Mention "pulutan" and I immediately think of my dad. What can I say, my dad is the quintessential Pinoy barkada. OK, so he's probably borderline alcoholic and he's driven us half crazy with his drinking and his inability to deny his barkada anything. "Pakikisama" always comes up in conversations with him. "Pakikisama" is the flip side of "barkada". "Barkada" is the group of friends you hang out with, "pakikisama" is as Tito Rolly mentioned in his definition of barkadahan, compatriotism. The sense of belongingness and being a part of the group. I don't want to sound harsh about my dad though, because in truth his friends have become like uncles and godfathers to us; and they do provide for good enterntainment with their singing (read about my previous post on their musical influence here) and rowdiness when they all get together. If only they could do with less booze, I always wished, but then that's another matter.

Growing up in Baguio, I knew where all of my dad's hang-outs were. It could be one of the sari-sari stores, bars, or restaurants. I just had a sixth sense of where to find him. It also helped that when we lived in Baguio, it was still small enough that the taxi drivers, most of whom knew my dad, can always point me in the right direction. Before cell phones, I was the designated messenger to call him home. The best thing about that job was, I am usually given a treat before we go home, and sometimes allowed to partake of their "pulutan". "Pulutan" is just about any edibles consumed while drinking alcohol and hanging out. It could be, as I mentioned before, as simple as peanuts or as grand as lechon (whole spit roasted pig). My dad's favorite is goat meat, especially made into "kilawen".


Goat meat is hard to find here in NC, so I couldn't duplicate his recipe exactly. I was talking to my mom recently and she mentioned that they went to a Filipino party where they served a dish that had the taste of "kilawen" but it was chicken. I knew exactly what she was talking about. So here is a not quite authentic "kilawen", but still washes down perfectly well with booze.

CHICKEN KILAWEN



There are no measurements for this, you taste and adjust to your liking as you go. The trick is to be liberal with the lime and make it as spicy as you want it to be. Here is what you need:

Grilled chicken breast, chopped fine
Red onion, minced
Ginger, minced
Chili Peppers, minced
Cilantro, chopped fine
Lime Juice
Salt & Pepper


Lasang Pinoy 6, Let's Wash it Down with Booze was graciously hosted by Ting of World Class Cuisine. Thanks, Ting!

Yep, I'm still in the meme mode, it's all about ME and more to come. We'll have a short intermission for the LP6 post though. I'm in the process of getting the prepared right now. I was tagged by Rowena for the 7 meme and that is now up at my other blog.

Iska, ten random facts, coming soon :-)

Obachan tagged me for ths meme months ago and I am just getting around to it now. Sorry, Obachan. I'm terribly late but look, I've revived a meme that you thought had passed through long ago. :-)

1. Rice Balls - One of the ways my Lola (grandmother) used to entice us to eat is by rolling freshly cooked rice into bite-sized balls. These would be eaten as is or dipped into a variety of sauces which, depending on our fancy, had included salt, fish sauce, ketchup, and in my sister's case, even sugar. Sometimes she would stuff them with edible surprises like fish flakes, pieces of cooked eggs, or chopped adobo.

2. Rice Water (?) - I wasn't sure to call this one, let me describe it instead. Strangely, as a child I don't remember associating food with my mom as much as I do with my Lola. Probably because Lola was always in the kitchen while Mom always depended on the househelp. I just don't ever remember her cooking anything while we were in the Philippines. It wasn't until we moved to the U.S. that I remember her cooking. Anyway, back to my lola and rice water.
My grandparents were farmers and their days always started very early. One of my most vivid memories when visiting them was getting up early while it is still dark and finding them, my grandparents, in the kitchen drinking coffee from enameled tin cups, speaking quietly to each other. I could just imagine what they talked about that early in the morning. Whenever I intruded into this quiet moment, my grandmother would fix a warm drink to break my fast. Kid coffee, my youngest daughter would call it now; that's what she calls the hot cocoa I fix for her some mornings. My "kid coffee" concocted by Lola is the excess boiling water skimmed from the rice simmering over the wood-fired stove. To this she would add a teaspoonfull of sugar and canned evaporated milk. I always felt special and grown up sitting with them with my very own tin cup and being warmed by the fire from the stove.

3. Cheez Curls, Curly Tops, Chocolate Covered Pretzels and Juice in Fruit Shaped Containers -
Growing up in Baguio, one of my earlest shopping experiences were at the Sunshine Bakery and Grocery Store. It was only a couple of blocks from where we lived and was one of the few places we could walk to on our own (those were different times - kids were still safe walking to the corner store on their own) to spend our allowance. For a few cents we could get any number of treats, but my favorites were always chez curls, curly tops, and chocolate covered pretzels. The juices in fruit shaped containers always amused me too.

4. Street Food - Growing up in Baguio was most memorable for me and street food was an integral part of those memories as it is a huge part of Filipino Culture. Some of the foods I remember are the various Qs: BBQ, bananaQ, and kamoteQ; the green mangoes, sinkamas, santol; the peanuts: boiled, garlic roasted, candied. The list goes on and on. Read about my street food memories here.

5. McDonald's and School Cafeteria Food - I was twelve when I tasted my first Big Mac. Back then, it really was a BIG Mac. I only managed to eat half the burger before I deemed myself too full for another bite. To my uninitiated palate, that Big Mac and fries were the best! What did I know.
Starting school in a new country as a seventh grader was foreign to me and I to it. It wasn't easy, but one of the highlights for me was the cafeteria food. Maybe the caliber of cafeteria food was better back then, but I doubt it. I think it was just my under-exposed taste buds, used to tasting mangoes, papayas, dried salted fish and fresh vegetables, suddenly assaulted by pizzas, burritos, burgers, canned peaches, coffee cakes, and push-up (ice cream) bars. Yeah, well what did I know ;-)

More memes coming here and Jade-n-Mom as I catch up on all the tags :-)

The next Lasang Pinoy topic is Let's Wash it Down with Booze, hosted by TingAling of World Class Cuisine. This time, we'll explore foods we associate with drinking. Most Filipinos do not merely drink alcohol; like almost everything in Pinoy life, it always involves food. There is a whole slew of viand associated purely with drinking. Having one without the other is almost sacrilegious. I should be close to an expert on this topic, my father (my whole family, actually) lives the barkadahan way.

Barkada, loosely translated as a group of friends, is best described by my blogkada, Tito Rolly, and posted on the Blogkadahan site:

Barkadahan, a Filipino way of life that is based on compatriotism that fills the common tao's [man's] need to belong. It is this sense of belongingness that made the Filipino endure a long tumultuous past of colonialism followed by an even more deprecating self-infliction of poor governance under a dictatorship whose primary goal was to shamelessly enrich himself. It is this sense of belongingness that made the Filipino rise over the remnants of a dilapidated country under a dictator whose guile was complemented by an equally, if not greedier wife, who managed to fool even herself that she is of noble origins. A foreigner not attuned to the ways of the pinoy would be skeptical. However, a close scrutiny of this phenomenon will prove that we endured all these social maladies because of our own brand of camaraderie. Why not? Among the potent tools of the barkada is the ability to laugh at himself/herself with his/her compatriots in times of the most humiliating experience making the experience a welcome respite from a serious and cruel world.

There are several requisites to a good barkada or group of friends: alcohol (lots of it), guitar (or a number of portable instruments, the easier to take wherever the party is), an uninhibited willingness to share your singing voice (whether you have a good one or not is not important, a good singing voice gets cultivated the more of these get togethers you join), and the most important of all is FOOD. You've just gotta have food. Even when you only have enough cash for a bottle of beer, you just gotta have at least a handful of garlic roasted peanuts with it.

So it's time to again dust off your memories and share what you remember consuming with alcohol and in the company of good friends. Visit TingAling's guidelines and post your recipes on your blogs. If you don't have one, just contact any of the Pinoy bloggers participating in Lasang Pinoy and we can host your entry. Cheers!

An old friend always used to say "ang babaw ng kaligayahan mo" meaning, literally, "your happiness is so shallow". That does not fully explain the meaning of the phrase though for it actually means that I find happiness in the most inconsequential things; finding a good bargain, for instance, would totally make my day. On a recent foray to the Mexican tienda (market) I came across this pack of frozen banana leaves. Though not necessarily a bargain considering banana leaves can be had for free from my grandmother's backyard back in the day, I am still excited because I have been meaning to try some banana wrapped recipes that I've spied in other blogs, and now I can! Coming soon in our kitchen, something wrapped in these....

It's a good thing :-) as Martha would say.

Who doesn't love a good cupcake once in a while? In our kitchen, cupcakes don't come by too often, but when they do, they get gone in a jiffy :-) These were no exception, which I came across at Chichajo's 80 breakfasts who in turn found it on the baking sheet who adapted it from the venerable Donna Hay. Well, now here it is in our kitchen.

10 tbsp butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
Nutella, approx. 1/3 cup

Preheat oven to 325F. Line 12 muffin tins with paper liners.
Cream together butter and sugar, add in eggs one at a time, until fully incorporated. Add vanilla. Stir in flour, salt and baking powder until batter is uniform and no flour remains. Fill each muffin liner with batter. They should be 3/4 full. Top each cake with 1 1/2 tsp Nutella. Swirl Nutella in with a toothpick, making sure to fold a bit of batter up over the Nutella.
Bake for 20 minutes.
Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.
Makes 12.

Zucchini (courgettes) is another favored vegetable at our house. One of the few that I can get my girls to eat in whatever shape or form from fried to stewed to cakes. One of their favorites though is fried. They would even take these as an after school snack.

Zucchini, sliced into circles or sticks
1 egg, beaten
Bread Crumbs (in this case we used store bought crumbs but it's just as easy to make your own from old bread too.)
Oil for frying

Dip the zucchini slices into the egg, shake off the excess then dredge it in the bread crumbs mixture. Fry in hot oil until browned and serve with ranch dressing. Presto!

This photograph does not do this dish justice. We (ok, so mostly me) were so eager to dig in that we forgot to take a photo until we finished eating and this was all that was left. I'm surprised there was any left at all!

In contrast to the heart healthy meal below, here is one that is cholesterol laden. Do you suppose if you put enough garlic in the dish it would counteract all that butter and crab? No matter, it was finger lickin' good!

The original recipe, which called for 40 cloves of garlic and a pound of melted butter, just seemed too daunting even for me. So I altered the proportions a bit. I think they may have meant to use the Maryland type blue crabs, but all I can get my hands on is the pre-cooked dungeness crabs at Costco, which I would normally turn my nose up on. But hey, when you have a craving you find a way. Actually, these weren't too bad. Well, they weren't unpleasant, put it that way. If you notice, I also omitted some of the other ingredients like chopped onions, celery and bell pepper. I just wanted the pureness of crabs and garlic and BUTTER.

2 dungeness crabs
1/4 cup chopped green onions
2 sticks (1 cup) melted butter
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/2 cup olive oil
2 bay leaves
1 head of garlic
Worcestershire sauce to taste
Tabasco Sauce to taste
Salt & Pepper to taste

Break up the crab into pieces, cracking the legs and place in an oven safe dish. In a saucepan over medium low heat, melt the butter with the olive oil and sautee the garlic until fragrant and tender. Add the bayleaves, parsley, sauces and salt and pepper. Stir to blend and pour over the crabs. Bake in a 400 degree oven just until the crabs are warmed through, about 15 to 20 minutes.

So the garlic saga continues... I couldn't resist posting this today after visiting CJ's Food & Discovery. Yesterday she had left a comment on the Garlicky Chicken Bake that she too had just posted a garlic chicken recipe on her blog. I just love the foodie synchronicity that goes on in the sisterhood of food bloggers sometimes :-)

Salmon is a regular meal at our house, so we try different ways of presenting it. Most of the time though, it is simply baked as in this case. It's the easiest. A great testament to the eponymous 30-minute meal by Rachael Ray. The only difference on this version is the garlic extravaganza.

1/2 side of filleted salmon
1 head of garlic, chopped
1 lemon
3 tablespoons of butter, cut into chunks
Kosher Salt & Ground Pepper

Sprinkle the side of salmon with the chopped garlic, salt and pepper. Dot with butter pieces, and squeeze the juice of one lemon all over. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes and you're in garlic nirvana.

Again, if you have fresh herbs on hand, a sprinkling of basil or parsley would be a great addition to this dish. Enjoy over rice, or if you're conserving carbs, just veggies. In this case, we had it with blanched baby bokchoy. A very heart healthy meal! (which I am told is what I should be having more of) bah!

We are still without a decent camera to photograph our meals with, so I figured I would do a thorough clean up of our photo archives and post them here.

In our house, garlic reigns. Everything is garlic infused even though the names of the recipe do not always tout it as such. Besides keeping vampires at bay (I'm not kidding!) it also has many other health benefits such as lowering your cholesterol, lowering high blood pressure (great for pregnant women are prone to pre-eclampsia - learned this during my three pregnancies), and lowering blood sugar for diabetics. I don't know too many people who do not like garlic (because I screen my friends to be on the garlic tolerance scale :-) the more they like garlic, the closer they are to my heart). But if you happen to be a garlic newbie and just don't know what I am talking about you can read more about this stinkin' rose here or just come over my house and you'll smell what I mean.

Nothing unusual about this baked chicken other than it is drowning in garlic, but here goes the recipe:

1 whole chicken (leave whole or cut up)
1 whole head of garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried pepper flakes
2 lemons

Wash and dry the chicken inside and out. We left ours whole as the girls like the crunchy skin it develops while roasting. Nothing wrong with cutting it up in pieces though and smothering it with the ingredients above before baking. For the whole roasted chicken method, do the following:

In a small bowl, combine the garlic (leave the peeled cloves whole for milder flavor or crush and roughly chop like we did to get the full effect), olive oil, salt, and peppers. If you plan on using the garlic whole, leave them out of the mixture for now. Cut the two lemons and squeeze the juice all over the chicken, inside and out. Save the rinds. Rub the chicken inside and out with the salt/pepper/oil mixture and try to get some under the skin to further infuse the chicken with flavor. If you left the garlic cloves whole, stuff them in the cavity along with the four halves of the squeezed lemon. Put in a roasting pan and roast at 350 degrees for an hour or until the juices run clear. Remove the lemon from the cavity before serving. I'll leave the garlic cloves at your discretion. I can only tell you that at our house, it will not be going to waste, it will end up on someone's plate. More than likely mine :-)

Note: in the summer time when we have plenty of fresh herbs, we've also chopped up basil, parsley, oregano, or thyme into the rub, just depending on what we're in the mood for.