http://www.marketmanila.com A food blog that talks about food, produce, recipes, ingredients, restaurants and markets here in the Philippines and around the globe. Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:41:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 en hourly 1 http://www.marketmanila.com/archives/puto-suman-grilled-mango http://www.marketmanila.com/archives/puto-suman-grilled-mango#comments Thu, 10 Jun 2010 00:20:38 +0000 Marketman http://www.marketmanila.com/?p=12992 Rice cakes stewed in coconut milk and mango are a wonderful food pairing. The richness of the coconut milk, the slight hint of ginger, the sweetness of a good mango make this combination a favorite in the Southeast Asian region. They are the essence of enjoying what is grown around you. Simple and sublime. Hard to improve in. So I had never really previously toyed with the idea of playing around with the pairing, figuring, "why mess with a good thing?'.]]> http://www.marketmanila.com/archives/puto-suman-grilled-mango/feed 37 http://www.marketmanila.com/archives/budbud-puto-maya-at-cafe-olegario http://www.marketmanila.com/archives/budbud-puto-maya-at-cafe-olegario#comments Wed, 05 May 2010 09:32:24 +0000 Marketman http://www.marketmanila.com/?p=11877 My maternal grandparents were from Cebu and Bohol, and they had a summer ancestral home on the shores of a small town roughly 30+ minutes away from the Clarin ancestral home in Loay, that I featured here. We were sitting in the garden of Cafe Olegario, set up by members of the Clarin family, to have merienda and we ordered some bubud with latik, and some puto maya. The budbud was freshly made, and superb. It had just the right amount of sugar, and a hint of ginger. The latik was flavorful but not overly sweet. The rice was light, not weighty, yet redolent with coconut milk/fat. Delicious. The puto maya was also amazing. Obviously just made/delivered to the Cafe, it was heavily flavored with ginger, but the rhizome was almost sweet and fragrant, not sharp and aggressive. We were so happy we decided to sit for a while and enjoy this simple merienda. It would have paired well with hot chocolate, but since it was so warm outdoors, we opted for cold drinks instead.]]> http://www.marketmanila.com/archives/budbud-puto-maya-at-cafe-olegario/feed 28 http://www.marketmanila.com/archives/hopia-baboy http://www.marketmanila.com/archives/hopia-baboy#comments Sat, 01 May 2010 06:08:47 +0000 Marketman http://www.marketmanila.com/?p=11723 How's this for a blast from the past? As a child, I LOVED hopia with munggo or mung bean filling. I don't recall ube hopias in the late 60's and early 70's. I suppose for a kid, the sweetish buttery munggo filling was as good as a protein rich beans were going to get. Fresh hopia purchased on occasional Sunday "paseos" to Binondo with our family were definitely a treat. As much as I loved munggo hopia, I absolutely despised hopia baboy. There was just something about this savory concoction that was a real turn-off. And now that I think about it some more, I think it was a particular Sunday, when in my single digits, I tried this version of hopia, and I got what felt like the most repulsive chunky piece of mushy slow-cooked fat in one of my bites. Without asking anyone, I just assumed it was solid fat, and I decided then and there that I would never again ate a hopia baboy... But here's the real rub, it turns out that there isn't much baboy in hopia baboy at all! It seems many recipes call for kundol or wintermelon cubes slow cooked in pork fat or lard. Or in the absence of kundol, sliced onions are sometimes used as an alternative. Now that I know that, maybe that silly piece of fat was in fact a very mushy piece of lard infused kundol! :)]]> http://www.marketmanila.com/archives/hopia-baboy/feed 83 http://www.marketmanila.com/archives/momofuku-plus-pork-buns http://www.marketmanila.com/archives/momofuku-plus-pork-buns#comments Thu, 15 Apr 2010 22:31:39 +0000 Marketman http://www.marketmanila.com/?p=11389 This was definitely one of the best sandwiches I have EVER eaten. Yup, SERIOUSLY GOOD. And relatively simple to make. The next time you have an afternoon merienda or picnic planned with friends who appreciate good food, or even a card game or televised sports event, consider serving these sandwiches together with ice cold bottles of beer. The recipe was predominantly that of Momofuku's famous pork buns, but I tweaked it a bit, adding in pork cracklings to result in a sandwich that is soft, rich, juicy, sweet, sour, spicy, flavorful and with a bit of crunch. It may sound over-the-top, but it really did turn out nicely...]]> http://www.marketmanila.com/archives/momofuku-plus-pork-buns/feed 47 http://www.marketmanila.com/archives/pigskin-crackling-experiments-a-la-marketman http://www.marketmanila.com/archives/pigskin-crackling-experiments-a-la-marketman#comments Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:34:54 +0000 Marketman http://www.marketmanila.com/?p=10926 Mrs. MM was watching a program with Heston Blumenthal on his quest to make the PERFECT peking duck recipe, part of which entailed recreating superb duck skin, but in his version, the skin was cooked separately from the duck. It was a fascinating program, and I was glad to hear even Mr. Blumenthal and his crew tried some 40+ iterations of their skin recipe before they got to their final version. APM, a regular reader, once sent me a DVD of Mr. Blumenthal and I am a fan of the chef's incredible penchant for detail and perfection. At any rate, the program and some of the trials were still fresh in my memory a few days later when I was shopping at S&R for our weekly requirements, and I decided to ask their butcher if they would sell me some pig skin...]]> http://www.marketmanila.com/archives/pigskin-crackling-experiments-a-la-marketman/feed 44