Gintaang Talong and Adobong Gulay

Gintaang Talong is Eggplant in Coconut milk. Similar to the squash in coconut milk, but much simpler. Basically, you just get some eggplant, and simmer it in coconut milk. Easy.

I used the recipe from http://www.asiarecipe.com which has an excellent section on vegetarian Filipino foods.

It turned out like this:

mmm, yummy eggplant

So, sort of grey, and not super appetising, but actually quite nice, if a little bland.

We had it with Adobong gulay, or vegetables cooked in vinegar and soy sauce. I have read the Adobo is a quintessential Filipino meal, so i thought I’d better give it a try.

I used the recipe from the book I mentioned in an earlier post (the title of which I can’t remember, but its blue and at the Coburg Library) But this recipe from Asiarecipe.com is similar. I used potatoes as the vegetable, I used apple cider vinegar and I added tofu to get some protein on our plates. The recipe I used called for tinned tomatoes, but none of the net versions do, so do what you feel, I guess. This was very yummy, and quite sour to my tastes.

Potato Adobo

Filipino food should be served with very different flavours on the same plate – the people pride themselves on their interesting palate, and like to have spicy, salty, creamy, sweet and sour flavours in contrast to each other. To stay at least a little traditional, we had the creamy, almost bland eggplant and the tangy, sour adobo together, making for a stark contrast. This was different for me, as I usually try to match flavours, but it was tasty and fun.

Flavours at war

 

Sisig and squash in coconut milk

Sisig is a mince dish, Filipino-style, and it is served in bars, like beer nuts. Its sort of sweet and sour, with pineapple and calamansi lime juice, ginger, garlic, onion and peppers.

I used this recipe from http://www.pinoyrecipe.net, although I subbed Sanitarium vegetarian mince for all the various parts of pig usually used (cheeks, heart, tongue, liver). Veganising also meant I skipped the grilling steps, and went straight to cooking the vegan mince in the marinade.

Vegan Sisig - much better than it looks

In all it was a tasty, quick meal, and yet another fun way of getting some fortified protein on a busy week-night.

We ate the Sisig with Ginataan Kalabasa, or Squash in Coconut Milk. The recipe generaly calls for prawns, but I just left them out.

I used this recipe from Filipino-foods.com, and left out the prawns and fish sauce. I subbed Massel stock for meat-based stock, and added a tiny bit of soy sace in place of the fish stock and shrimp paste.

The updated recipe looked like this:

Squash in Coconut Milk

• 2 tb olive oil
• 1/2 a small butternut pumpkin, large dice
• two small handfuls of green beans, top and tailed
• 1 large tomato, diced
• 1 small onion, small dice
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 tb ginger, minced
• 1 green chilli, sliced in half lengthwise
• 1 can Coconut Cream ( I use the Ayam brand, the green can that has no extras in it)
• 1/2 cup water mixed with 1 tb Massel chicken style stock powder
• 2 tb soy sauce

1. Heat oil on a saucepan. Cook onion until tranlucent (about 10 minutes) then add garlic and ginger and continue to cook for another 5 minutes.
2. Add the squash, tomatoes, beans, coconut cream, and stock. Bring to the boil, then simmer until the squash is almost cooked through (10 minutes or so).
3. Add the chilli and soy sauce. Continue to simmer until squash is tender, but not falling apart, about 5 minutes. Serve.

Squash in Coconut milk

This was a tasty way to eat pumpkin/squash, which isn’t my favourite vegie, I have to admit. (Except in soup, then it gets 4th or 5th place in the fave vegie stakes). I would make it again, but next time I would add a little more ginger, and a little less chilli.

Beans and Sausage and Philipino Spring Rolls

Ah, the perils of waiting too long between cooking the thing and writing about the thing. I can’t for the life of me remember the real name of this bean dish, or anything much about it, except that it was good.

A mixture of tomatoes, green capsicum, beans and sausage, it was similar to an Italian salad, but had very Spanish flavours. Really yum.

I do remember, also, that it was the first time I had tried the picnicker sausages from The Radical Grocery Store, and I have been completely in love with them since!

Unfortunately, you’ll just have to make do with a picture, because that’s everything I remember!:

Philipino Beans and Sausage

I remember a lot more about the spring rolls.

Philipino spring rolls are called Lumpia. They have a slightly different filling than chinese spring rolls – relying more on beef and garlic, although they still include the cabbage and other vegetables. To make mine, I used frozen spring roll wrappers, not trusting my think-pancake-type-food skills, and I used tempeh as the main filling ingredient, along with lots of cabbage.

I usually love spring rolls, but I wasn’t so hot about these. I think that’s due to the tempeh filling which had a very bitter flavour for some reason. If I make them again, I will use seitan, tofu or just vegetables.

Lumpia

 

 

Sinangag – The Fried Rice of Awesome

When I first looked at this recipe, I was unsure about fried rice without soy sauce. Could it be done? It was certainly prettier, but would it taste any good? Would it fulfill my salty/fatty/carby cravings?

As it turns out, it has become my very favourite way to cook up white rice. I even ate it for breakfast in the office on more than one occasion during the election campaign.

Vegan Sinangag

I used the recipe from Simple Comfort Food, which you can find here. I made some change, of course. I subbed Cheating Bacon Style Strips for the ham, I left out the egg, and I used garlic powder and garlic shoots (from the Preston Market) instead of garlic, because I couldn’t find any that wasn’t from Mexico or China, which seems a very long way to ship garlic.

It was ramped-up to the very garliciest of garlic wonderfulness. I love garlic, I think I’ve said it before. Mr isn’t such a fan of the anti-vampiric bulbs, but even he enjoyed the fried rice (although he did request a leetle less garlic for the next time).

We probably had it with some vegetables as well, but it was a while ago, and now I can’t remember – this may be the theme of the week.

Introducing: the Philipines

A while ago now, I came across a book about Phillipino food at the Coburg Library. I can’t find it now, so I can’t tell you who it was by. It was, I think, called “The Food Of The Phillipines” and it was small and full of really interesting recipes.

In anycase, this is what made me decide to cook from the Phillipines, a country which I will now introduce you to.

Where is it?

The Philipines is an archipelago between the Philippine Sea and the South China Sea, east of Vietnam. Being a group of Islands, it doesn’t have any land borders with anyone, but it is close to Malaysia.

Stats and Facts

• Population: 99,900,177, making it the 12th most populous country in the world.
• Median Age: 22.7 years
• Fertility Rate: 3.23 children per woman
• Life expectancy at birth: 71.38
• Religions: Roman Catholic 80.9%, Muslim 5%, Evangelical 2.8%, Iglesia ni Kristo 2.3%, Aglipayan 2%, other Christian 4.5%, other 1.8%, unspecified 0.6%, none 0.1%
• Languages: Filipino (official; based on Tagalog) and English (official); eight major dialects – Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocano, Hiligaynon or Ilonggo, Bicol, Waray, Pampango, and Pangasinan
• Ethnic Groups: Tagalog 28.1%, Cebuano 13.1%, Ilocano 9%, Bisaya/Binisaya 7.6%, Hiligaynon Ilonggo 7.5%, Bikol 6%, Waray 3.4%, other 25.3%
• Literacy: 92.8%
• Main Industries: electronics assembly, garments, footwear, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, wood products, food processing, petroleum refining, fishing
• GDP per capita: $3300
• Unemployment rate: 7.2%

Menu plan

• sinangag (garlic fried rice)
• Lumpia (spring rolls)
• Harbas con Chorizos (bean and sausage salad)
• Ginataang Talong (eggplant in coconut mik)
• Sisig (mince dish)
• Kalabasa at Sitwa Sa Gata (squash in coconut milk)
• Vegetable Adobo