ugh. it's been a long week of trying to get stuff done at work and at home. it's prevented me from blogging.

last weekend cavin and i made it out to the grocery store and i happened to see organic prunes. ah! there was a recipe in molly steven's all about braising: lemony chicken with prunes and green olives. i've been wanting to make this for a while, but i would always forget to pick up prunes.

so we picked up the prunes, now all i needed were the olives. hmmm. the recipe calls for lucques, and i thought about ordering them from igourmet, but as usual, i never got around to doing it.

oh! what's this? an olive bar? lemme see what they have here...cerignola? i guess this will have to do!

with the chicken legs, prunes, and green olives in hand, i was ready to make the dish. except...oh. what's this here? the recipe says i have to plump the prunes. for 8-12 hours! aie. i guess we're having this for dinner another night.

so sunday afternoon i researched about plumping prunes (dried plums). apparently you can plump them by pouring boiling water over them, and letting them absorb the liquid for about 2 hours, and then you can use them. molly stevens mentions that this deteriorates the quality of the prunes so she prefers to soak them for a longer period of time in non-boiling liquid. and since i had the time, why not soak them longer?

you can also plump the prunes in liquids other than water, and the prunes will absorb the flavor of that liquid. (don't use chicken stock though, because the prunes will be sitting out on the counter and you don't want the stock to go bad.) since i knew the recipe called for white wine or vermouth, i decided to go that route. i plumped the prunes in vermouth (to cover) for about 20 hours. monday afternoon the prunes were a little bit puffed up, and when i tasted it, it had a mellow vermouthy flavor to them. great!

the recipe is pretty simple.

braised lemony chicken with prunes and green olives
3.5-4 lbs chicken leg quarters (with skins and bones)
1/4 cup prunes, plumped up
1/3 cup green olives, pitted (lucques, picholine, or cerignola, which is what i used)
2-4 whole cloves
4-5 strips of lemon peel (removed with a veggie peeler)
4 cloves garlic, smashed
1 cup dry white wine or dry vermouth (if you plumped the prunes in wine, use this wine as well)
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
flour
olive oil
salt & pepper

cut the chicken leg quarters into two pieces: separating the thigh from the leg. s&p the chicken pieces, then light coat with the flour.

heat oil in a large, shallow skillet on med-high. brown chicken pieces in batches, starting with the skin side down, until golden brown. remove and place on a plate. continue until all chicken is nicely browned.

pour off oil in skillet, but keep the browned bits. add garlic, lemon peel, cloves, saute for 30 seconds, then add the vinegar and wine to deglaze. cook for 1-2 minutes, then add the chicken pieces back in a single layer (it will be a snug fit), as well as any chicken juice that accumulated on the plate. add the prunes and olives on top, then cover with a heavy lid. cook for 35-45 minutes, basting the chicken with the liquid occasionally, as well as turning the chicken pieces once half way through. (if using a thermometer, cook until the chicken hits 180F.) salt & pepper afterwards to taste.


i'm a big fan of this recipe. the chicken was moist and flavored with lemon and a hint of cloves. the sauce ends up being thickened from the flour used to coat the chicken in the beginning. molly stevens says the consistency should be like "a thin vinagrette." the prunes tasted amazing to me (and i didn't even use the best prunes out there!), partly i think, because i plumped them in vermouth, and not water. and they complimented the sauce and the olives quite well.



earlier in the day i made potato muffins so we served the chicken with the muffins. i won't go into the details of the muffins because they didn't turn out exactly how i wanted (i think i added too much potato, but how am i supposed to measure 10.5 oz potatoes without a scale?) but well enough to eat. once i figure out the proportions properly and test out the recipe again, i'll post it on here.

Labels: chicken, cooking

despite the fact that it was almost 60F degrees on saturday, the rest of the week was pretty freezing. i think when i woke up on thursday it was like 17F degrees, with a wind chill of 3F. woah.

the cold weather prompted me to want to cook soup or a stew. the stew won out. here's my go-to recipe for beef stew that i snagged from epicurious a few years back. i altered it a little by substituting beef broth for 1/2 of the amount of wine. so you may notice that my recipe differs a little bit from the original.

beef stew with red wine and hoisin
4 tbsp olive oil
4 lbs boneless beef chuck roast, trimmed and cut into 1.5-2" pieces
3.5 cups chopped onions (i normally use like 3-4 small to med yellow onions)
1 cup cabernet sauvignon (or whatever red wine you happen to have in the house i guess)
1 cup beef broth (i've also tried it with chicken broth and it turns out fine)
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes, undrained
1/2 cup hoisin sauce
2-3 bay leaves
flour
s&p

1 lb slender carrots, peeled, cut diagonally into 1" lengths (or just use those baby carrots)
1 tbsp cornstarch mixed with 1 tbsp cold water (optional)
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

s&p the beef. lightly flour. heat 2 tbsp oil in heavy large pot over high heat. brown beef on all sides, doing in batches if necessary. remove from pot.

reduce heat to medium, add 2 tbsp oil. add onions and bay leaves and saute, adding a little bit of the wine to deglaze the pot. add meat (and meat juices) back into pot. add the wine, tomatoes with juices, hoisin sauce. bring to boil.

reduce heat to low, cover pot and simmer for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally. add carrots and stock. cover, simmer 45 min, stirring occasionally. check to see if meat is done; if not, simmer a bit longer. when meat is cooked and tender, uncover, increase heat to high, and boil until the sauce is slightly thickened, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes longer. if you want the sauce thicker, turn heat to medium, add cornstarch mixture and simmer until sauce thickens - about 10 minutes. season with s&p. sprinkle with parsley and serve.

(Can be made 1 day ahead. cool slightly. chill uncovered until cold, then cover and keep refrigerated. bring to simmer before serving, stirring occasionally.)

here are some pictures of the process:

browning the meat.









browned meat resting in another vessel.









one last piece of meat to brown.









onions and bay leaves added to pot before deglazing with red wine.








browned meat added to onions and bay leaves.









i've just added hoisin, tomatoes, rest of wine.









finished product, after thickening with cornstarch.

Labels: beef, cooking, wine

i've been a little down on myself because the past few weekends i've been eating out of control. when i'm not held down by my work schedule, i tend to lose focus and want to eat everything i see in sight.

yesterday at work i was depressed about the whole thing, but towards the end of a long day, i thought about it more and decided to try to have a healthy meal for dinner. (and to think i almost roped cavin into getting 10 cent wings at capitol lounge!!!)

i think we did pretty well. i removed the skin and all visible fat from the chicken thighs, while cavin made up the marinade (more like glaze, because we didn't have enough time to marinate), which consisted of honey, miso, lemon juice, smoked paprika, and cayenne. then we threw the chicken thighs in a 400F oven for about 45-50 minutes (~180 degrees if you use a thermometer). oh and we added in some baby carrots i had leftover from lunch for good measure. we covered it for the first half to 3/4 time it was in the oven and removed the foil towards the end.

while i was on the phone negotiating, cavin made our old stand by, quinoa, and also prepped the baby bok choy so that when i got off the phone i could saute it in oil with sesame seeds and garlic.

i think it turned out great, and i also couldn't finish my plate! woah!

take-away points: have miso around in the house (store in the fridge). it's a great salty flavor that you can use on fish or chicken mixed with honey (which you should also have around in the house). even if you don't have the lemon, the miso-honey combo is a winner. try it.

Labels: chicken, cooking

i've been lazy. i haven't been taking as many pictures as i should be taking, especially when we're making stuff we haven't made before. ah, get over it.

after eating like a little piggy this weekend and not having a care in the world, i am back on track with the sensible meals. after getting home last night around 5:30, i was trying to find a chicken thigh recipe that didn't require too much prep work. i couldn't find anything to my liking (at least that's how i felt last night - maybe subconsciously i didn't want chicken for dinner), so i decided to regroup and discuss with cavin the foods we had in the house: baby bok choy, snow peas, carrots, eggplant, green peppers, onions, garlic.

i thought about stir fry, but lately i've been eating too much rice. oh! what's this? i forgot that we have fresh noodles in the fridge! let's try to recreate the chinese dish pan fried noodles!

essentially i was thinking about the pan fried noodles we had at sang kee a few weekends ago: crispy noodles that get softer as they sit in a brown sauce poured over it, with a mix of veggies and meat on top. how hard could it be to make? not that hard, apparently. all you really need to do is cook the veggies/meat before hand (i cooked it with the sauce), and then pan fry the noodles (duh) and then top the veggies/meat on top and serve. simple!

because we didn't have any meat in the dish, we cooked these really cute mini-pork dumplings we had in the freezer, which i first boiled for about 5 minutes, and then pan fried to make crispy.

i think it turned out pretty well, despite having to change pans halfway through. (originally i didn't use a nonstick pan for the noodles. even though i added oil and water, the noodles were sticking to the pan and i had to quick bail on the faux wok and grab the nonstick pan.) you can use whatever veggies you have in the house, no need to get the bok choy or snow peas if you don't have them. even just onions and peppers (and chicken, beef, pork, or shrimp) would be fine.

i think you might need to use the oyster sauce to get the proper flavoring, though, if you use only soy sauce, it might still be ok if you thicken the sauce.

our version had many veggies on top of the noodles, more so that at sang kee, but i think i would rather have more veggies than noodles. you can also use less amounts or omit some of the veggies, though i would definitely try to use onion and garlic.

here's our version of pan fried noodles:

vegetable pan friend noodles
1 asian eggplant
handful of snowpeas, ends trimmed
2 carrots
1/4 head green cabbage
half of a large green pepper
3 or 4 baby bok choy, rinsed well
1 small onion
garlic
8 oz. fresh noodles (thin kind)
1-2 tbsp oyster sauce
1-2 tbsp soy sauce
water
oil
cornstarch (optional)

chop the onion, eggplant, carrots, cabbage, and green pepper into uniform size - 1" or so. chop garlic.

heat oil on medium high. add garlic, cook for 1 minute. add the following veggies in 2 minute intervals, constantly stirring: 1)eggplant 2)onion, carrots, peppers, cabbage 3)baby bok choy, snow peas. add soy sauce and oyster sauce and mix together. if you want the sauce to be thicker, mix equal parts cornstarch with cold water (use about 1 tbsp or so) and add to pan and bring to boil. otherwise, just add a little bit of water. cover to help steam the veggies. season with pepper (and salt, but i didn't use any because of the soy). once the veggies are cooked thru, remove from pan.

heat a nonstick skillet on medium, and add 2-3 tbsp oil. add fresh noodles to skillet, trying to separate the strands if possible (you can put the noodles in boiling water for 1-2 minutes to get all the flour off the noodles and separate them, if you wish). cook until the bottom gets crispy and then flip the entire thing over.

when the noodles are cooked to your desired crispiness, remove them from pan and put on a serving dish. pour the veggies and sauce on top of the noodles and serve.

Labels: chicken, cooking, vegetarian

while we were in new brunswick, we ended up going to asian food mart on rt 27, home of the seaweed crackers pv loves so much that we cannot find anywhere else. asian eggplants were on sale and i couldn't resist. they also have a filipino food aisle, so along with picking up mama sita packets for the shanghai lumpia (for my mom), i got me some coconut vinegar.

we got home and i assessed what we had in the pantry: mushroom dark soy sauce, garlic, onions. hmmm...ADOBO! except instead of making the normal meat adobo (pork or chicken), i made the vegetarian eggplant adobo.

i normally don't make eggplant, or really, any vegetarian adobo. i think the last time may have been 4 years ago, when i eyeballed the measurements yet it turned out really good. this time around, i made up the measurements, considering the 2:1 vinegar to soy ratio. i think it turned out pretty darn good. the soy sauce was definitely mushroomy, which resulted in a deep flavored adobo. i have yet to determine if the coconut vinegar provided a significant difference to the regular dark soy sauce i normally use. i'll have to keep experimenting.

eggplant adobo
5 medium sized eggplants, chopped into 1-1.5" pieces
1 head garlic, minced
1 small onion, finely diced
1/2 cup coconut vinegar
1/4 cup dark soy sauce (i used the mushroom flavored kind)
ground black pepper
bay leaves
1/2 cup water (or more)

bring garlic, onion, vinegar, soy sauce, pepper, and bay leaves to a boil. let simmer for about 5-10 minutes. add eggplant and water, mix, cover and lower heat to low. after 10-15 minutes, mix the eggplant, making sure that all eggplant gets exposure to soy/garlic/vinegar liquid. if it starts to burn or get dried out, add more water. cover and cook on low for another 15 min or so, or until eggplant is cooked through and tender.

serve over white rice.

Labels: cooking, filipino, vegetarian

i know i know. i haven't written in almost one week. things have been hectic with being at work only 2 full days, and then driving to nyc to see the drowsy chaperone (which was very entertaining and comical) with cavin's family.

after the show, we took the f speeding rocket elevator up to the top floor of the marriot marquis hotel to the view restaurant, which is touted as "nyc's only revolving rooftop restaurant featuring ny state cuisine and wines." it moves very slowly - so slowly that we thought that it wasn't moving at all, but as we sat there, we finally noticed that our nyc skyline scenery was ever-changing. i'm not sure we made it all the way around back to where we started, but it was neat to be so high up and moving around and not get sick. haha.

while cavin went to work on friday, i took the train down to new brunswick. i haven't been there in a while, so since we didn't really have any plans, other than trying to meet up with my friend, sojin, we decided we would stay at the new brunswick hyatt, have an ethopian dinner at makeda, and then make our way down to the wich.

i had gone to makeda several times while in grad school. i always enjoyed the dark atmosphere, as well as eating with my hands, so i was excited to make it back there. the menu changed a bit since the last time we were there, but not terribly. we ended up ordering the "best of the best" sampler platter which allows the diners to taste almost everything on the menu. ($51, meant to be shared between 2 people. not bad!)

we started the night with an appetizer: zaalouk (diced eggplant pan fried in virgin olive oil with a blend of garlic, ginger, chopped parsley and cumin with a hint of lemon). the eggplant was served warm, on top of chopped romaine lettuce, which was, in essence a salad we had before our main course. (for the appetizer, the waitress brought out forks for us to use.)

as i mentioned before, ethiopian food is meant to be eaten with your hands. a spongy, tangy bread (similar to a crepe, but more spongy and soft), called injera is served with the meal and is used to scoop up the food. our meal came out on a large oval platter, with many dishes scattered on it, with the injera folded up on the sides.

there are two best of the best samplers: meat and seafood. cavin and i decided on the meat, though we did end up with some shrimp as well. here's what we got on our serving dish:

1. tibs wat (sauteed prime beef simmered in kaywat, and seasoned with specials ethiopian spices and as touch of salt and fine white pepper)

2. doro alecha (chicken legs and thighs seasoned with ginger, rosemary and jalapeno peppers and simmered in a hearty ethiopian herb reduction sauce)

3. doro wat (chicken legs and thighs marinated in lemon juice, then sauteed in butter and seasoned with garlic, fresh ginger and fenugreek, then coated with berbere sauce and cooked gently until tender)

4. beg alecha (tender pieces of lamb braised slowly in green pepper, flavored with an Ethiopian herb, reduction sauce, ginger, rosemary and a touch of jalapeno pepper)

5. shrimp tibs (shrimp marinated in honey wine, rosemary and awaze sauce, then pan fried with hot peppers, onions and greens)

6. kitfo (finely chopped tenderloin of beef seasoned with an Ethiopian herb reduction sauce and "mitmita", a fine powder of chili pepper and red pepper)

7. atakilt wat (fresh green beans, carrots potatoes, green peppers, cabbage and onions, sauteed with garlic, ginger and tomatoes)

8. kik alicha (yellow split peas cooked and flavored with green pepper, onion and ethiopian herbs)

9. gomen wat (fresh collard greens sauteed with fine onion, garlic, ginger, tomatoes and ethiopian spices)

10. mesir wat (lentils cooked with chopped onions, garlic, ginger, olive oil and mild berbere sauce)

afterwards, at the wich, cavin and i were discussing makeda. i think that makeda has slipped since the last time we were there. we distinctly remembered makeda being so much better a few years ago. this time around, the ends of the injera were too thin, so they hardened to a crust on the edges, while it was too thick in the middle. i really didn't care for the lamb, and i was expecting some of the dishes to have a little bit more heat. we had to order our wine three times until the we finally picked something that they actually had (we ended up with a new zealand shiraz the waitress pointed us towards, which she knew they had at the bar).

that being said, we still had a good time at makeda. the food was still pretty good, just not as great as in the past. our waitress was very gracious enough to only charge us for one drink, and she comped our appetizer. (i'm not sure if she comped us, or if she just totally forgot.) our total bill came to a measly $62 (expensive for ethopian food, but not expensive for makeda). when she delivered the bill to us, out of nowhere she said, "so! when will i see you again?" i don't know if she had some sixth sense which told her that we were decent tippers and had loot to spend, but it was wacky!

we told her that we wouldn't be back soon and that we now lived in dc. as soon as we said that though, she immediately told us the best ethopian restaurant in dc was dukem in the u street area. it's in our fortune to try a new restaurant this week, so maybe we'll have to get on the green line going the other direction and make sure to stop by.

makeda ethopian restaurant
338 george street
new brunswick, nj
732.545.5115

Labels: beef, chicken, restaurant

this weekend was spent back in the city of bro love (where else would i be?). it was a full weekend, starting off by going to johnny brenda's. it's a really neat space on girard in fishtown. there's three floors - well, technically 2 floors with a 3rd floor balcony that overlooks the stage.

since jb is blocks away from b-o-b and ga, we all decided to go. the sound was pretty good on the 3rd floor balcony and i think they enjoyed the georgie james show so it worked out well for everyone involved. (and, there was minimal, if you want to call it that, absinthe in the picture, so that was good as well. hihi)

the next day we went to lunch with the fam (jano's bday) to our go-to chinese restaurant in chinatown, sang kee. there were 10 of us crammed around one circular table, but it was fine.

ever since i first took cavin to sang kee, we always ordered the half peking duck, which comes out in 2 courses (make your own pancakes; leftover chopped duck with scallions and whatever veggies they decide to mix with). when we ordered the whole peking duck this time around, i don't think my family had ever had it! (wha?!?) so when the plate of cut up boneless duck, the plate of scallions & bowl of hoisin sauce, and the bamboo steamer of folded pancakes came out, everyone waited for cavin and i to show them what to do. i think everyone really liked the duck (i know pv&chief bro were asking us about it during the meal, so they must have taken a liking to it!). i recall jano also asking for the 2nd course of duck to be passed over to him because he couldn't get enough!

so while the italian tales were shared, we chowed down on all of the following dishes (~$160):

whole peking duck
crispy softshell crab in 5 spice dressing
pork fried dumplings
shrimp dumpling soup
baby bok choy in garlic sauce
roasted pork, roasted duck & soy sauce chicken on rice with veggies
beef & broccoli
house special pan fried noodles
beef & eggplant
salt baked squid
house special fried rice
bubble tea (for dessert)

later as we were getting ready for the eagles vs. saints game, we got a little GH in. what is GH you ask? well, we know for sure that you cannot be a GH sitting down! here are some action shots from my new favorite game:

















































when i woke up saturday morning jano was like, 'sachi, did you see what i got downstairs?' when i walked down there, i was super excited - GUITAR HERO!!! i had never played the game, even after all the hype that i heard during the holidays. so i immediately woke cavin to tell him the good fortune and after he got up, we tested out our rockin' skills.

i'm completely hooked! as we were driving in the car, all i could think about was how the song on the radio could be used in GH and i caught myself trying to play it on the air guitar as we were listening. i'm a dork!

but seriously. the game is really fun, and my family got into it. before the eagles game we played GH. during half-time we played GH. after the eagles lost (why, oh why, andy reid, did you decide to punt on 4th and 15 with < 2 min. left???) we salvaged the day by playing GH. i played so much that my left arm hurt. it was out of control. my brother is also hooked. he originally bought GH2, but saturday we went out and i bought jano GH1 for his bday. woah!

if you get a chance, please try to play the game. it's freaking hilarious, and it's hard as well. as someone who plays guitar, it's really not the same, and it's actually harder than playing the real instrument.

oh, and i think the funniest part about guitar hero is that when you watch people playing, they really feel like they are a guitar hero, and they make all the same body movements as if they were really heavy shreddin'. it's frakin' great!

Labels: games, philly, random

ugh. because last weekend i made the kare-kare, cavin and i had been eating leftovers for several days afterwards. and, i have to admit, i'm having problems with wanting to cook traditional filipino foods and eating healthy. i mean, i did skim the fat from the broth before i added the veggies, but it does have about 1 cup of peanut butter and the meat isn't the leanest. plus, when i eat it, i want to ladle cups and cups of it over my rice, which i am also eating too much of.

so, part of me doesn't feel like cooking, so yesterday at work cavin and i were toying with the idea of going to cafe atlantico and eating at the bar like we did a few weeks back.

i was totally down for it, but then i knew i would probably get out of control with eating, so after talking it over with cavin, we decided to get pho (pronounced "fuh") instead. (and i'm pretty sure pho would have less calories and fat than the food and alcohol i would have gotten at cafe atlantico.)

i think the last time cavin and i got pho was when we first moved down here. we were pointed to the eden center, a vietnamese shopping center in va, when asked about asian shopping and stores. the place we went to wasn't bad (i can't remember which restaurant we went to), but based on all the reports i hear around, we also didn't hit THE place to go (four sisters) for authentic vietnamese food.

there have been constant reminders about pho: on dr, people have been posting quite regularly comparing all the pho places in the area; the amateur gourmet's piece on serious eats about take out vietnamese food is hilarious; and, of course, i just happened to notice last week when we were at ray's the steaks, that there was a pho 75 in the same little strip mall. woah!

it's been a long time since i've been to pho 75. when i was still living with my parents, i used to go to pho 75 in the northeast. i don't remember with who, when, or why i went, but i distinctly remember filling up on the deeply flavored broth, mixing in the mint leaves, bean sprouts, jalepenos, and lime that are included on the side. and, it was cheap, to boot! (did i use 'to boot' correctly? i see people use it all the time, and i'm trying to add it to my colloquialisms)

oh, so what was i saying? right. so it was cold out yesterday, and i had this hankering for soup, and since we haven't gone and gotten pho in over a year (shame on us!), i suggested going to pho 75. and not surprisingly, last night's visit garnered pho 75 a spot on our top 5 "go-to" places (including poste for truffled frites, kotobuki for sushi (especially toro), irish times for happy hour, and matchbox for pizza and mini-burgers).

cavin and i each got a regular bowl of pho. he got #1 (tai, nam, gau, gan, sach: slices of eye-of-round steak, well-done flank, fat brisket, soft tendon, and bible tripe) while i got the similar #4 (tai, chin, nam, gan, sach: slices of eye-of-round steak, well-done brisket, well-done flank, soft tendon, and bible tripe). and if you are iffy on the tripe and tendon and stuff, you can get pho with meatballs, or just beef as well.

it was delicious, and i'm kicking myself for having forgotten about pho all the times cavin and i were indecisive about what to eat. and our total bill was under 12 bucks! un-freaking-believable!

so if you are reading this, and you haven't gotten pho in a long time, or you have never tried it, i suggest finding a decent vietnamese restaurant and getting some RIGHT NOW. seriously. it's cheap eats, and it's so delicious you'll wish there was a pho shop next to your office.

note: pho 75 is a chain and there are some in philly, see the picture above for info

Labels: beef, philly, restaurant

last week on dr someone asked if there was good filipino food in the area. manila cafe came up so i decided to take one for the team and go for lunch buffet this weekend with cavin and see what the deal was. it's a small place in a strip mall in springfield, va. there are 12-15 tables and while we were there, all the clientele was filipino (save for cavin and this other white boy with a filipina).

lunch buffet is $12.50 and isn't too bad. there are three buffet stations, with 6 dishes or so in each - lots of variety. i tried to taste everything, but there was too much. i tried the kare-kare (nice consistency, but bland in flavor, and i didn't like the bagoong they offered on the side - too raw), pancit bihon (good flavor, but a bit greasy), beef caldereta (great!), pinakbet (some of the veggies were a little to raw for me), laing (too salty), lechon (most of the skin was picked off already, but the meat was tender), chicken adobo (tasty with the correct vinegar:soy sauce ratio), pork bbq (kind of sweet, but tasty), fried tilapia (probably fried earlier in the day so by the time i ate it, it was dried out), and ginataan (great way to end the meal; wasn't overly sweet, with tapioca pearls). we'd probably go again if we were going out to the fairfax area. plus, i'd like to see if they change up the buffet menu, based on what they feel like cooking.

manila cafe
7020 commerce street
springfield, va 22150
703.644.5825

so, speaking of kare-kare. last time i was at the 'rents before holiday, we went to hong kong supermarket - a mega-asian chain with stores across the country. while we were there searching for the mama sita's lumpia shanghai mix packets, i found some mama sita's achuete powder packets, and i remembered that kare-kare uses the annatto seeds. so making kare-kare (from scratch, not using the prepared mama sita mix) has been brewing in my head for a few weeks now.

i made cavin try the kare-kare at manila cafe this weekend so that we could compare. since the one we had on saturday was bland, i was pretty sure that i could make a better one.

so after we gourged on filipino foods, we stopped by h-mart to pick up the necessary ingredients for my first-ever attempt at kare-kare. for those of you that don't know, kare-kare is a filipino stew made with oxtail and veggies, flavored with peanuts/peanut butter. some refer to it as "peanut butter soup". so i picked up oxtail, beef shank (for extra meat), sitaw (long beans), cabbage, bok choy, and asian eggplant.

we were planning to have kare-kare for sunday dinner (during the eagles/giants showdown) so i started cooking the meat saturday afternoon. basically, i washed the oxtail and beef shank, and put it in a pot and covered with water (about 9-10 cups). i brought to a boil, and then simmered with the lid on for 5 hours. (if only i had a pressure cooker! and actually? i think i cooked the meat too long, but i'll comment on that later.) i let the whole thing cool overnight in the fridge (thanks, cavin) and skimmed the fat off the top in the morning. the beef stock was most gelatinous (more than the short ribs) and later when i heated it up, the flavor was undeniably beefy - awesome! i used three different recipes, one of them being the kare-kare recipe from pinoycook.

here is a list of the ingredients:

-2 onions, chopped
-1 head of garlic, minced
-achuete powder
-1/4 cup rice flour, toasted in pan until light golden brown (about 8 minutes)
-1 bunch sitaw (long beans), cut into 2" pieces
-half head of cabbage (cut again in half, with core removed)
-2 asian eggplants, sliced
-baby bok choy
-1 cup peanut butter (chunky is better)
-salt
-patis
-bagoong alamang (for serving)

reheat the stock and take out the pieces of meat and set them aside. add 2 tbsp oil (or some of the beef fat if you saved it) in a pot on medium high, and add onions and garlic, cook for a few minutes.

add 2 tbsp achuete powder (i used the mama sita powder, no seeds) and cook for 1 minute, then add meat and mix until meat picks up the color of the achuete. add the stock and bring to a boil.

lower the heat and add the veggies in the following order in a 3-5 minute interval (pinoycook says 2 minutes, but i found that some of the veggies weren't cooked through enough, so i'm upping the interval): sitaw, eggplant, cabbage, bok choy. i covered the pot so that some of the veggies would steam if they weren't submerged in the liquid. also, if you don't think there is enough liquid, then by all means add water.

finally when all the veggies seemed mostly cooked, i mixed 1/2 cup stock (or water if you have none left) with the peanut butter and added it to the pot, and i mixed another 1/2 cup stock with the rice flour and added it as well. the peanut butter made the color of the kare-kare lighter, which i was worried about because when i started adding the veggies, i thought i had added too much achuete powder. so just be forewarned that the broth should be darker red before you add the peanut butter. the rice flour (which i already had pre-packaged, but you could toast and grind up your own rice) thickens the soup, so you should add as much as you need, but i found i added about 1/4 cup and this did the trick. finally add salt (and patis) to adjust the salt level. up to this point, i sparingly salted when i added the veggies, but it still wasn't salty enough, so i added patis and more salt.

serve hot over steamed rice with bagoong alamang.


here is the final result! looks good, no? especially for my virgin attempt! there are a few things that i would do differently than this first time, but now i know...



final notes:

1. use chunky peanut butter. we had two opened containers of creamy peanut butter in the fridge that we needed to use up. (don't ask. i prefer chunky so i don't know why we had TWO jars of creamy. but i guess that explains why they weren't used up.) while eating the kare-kare, i missed having pieces of peanuts to crunch down on, and i just felt like it was missing something.

2. don't overcook the meat. aie. i made the mistake of cooking the oxtail and beef shank for 5.5 hours saturday night. then, on sunday while i was heating up the stock, i didn't take the oxtail out because i thought it wasn't tender enough. but, the time it takes from adding the meat to the achuete oil to the finish, is enough to finish cooking the oxtail. so when it was done, it was tender, but it was too tender. the meat had fallen off the oxtail bone, and all separated in the liquid. it wasn't that pretty, but it was darn tasty! i'd suggest cooking the oxtail and/or beef shank for about 4 hours, knowing that it will be in the pot for another 30 minutes while adding the veggies and peanut butter and what not.

3. add the entire bunch of sitaw. when i bought the bunch of sitaw at h-mart, it seemed like a lot, so i only added half. but then after it was finished, i was like, "where's all the sitaw?"

Labels: beef, cooking, filipino

these pictures don't do proper justice to the events that occured early in the evening on december 31, 2006.


new years eve eve, we started off the night with a friendly game of beer pong. cavin&sachi vs. gavitron&jj. the outcome? cavin&sachi ruled the table.







gavitron&jj insist that hitting 6 cups in a row (shutting them out the previous night) has low statistical probability, so they challenge us for a rematch. (apparently brent has in on this action and has bet against his beloved brother and host of the party.) IT'S ON!!!






cavin&sachi cannot keep up. maybe jj, the statistician, is right about 6-in-a-row having low probability. we are losing to the challengers three cups to...







...their one cup.










gavitron&jj celebrate prematurely (sean is inside praying that they don't win because he doesn't want to lose his bet with brent)








wait a second! what happened? the sole cup is gone from the table, but the ball is not in the cup! and now i'm pointing, so you know something went wrong!







"listen! you cannot just come in here and throw the ball at the cup and knock it over and then expect a win! what kind of jackass rule is that?"
"it's not my fault you guys didn't protect your cup. that's how we play in iowa!"
paris and chris seem a little uncomfortable, but gavitron loves all the hilarity ensuing.





"WHAT!?!? that is the fucking stupidist thing i've ever heard! the point of the game is getting the ball in the cup, not to knock it over!"
"i still stand my ground. those are the rules."







"if you thought you won, then why didn't you throw up your hands in the air and celebrate after you knocked our cup over?!?! clearly you subconsciously knew that you did something wrong and that you didn't win, otherwise you would be high-fiving gavitron right now!"





b-o-b: "don't let him come in here and boss you around like that! this is your house and you set the rules!"
"yeah! what he said!"







"but seriously. i've never heard of that rule (gavitron: yeah, me neither) and we never talked about implementing that rule when we first started playing."
"it's not my fault you didn't know the rules of the game before we started playing."





now i'm really pissed and cavin has to separate us: "who the fuck do you think you are? i invited you here to my party, and you're acting like a jackass! first you make us wait 2 hours in the morning because you couldn't get to our house on time, and now you're a fucking asshole in this beer pong game! why don't you just get the hell out of my house and find your own way back to dc! this is my house, and we are playing by my rules and there is no such rule as knocking the final cup over to win the game!!!"



...it is at this point (no pictures, sorry), that i am terribly raging and i purposely knock over our remaining three cups of beer onto jj, who then realizes that he's overstepped his boundaries and quietly walks away inside to clean up all the beer i spilled on his sweatpants...




i've calmed down, apologized to jj, and decided to replay the three-cups-to-one finale. here we are as if nothing happened in the past 10 minutes. (though, all bets are off after the 2006 BP debacle.)







everything is totally fine and i'm about to walk back to our side of the table where we can resume the intense game.








not much more to tell. gavitron&jj just cannot beat the powerful force of cavin&sachi on the beer pong table. we finally square it down to one cup each, but it's sachi who puts the cap on the game by actually making the ball in the last cup. jj gets to try one last time to force overtime, but he just can't follow through.





the face of defeat.

Labels: chaos, games, random

right before christmas during the mad rush to finish shopping at eastern market, i also spied some fresh pasta. we couldn't decide on one type, so we ended up buying three different flavors: porcini tagliatelle, salt cod ravioli, and pumpkin and chestnut ravioli.

because we were having fresh pasta, i didn't want to have any old plain jarred sauce from safeway (which we normally don't have anyways). so i decided to make a bolognese ragu to top our pasta.

i got the recipe from m.bittman's how to cook everything, but i also double checked a bolognese recipe from epicurious, and they seemed somewhat similar, so i stuck with bittman's version. and, because i wanted to freeze some for future use, i decided to double the recipe.

i'm going on memory, but these are the ingredients i used in the doubled reciped:

1 lb ground pork
1 lb ground beef
2 carrots, minced
1 large onion, minced
2 celery stalks, minced
2 28oz cans whole plum tomatoes, drained
1-2 cups half and half
1-2 cups chicken stock
1-2 cups white wine
1-2 tbsp olive oil

heat up olive oil, add carrots, onion, celery and cook until tender. add ground meat, breaking up the larger pieces until cooked through. add white wine and reduce, then add stock and reduce. then i added the whole plum tomatoes, crushing each tomato with my hands. i let this cook for at least 2 hours (more is better), until all the flavors melded. about 30-45 minutes before i knew we were going to eat, i mixed in the half and half.

(later i did see a recipe that used tomato paste instead of the canned tomatoes, so next time i'll try that recipe and see the difference.)

i made it early enough in the day so that i could let it cook for a couple of hours and we had it on the fresh porcini tagliatelle. it was extremely delicious. bolognese ragu is supposed to be heavy on the meat, and light on the sauce, and this was exactly what we made. it was perfect on our fresh pasta, and really complemented the meaty flavor of the porcini pasta.

so right. i made the bolognese sauce before christmas, and i ended up freezing half of it. i brought some to the 'rents to cook during new years, but i totally forgot about it, but when we got back to dc, i put half of it in the fridge to defrost.

we probably won't eat the ragu tonight (because i think we are going out to dinner), so i'll have to report back to see how well the bolognese sauce froze. i'm hoping that the quality of the sauce did not deteriorate due to the freezer, but who knows. either way, we'll eat it because i'm not a big fan of wasting food.

Labels: beef, cooking, pork, wine

new year's weekend was good times.

for those of you that weren't there, you missed out on beer pong (cavin & i are undefeated, even after the debacle), scotland yard, white russians, mimosas, connect four tournament (with cash prizes!), pinata pufferfish with sweatpants, smokey outdoor fireplace, tomato pie, guns n roses sing-a-long, life coaching, and much, much more - all in sweatpants, mind you. i'll try to post the pictures when i get a chance to resize them.

but after having conversations with several people, i've come to realize something about myself, something i already knew: when in conversation with someone, i usually end up interrupting the other person, just so i can get my point across.

for some reason i cannot just let the other person talk without me having to interject something, or i start asking questions before they finish what they are saying. i think part of it is because i'm not that skilled in holding my thoughts in my head while listening. i guess ultimately this boils down to my listening skills.

so my first 2007 new year resolution is to work on my listening skills, and try my hardest to not interrupt and let other people finish what they are saying before i start speaking. this is a difficult task for me, because i know most of my life i have operated this way. i can think back to several occasions where i was immersed in serious conversation and i can clearly remember the other person saying, "just let me finish!"

my other resolution this year is to try to lose weight and keep it off permanently. i've steadily gained elbees since i've gotten out of school (i was briefly at a desired body size in grad school, but i was also not living a healthy lifestyle, so i guess that doesn't really count). and i know that i'm getting older and cannot be as slim as i used to be in college, and i just have to accept the fact that my metabolism has slowed down, and that my body just doesn't work the same way it did when i was younger, but that shouldn't be an excuse for me to blow up and not fit into all my clothes.

i have a goal to meet by memorial day - a respectable and attainable one. i will be held responsible because i have joined and committed to getting fit for summer. and hopefully, this won't be a fad diet thing, but more of a lifestyle change.

so my second and final 2007 new year resolution is to change my (eating) lifestyle and lose weight and keep it off. i have issues with at least three different things: portion control, eating when not hungry, and exercising. hopefully i will be able to tackle these and keep the weight off.

two goals for 2007 is doable. to be quite honest, i am hoping 2007 is the year i finally get back to philly, and while i would love to make it a new years resolution, i can't commit myself to this idea until i fully know what dc has in store for me during my final rotation here.

but i think the two goals are respectable. i will work on improving myself not only physically, but also on being a better person to be around.

Labels: games, random