Mrs. MM and I officially called Singapore our home for nearly 5 years in the early 90’s. While we were constantly traveling (for business) during that time, we always managed to get back to Singapore at least 2-3x a month for a few days. And it is during this period that I somehow fell in love with noodles flavored with curry powder. I never bothered how to learn to cook them at the time, since they were readily available from hawker stands that were not only convenient, but economical as well. While experimenting with local noodles flavors in Cebu a couple of weeks ago, I decided to try one that might approximate the noodles we used to enjoy in Singapore all those years ago… it turns out it was really easy to do…

The versions I used to have had shrimp, char sit (barbecued pork), bean sprouts and other veggies. So to make our version, we started with a bit of chopped lechon (not as flavorful as char siu), shrimp, onions, garlic and lard then when that was soft, added in other veggies, chicken stock, curry powder, bihon noodles (that are supposed to be rice I am told, but are sometimes made with cornstarch now here in the Philippines), bean sprouts and salt and pepper. Ideally, you want a well seasoned wok (not a pathetic kawali as in photos), super hot flames and a wrist of a young one to flip the noodles around like your life depended on it.

Achieving that “wok hay” or breath of a wok is essential to the quality of the dish, in my opinion. The results? Not bad at all. Definitely edible, definitely delicious. Not quite the ones I recall from many a hawker stall in Singapore, but it’s a good start.

P.S. My grey matter is failing, it seems I did another version of this recipe just 4 years ago, here, though it was much more involved with a few more ingredients like sriracha? that I wouldn’t have dreamed of putting in this most recent version… :)

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Andrew Carmellini’s recipe for an ‘Nduja carbonara or “Calabrian Carbonara” in a recent Food & Wine Magazine was the tipping point to hunt down the ingredient from Italy and see what it was like. I wonder if Mr. Carmellini’s ‘Nduja was locally made in the U.S. or smuggled in from Calabria, as pork product importation into the U.S. is still problematic… I ask, because I made the recipe and it nearly blew the heads off a few of the guests, figuratively, of course! :)

It’s simple enough. Saute some ‘Nduja with olive oil (to sub for pancetta or guanciale) then add to fresh organic egg yolks and egg, pecorino romano and it’s done. I followed proportions but it was way too spicy, almost painfully so. If I had cut back the ‘Nduja by say 40%, it would have been much, much better. Think of it as a condiment rather than a major part of the dish. I like the fiery porky quality it brings (just look at the gloss on those noodles along with the egg yolks) but too much can kill a good thing. Will give this one more go, but I have to say, I love a classic guanciale carbonara, so this isn’t replacing that anytime soon.

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We discovered a few cans of De Cecco tomatoes that had just passed their expiry date. And to my annoyance a small whole leg of prosciutto was likewise discovered hidden in the walk-in freezer with the same problem. Honestly, prosciutto doesn’t go bad in a freezer, but we MUST to remove these items from inventory and happily they were now “mine” to play with… :) So off to the kitchens I go, intent on cooking a pasta lunch for the office crew with the tomatoes and prosciutto. First, the prosciutto was sliced incredibly thin with an electric slicer. It was still brilliant. Delicious, in fact. So we had some just like that, au naturel, with toasted Italian bread on the side. But we had quite a bit more ham to work with, so I decided to try a creamy tomato pasta topped with lots of sliced prosciutto.

Tomatoes and prosciutto are amongst my most favorite ingredients, ever. The prosciutto will probably cause colon cancer if I eat it daily (or anything with nitrates like ham, sausages, etc.) but at least the tomatoes will help stave off prostate cancer if the medical journals are to be believed… Into a pan, I added some olive oil, garlic and onions then some chopped canned tomatoes and let that cook down a bit. Season with salt and pepper. When you are almost ready to assemble the pasta, add a touch of cream and lots of grated parmesan and taste for seasoning. Add the noodles that are cooked to al dente, plate up and sprinkle with more cheese then top with more prosciutto than you think is necessary. Yum. The ingredients may have been just “expired”, but the pasta was pretty inspired. Delicious, in fact. Now to figure out how to use the rest of the leg of ham. I figure I have another month or two to work my way through it. :)

P.S. I would never suggest this for a restaurant, but in our home pantry, I sometimes have a canned or bottled item or two that has passed its expiry date (unopened) and I use it up to 2 or 3 months after the expiry date and it has always been fine…

P.P.S. In terms of “fishpan-slam-worthy” discussions, if I won the U.S. Lotto on a good month, say $200 million or so, I would immediately order this Berkel prosciutto slicer in red for my mythical future home kitchen with all the nearly-single-use doodads along with workhorse staples… It costs more than a second-hand car, so it’s ridiculous, but one can always daydream for free, right? :)

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“OMG, that’s so clever, so earnest, so simple, but so darned good.” That is almost always my reaction when we or someone in our office discovers another simple provincial delicacy or recipe that isn’t so common in the city anymore, and which I feel like we should all do something to save it from possible extinction. That’s the way I felt when I discovered buri cakes (the flour made from the central pulp of fallen buri tree trunks) that I have been hunting down a source of the flour for years to no avail, or the way I felt with my day with Manang Lima over 8 years ago when she taught me how to make her budbud kabog, or most recently today when I was shown how to make this simple but enchanting cassava cake. From the moment I was shown the cooking vessel, I knew this was something long-time readers would want to probably read about.

I am just posting the process first, as we aren’t totally happy with our version yet, and I do hope to be able to offer this in stores so that if people try it, buy it, and we continue to make it, maybe it will stay in our current list of local kakanins rather than falling off to the way side… Start with good cassava root, peel and rinse well. Pass it through the grating mechanism of a food processor (you can certainly hand grate if you prefer), then squeeze out the liquid and sift repeatedly through a large then fine gauge sifter. You end up with really fine damp cassava flour.

To the cassava flour add brown sugar (a nice deep dark brown sugar or muscovado that has been sifted) and some freshly grated coconut, not quite at its driest stage and not wet either.

Mix this by hand until you get a crumbly slightly damp consistency. I wanted to add some coconut or cow’s milk at this stage, but was told that was a modern twist and we should do it the traditional way first. :)

Meanwhile make some bukayo, which in these parts is large strings of coconut cooked with brown sugar. They look a bit like slimy worms but they taste wonderful.

Now starts the interesting part. Place a small palayok over a gas burner (or charcoal of course if you like) then place a “bao” or coconut shell with large holes cut into the bottom and seal in the steam so that a sort of pressurized steam pushed up through the ingredients to steam a cake. I think this was a simple dough that was used to encircle the bao and create a seal.

When the water is boiling, add some of the cassava mixture to the bap and cover it with banana leaves and steam for a couple of minutes…

…use a bamboo spatula to scrape the edges…

…add the bukayo to the center…

…cover with more cassava mixture and cover with banana leaves and top with something heavy like a pot lid and let this steam for a few more minutes.

Just when you think that’s really simple, then you have to scrape the sides, and with two bamboo spatulas, you have to turn this OVER! and steam that side so it cooks evenly. Yipes.

When it’s done, top with some latik and or more bukayo and enjoy. It was DELICIOUS, kind of chewy, moist and dry all at the same time. The texture of cassava is unmistakable, the flavor of coconut strong and it’s sweet. I don’t know why this isn’t available as street food in Manila. It wasn’t all that cheap, but it is oh so sustainable, local and right.

We are still testing variations, trying to figure out a less labor intensive way of cooking it (though a lot of the charm is in the cooking vessel) like steaming batches in a normal steamer (doesn’t work as well so far)… so this is a work in progress. But I thought I should record this process so it’s on the net somewhere, lest I forget. I strongly encourage all readers to watch, learn and record special recipes and delicacies from your neck of the woods to help preserve these for future generations, even if, right now, you are shaking your head at finding this cooking vessel at your nearest kitchen store.

P.S. Pls. no ribald comments about that last photo or two, I thought about mastectomies briefly as well. But banish the thought. :)

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After publishing that post on a wonderful street side pad thai from Bangkok a few days ago, I made two batches of pad thai at home, and realize it is an easy dish to master, customize and make one’s own. It takes so little time and effort to make a batch that can easily feed 6-8 hungry folks. Here is a bit more guidance for those of you who sent comments on instagram or questions through my email.

Heat up a well-seasoned wok and add some vegetable oil, say 2-3 tablespoons worth. Add 3-4 eggs, cracked and dropped straight into the oil and lightly scramble them, leaving visible bits of yellow and white, not a homogenous yellow mass.

When it starts to dry out add slices of boneless, skinless chicken breast and let this braise and cook through but not necessarily brown the surface of the meat.

Add some peeled and de-veined shrimp and season with a bit of salt and/or good thai fish sauce or patis.

Toss a bit until all the shrimp and chicken are cooked through.

Meanwhile, into a pot of boiling water, dunk 250g of medium thick rice noodles for say 30-60 seconds until just barely cooked but not overly soft and limp. Better to err on the al dente side.

Add lots of bean sprouts, some brown sugar (or palm sugar syrup if you have it), some fish sauce and mix gently.

I added some homemade tamarind paste (don’t overdo it, the sourness can overpower) and a bit more fish sauce and a bit of sriracha sauce and toss some more until everything is well-blended.

Add some chopped green onions, toasted and chopped peanuts and serve with a side dish with dried thai chili flakes and real limes. This was a hit. Several platters at an office lunch were inhaled in minutes. We did this again at home (the slightly fancier version with shrimp and nuts) to good results as well. A large serving of pad thai is all we had for lunch yesterday. Followed by a macapuno tart/parcel, also homemade, of course. :)

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“Takaw mata” is a great Filipino phrase. I’m not sure what the english equivalent would be. “Visually triggered over-ordering”? At any rate, at the same roadside eatery we stopped at outside Bangkok where we had three plates of pad thai in this previous post, we also ordered three plates of fried rice. Yes, we were hungry.

Into a wok with oil go the eggs, then chicken and sliced carrots…

…some sliced onions…

…cabbage and other greens and toss well.

Add three plates of previously cooked and cooled rice.

Soy sauce, fish sauce, possibly tamarind paste, sugar and some other spices.

Garnish with some chopped green onions and sliced cucumber. Yum. Delicious.

The post Thai Fried Rice appeared first on Market Manila.

Over several decades, I have tried at least 100 different pad thais around the world, and at least 20 of them were consumed in Bangkok, but without a doubt, this particular pad thai was the most memorable, and in my opinion, the best pad thai I have EVER eaten. And I will readily admit it was probably not the most authentic, the most classic, the most approved standardized recipe, but that’s truly beside the point. Often, the best, in a subjective opinion, is the confluence of food, experience, setting, friends and family with you, hunger levels, etc. that all conspire to yield that moment of culinary brilliance, which is then burned into one’s memory banks and it is so vivid you will probably never duplicate the experience again.

Many months ago we traveled to Bangkok, mostly to eat and relax and recharge… We scored some free airline tickets on points plus some budget fares and we brought three of our crew from home, as well as a couple of managers from Cebu. We ventured out of Bangkok to ride elephants and our daughter played with tiger cubs and, utterly famished, at around 2pm or so, our van driver said he could take us to a place nearby for some lunch. We stopped at this open air eatery, right beside a main road, and to Mrs. MM’s dubious looks, I watched as the lady behind the wok cooked, and somehow, I instinctively knew we were going to have a spectacular meal. My COS (Chief of Stuff) A, our Transport Manager (read: Driver) A, and our Head Chef at Home (read: Cook) A, at the first table waiting to eat something. Yes, all their names start with an “A”… :)

Mis en place. And a COMPLETE absence of flies, despite the fish sauce and other pungent and sweet ingredients.

Notice that this set-up was literally beside the road. :)

Into a wok with oil, the proprietor cracked three eggs and swirled them around roughly. She wanted the eggs lightly scrambled, but not uniformly mixed.

Once the eggs were done, she added what looked like chopped chicken breast meat (as opposed to dark meat) and sautéed this a bit. This was a revelation. She didn’t want to brown and toughen the chicken meat’s surface, rather just gently cook it through.

Next she placed soaked rice noodles (thinner than the ones you usually see in pad thai) into boiling water for a few seconds, drained them, and added them to the wok.

Add some gorgeous bean sprouts…

…turn away for 5 seconds to chop up some green onions…

…add that to the wok with some sugar, what was probably a bit of msg, some tamarind paste and perhaps some fish sauce…

…copious amounts of a mild sriracha sauce (she added more after this) and mix well…

…and VOILA! First dish for lunch. Note the lack of shrimp, the chopped peanuts, and I can’t recall if she even put garlic or shallots in the oil before the eggs, but let me tell you, this was a SPECTACULAR pad thai.

Thank goodness we ordered three plates to share between 7 people. I could have eaten a portion all by myself if nothing else was forthcoming…

Maybe 30% of my love for the dish is that I got to see how it was made. It was so simple, so honest, so modest, and I know, so difficult to replicate at home. And the other thing about this wonderful dish? It cost about $1-1.50!!

The drink of choice, of course, was a classic bottle of Coke. Heaven.

P.S. Don’t ask me where this was, because the closest I can get to describing it was roughly an hour or more outside Bangkok, by the side of a road. :)

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I had three precious packages of oxtails that I had been meaning to turn into an Indonesian “Sop Buntot” or oxtail soup, but weeks had passed and I never got around to it. So yesterday I decided to try out a new recipe, which is nothing more than an oxtail stew really, de-boned, and turned into a pasta sauce. It turned out beautifully for relatively little effort (except for the de-boning which fortunately, I didn’t have to do myself).

First take several kilos (I think I used some 3-3.5 kilos) worth of oxtails and place them in pre-heated pans in a highly pre-heated 450F oven. Toss them in some olive oil and salt and pepper first before tossing them onto the pre-heated pans. You can brown them in a pan on the stove-top as well, but the oven just seemed so much easier, since I needed the oven later in the process anyway. It will take some 25-30 minutes to brown the oxtails nicely (which I was just shy of in the photos here) and remove some of the excess fat. Please don’t ask me what’s wrong with my camera, it’s a sore point, and I think it’s refusing to focus properly and could be the third or fourth casualty of the over 220,000 photos taken for this blog over the past 12+ years…

While you are browning the oxtails, into a large enameled pot, add some olive oil, chopped garlic, chopped leeks, whole small shallots, celery, carrots and salt and pepper and let this saute for about 10-15 minutes until softened nicely. Deglaze the pan with a cup or so of red wine and add in the browned oxtails, salt and pepper, some fresh rosemary, thyme and bay leaves if you have them in the yard (or dried if not). You can also add some ground cloves but it’s optional.

Add two tins of chopped or whole tomatoes, two tins of (or homemade if you have it) of beef broth, a tin of water to just about cover the oxtails and other goodies. Cover this, bring to a boil and then place in a 320F oven for some 4+ hours until the meat is so tender it’s just easy to take it off the bone.

Discard all the bones and return everything to the pot and adjust your seasoning. At this point, it looked like I had too much meat and too little sauce, so you may want to opt to add three tins of tomatoes instead (I am a saucy type). If you like some heat, you can add some dried chili flakes and bring this back to simmering temperature.

Serve with polenta or do as we did, over fettuccine noodles and sprinkled with lots of freshly grated parmesan cheese. It was delicious. Rich, unctuous, comforting, familiar but special all at the same time. I can see using the leftovers (there are a LOT!) for very chi-chi sloppy Guiseppe (hahaha) or even with some good old steamed rice. Overall, this required relatively little effort and it was the perfect Sunday afternoon to cook and I even managed to fit in a two-hour massage while the dish was in the oven! :)

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This dish was unexpectedly rich and flavorful. On first glance, you might expect a toned down flavor profile, but wait till you taste your first bite! Boil a large pot of water and add lots of salt then your mini-penne to cook roughly 9-10 minutes. Meanwhile, take out a food processor…

…and add in some home-made oven roasted tomatoes that are still a bit moist. I flavored our tomatoes with salt, olive oil and some dried oregano. I also added some toasted Italian pine nuts, freshly grated parmesan cheese and some of the olive oil we used to store the tomatoes in. Add a bit of salt (not too much as the cheese can be salty) and lots of cracked black pepper. If you had some garlic confit or slow-cooked garlic that would work well here as well. Blitz this all until it has a classic pesto texture. This one is a bit thick, but don’t fret, you can thin it later when mixing with the pasta.

When the pasta is cooked, drain it, saving some of the pasta water, and toss it with the tomato pesto adding some pasta water if it looks like it needs it. Add some grated cheese and chopped Italian parsley and serve hot. The rich pesto finds its way in to the holes of the pasta and this makes for a delicious pasta that is so incredibly easy to make.

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A few weeks before Christmas, a neighbor sent over a head of puntarelle, an Italian green that’s related to chicory with a unique, slightly bitter taste. We were headed on a trip a day or two later, so we had to eat it pronto and this is the simple Italian lunch we put on the table. It’s been two years since I’ve had any puntarelle, here, also sent by the same generous neighbor, M. We just washed, cleaned and sliced it before an hour long rest in an iced water bath, then dried and dressed with an anchovy, olive oil and lemon dressing.

I made a really quick clam sauce pasta from canned (GASP!) clam meat I bought at S&R. I don’t know what came over me but I bought a couple of tins of canned chopped clam meat, and you know what? It wasn’t too bad at all! I know it’s best to use fresh whole clean clams but sometimes that’s a tall order in Manila, and I was intrigued by the shortcut, and have use bottled clam juice for other purposes before. So I jazzed it up/doctored it with white wine, some herbs and good olive oil, and the resulting dish was more than edible, we nearly finished the entire serving between the two of us! Sometimes, lazy is good. :)

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