Market Manila

It must be nearly 100F outdoors at the moment, roughly 37C, and very humid. Wickedly hot weather for Manila, even during the summer months. It is so debilitating that I actually considered going to the mall just to enjoy some free airconditioning! I wonder if one burns more calories just by being so hot, sweaty and bothered. One would think that the oppressively warm weather would dampen one’s appetite, but I don’t think it has affected mine… However, in the midst of writing a post on pepper, I set the unfinished post aside and decided to do this one on a cool chilly buko lychee shake instead. Have you ever wondered why restaurants are so aggressive about pushing fruit shakes when customers sit down to a meal? Are they really thinking of your health, concerned about your nutritional intake? No, most likely, it has been drilled into the waiters brains that most fruit shakes have a huge mark-up and a tremendous profit margin for the restaurant and thus one should sell, sell, sell them. Many folks couldn’t be bothered to blitz a fruit shake at home, but would readily pay P100-140 for a tall glass with a bit of fruit and herbs on the side, in the same manner that millions of consumers pay somewhere around PHP100 for a cup of hot water and a tea bag at Starbucks (approximately a 300-400% mark-up!)…

Read more…

I’d like to believe that all cooks have their “Waterloo,” their “Achilles heel,” or the dishes that they just can’t seem to master or even achieve basic competence in… for me, paper thin lumpia wrappers have caused many a four letter word in the kitchen as I have tried again and again to get it right, to no avail. I also gave up on an “easy puto” recipe to do at home, and I have ALWAYS had SERIOUS problems with all kinds of meringue (see Sans Rival, as well). So it was probably a bit of a “hope springs eternal” attitude when I decided to attempt to make silvanas at the beach (I should have just ordered the bloody things). I prepared for this experiment; obtained the finest ingredients, made sure my oven was in tip-top working order, got oil sprays to coat the stainless pans, and even waiting for a low humidity day combined with airconditioning if necessary. I was in a brilliant baking mood and FOCUSED on silvanas. I followed a recipe that I thought sounded simple and doable and my progress was truly encouraging. My mixer bowl had a beautiful meringue whipped up with lots of air and lots of pulverized almonds folded in.

Read more…

Here is a REALLY SIMPLE salad that I bet 98% of marketmanila’s readers can do without much difficulty. I made it while I was barbecuing other items and I wanted to make full use of the hot coals. I almost always have roasted capsicum in the fridge, but if you don’t, start by making homemade roasted red and yellow peppers, using my recipe, here. Then take the tentacles from a kilo of small to medium sized squid and remove the ink sacs, wash them and dry them with paper towels. Sprinkle with some salt and pepper just before grilling…

Read more…

Every once in a while, usually towards the end of the month, or after serious holiday feasts, I do a “reconnaissance mission” through our refrigerators, freezers and pantry and try to use up odds and ends. I like to refer to these meals as “vacuum cleaner” meals, sucking out leftovers, miscellaneous food items, pairing them with staples, and creating meals that help us clean up the supplies and be as efficient as possible about our food stocks, which are typically rather voluminous when compared to most households… I think this is how many folks actually cook, not necessarily with all of the stated ingredients in a recipe, but improvising based on their tastes and supplies on hand. So here is what we had for Sunday lunch…

Read more…

We purchased a package of “Chorizo Macau” that was made in Cebu (go figure), and sold at a Chinese Food Store at the ground floor of Ali Mall, Ortigas Center. It was vacuum sealed in plastic and didn’t need refrigeration. It was something good to bring to the beach and have as a “back-up ingredient”. This type of chorizo macau is totally filipinized, in my opinion… it is so sweet to the point of it being practically a dessert. And so red it would qualify as a color of paint at the local hardware store. At any rate, for PHP180 for a small package, it was good to have this “on-reserve” in the pantry.

Read more…

My post on curacha a few days back lead me to Joey’s post on the creature and the recipe she cooked did some “Alavar” sauce… Marketman & family received a large package of Alavar sauce from a friend several months back and this is what we used it for… prawns in Alavar. Alavar, I gather, is a famous seafood restaurant from Zamboanga and later Cebu, and now Manila. We have never eaten at Alavar’s though we have heard about it several times. The famous sauce lists as its ingredients “Coconut Milk and Spices.” Obviously, it is a secret concoction, but my best guess is that it kind of approximates a curry sauce, possibly thickened with aligue from the oodles and oodles of crustaceans they serve at their restaurants. It is a bit on the sweet side for me, so we added some sauteed aromatics and chilies to the sauce before adding the prawns…

Read more…

We have enjoyed salted fish fried rice in Chinese restaurants across Southeast Asia, some with a perfect balance of saltiness and moisture and flavor, while others poor pretenders at best. While we enjoy the dish immensely, we haven’t tried to cook it at home, but the purchase of some spectacular dried lapu-lapu was the catalyst for this attempt… The results were startlingly good. I understand Chinese restaurants use a particular kind of dried fish, but I have not figured out what it is… I just went on gut feel that this meaty lapu-lapu would yield a very edible version of Daing Fried Rice.

Read more…

We made several popsicles, sorbets and ice creams over the long holiday at the beach; they were the perfect antidote to rising temperatures… The first experiment were some simple fruit based popsicles. We purchased this old-fashioned styled plastic mold at Crate & Barrel for 80% off at their outlet store, so we try to make popsicles whenever there is good fruit around. In this case, we had some ripe and dense local Batangas mangoes and I happened to have some frozen blackberries in the freezer…

Read more…