discussion — in that little coffee shop, I had a tall iced crimson-with-a-twist-of-lemon tea (or tisane). I learned later that the gorgeous jewel color is from the main ingredient: blood orange which comes from the family of oranges. It’s one brilliant concoction, a feast to both eyes and palate. After that first sip, I was hooked! Since then, my day always start with a glass of Ruby Sipper.

My only regret was not taking a box home with me to Manila. I’ve looked in the big supermarkets in my area, to no avail. This holiday weekend I’ll try the gourmet and specialty shops hoping that there’s a distributor of SerendipiTea locally. Although, if I do get desperate enough, I can always buy online and ask a relative or friend to bring it home in their balikbayan box.

Until then, the search goes on.