Market Manila

Taking inspiration from a long-time reader and commenter, Gigi, I quickly concocted this unusual mangosteen vinaigrette. Take a mixing bottle and add several spoonfuls of mangosteen jelly (no seeds), add some duhat vinegar, three times the amount of olive oil, salt and pepper and shake vigorously. It was surprisingly good. However, I would reduce the amount of duhat vinegar the next time around, as it was a bit overpowering. With less acidity, the mangosteen flavor should shine through in the same manner that tamarind pulp sometimes does in Asian dressings and marinades. In the photo above, I have placed some of the dressing in a small bottle with a cork top…this is a perfect single serving for a take away or picnic salad. I bought the tiny bottles for PHP5-7 each in Divisoria; they are useful and re-usable!

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A bottle of local “Balsamic Vinegar,” and apparently made from duhat fruit to boot…how’s that for a Marketman double take?!? I simply could not resist. I bought the bottle for PHP100 and hoped for the best. Traditional Italian balsamic vinegar is made from the must of grapes which are boiled down then concentrated further in a progression of different wood barrels which are subject to the extremes of summer heat and winter cold in and around Modena, Italy. Prior to the last 20 years or so, balsamic vinegar was considered a tonic, or a “balsam” for health reasons. It was sometimes imbibed in little glasses like a medicine or drizzled on food to enhance flavors. As its popularity grew and it became a “mainstream” vinegar, cheap “copies” or versions of it were mass produced in Italy, sometimes with a decent shadow of the original, or at worst, simply colored and sweetened wine vinegar… Nevertheless, I have NEVER seen the term applied to vinegars from outside Italy and I suppose there isn’t a patent on the term but it was a bit bizarre to see this dark vinegar from Ilocos labeled balsamic vinegar…

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The two previous posts were a bit intense. My fingers are recovering from so much typing. So I thought I would have a quick but highly comforting post on a typical “mixed grill” that we do at the beach when I have just gotten back from the market. Some nice fresh prawns are seasoned with some oilve oil, salt, red pepper flakes and lemon juice and placed on barbecue skewers. Clean out the intestinal track if you prefer it that way. Also, some cleaned baby squid marinated in a bit of soy sauce and Seven-up or Sprite and lots of ground black pepper. Barbecue several slices of nice fatty pork liempo or belly marinated in garlic, soy sauce and whatever suits your fancy. Grill it all up, serve it with white rice and two salads: an eggplant and tomato salad as well as a red egg and tomato salad. Have lots of good vinegar on the side. Yum. It doesn’t get much better than this…I could probably eat this once a week if I had to!!!

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My post two weeks ago on “Shittybank” received an incredible number of hits, with several thousand readers from here and abroad not only reading the post, but spending an average of 8-9 minutes on it, an eternity in the blogosphere where clicks and attention spans are measured in nanoseconds. Here is my follow-up to that Shittybank post and the earlier post on liabilities on stolen cards. I find that the subject matter is incredibly timely, given all of the recent press regarding credit card identity theft (e.g., unscrupulous waiters swiping your card and selling the info) and a recent conference on credit card fraud. I suspect, and sincerely hope, that this credit card discussion will shortly become a national issue, in the same manner that those massive godawful billboards have finally begun to come tumbling down (literally and figuratively). And that took many years after several intelligent folks started to criticize them in their columns and speeches.

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You have to be somewhat curious about a small jewel of a bakeshop called Cupcakes by Sonja which has garnered so much press coverage in recent weeks… With several articles in the broadsheets and magazines as well as the food blogging sphere, just before and after its September 21 soft-opening at Serendra in The Fort, the eponymous bakeshop of Sonja Ocampo was certainly launched with press horns blaring. Ms. Ocampo reportedly worked for the Magnolia Bakery in New York, credited with the recent resurgence of interest in cupcakes, but more importantly, the bakery famous for appearing in episodes of the TV show, Sex and the City. I didn’t read any of the pre- and post-opening reviews of Cupcakes by Sonja, and just waited until I could try the cupcakes for myself, in the same context as other consumers would, at the shop itself. I finally tried the cupcakes Monday night, though I have to admit I had very high expectations…

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I spotted these terrific looking little baby bok choy (pechay)greens at the FreshField stall at Market!Market! yesterday and quickly snapped up two bags at PHP50 a piece. Edwin, one of the owners of Fresh Field ALWAYS seems to try and bring new products to market and I always find his romaine and other lettuces to be top notch quality and highly consistent. He also carries microgreens which I have used in pizzas with terrific success. Because he makes such an effort, I usually try and frequently feature his products. Baby bok choy seems like it would be such an obvious green to raise but you don’t see it that often locally. I think the first few batches Edwin harvested, he let them grow too much and they were kind of like adolescent bok choy by then…

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If it weren’t a holiday tomorrow I would be first in line at the patent office! I was having my usual Earl Grey Tea after dinner a few minutes ago and while I normally take no sugar or honey with my tea, I was also contemplating all of the terrific ideas suggested by readers on how to use mangosteen jam and this little lightbulb went off in my head… I added a scant teaspoon of mangosteen jam (no seeds, just the jelly part) to my tea and it dissolved like honey in just a few seconds. One taste and I knew I had done something good. The tea was noticeably flavored with mangosteen essence. The slight sweetness enhanced the flavors of bergamot oil (a hallmark of Earl Grey) and mangosteen. This was really very good… So here is the first new use of mangosteen jam… Earl Grey Tea flavored with Mangosteen Jam a la Marketman!

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This is the jam that I made from the 16 kilos of mangosteen that I dragged back from Cebu last Wednesday. I hadn’t even finished the first batch of 6 bottles when I started kicking myself in the rear, upset with myself that I didn’t bring back double or triple the amount of fruit instead. We may not have a literal winter here, but this is my version of bottling goodness while it is at its peak; and it ensures that we will have about a year’s supply of mangosteen jam, guaranteed. If you recall in my initial jam experiment several weeks ago, I felt that I had overcooked the jam, so this time I decided to do two batches and reduce the cooking time. The first batch that I made last Friday, I cooked for roughly 60-65 minutes at medium heat and it is this wonderful caramel or more accurately, reddish brown color. It is sweet and highly flavorful. A little goes a long way. The second batch of jam was cooked about 10 minutes longer and it is a noticeably darker color and tastes less sweet though it is still VERY SWEET. It is closer to the color of commercially sold jams.

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