Coffee Safari

Today I went with friends on a coffee safari.  No, we didn't hop from one coffee shop to another!  We were invited to a coffee-tasting at a friend's home.  The coffees, however, came from exotic locales - where the best coffees grow.

I had no idea my friend Dante was a member of a local coffee club.  As you can guess, he doesn't have coffee at coffee shops because he enjoys making his own at home.  He has a collection of coffee gadgets, ranging from grinders, to roasters, to French presses and espresso machines!  He buys international single-origin coffee beans from a trusted source, and only roasts 250g of beans at a time.  He grinds his beans just before making his coffee, in order to take advantage of the beans' freshly-released flavor and aroma.

We had, in order:  Peruvian, Ethiopian dry-process (where the coffee berries dry in the sun naturally, as opposed to wet-process where the berries are hulled and the beans are dried separately), Jamaican Blue Mountain, Panama La Esmeralda Gesha and Ethiopian Harar coffees.  Plus an Ethiopian dry-process Americano (1:1 espresso and water).

Dante used the hand drip coffee method.  I was wondering if the ceramic dripper was available locally, and found out it was being sold at Craft Coffee Workshop along Broadway Ave. in New Manila, Quezon City.  It's also available in different sizes , along with other coffee accessories, on Amazon.com.

The coffees all had a wonderful aroma, each different from the other.  The aroma of the ground coffee was much stronger than that of the whole roasted beans.  I wish I had taken tasting notes, but I don't know the terms.  Dante arranged the progression of flavors in terms of complexity and body.  I guess it would be like how a sommelier arranges wines to complement a dinner.  We tried each coffee black, then with some muscovado sugar, then with non-dairy creamer.  All the coffees were very good, but the Jamaican Blue Mountain and Panama La Esmeralda Gesha were particularly delicious.  Sublime.  (Jude, to me:  "So, did you hear the choir of angels yet?" With my mouth full of coffee, all I could do was nod and smile.)

Yes, we had a LOT of coffee, in small cups, not the big American-size mugs.  We were served pan de sal (soft breakfast buns), with our choice of filling - butter, strawberry jam, peanut butter and Spanish-style sardines.  We also had a lot of water on the side, to cleanse our palates.  You would think that all that caffeine would render me into a quivering mess, but I checked my hands and they didn't shake.  Dante explains that when coffee has been made properly, you get the flavor of the coffee without too much of the caffeine.  To prove his point, he served me and Christine an Americano each, made of the Ethiopian dry-process beans.    My sixth coffee, but in a tiny double espresso cup.  I felt extraordinarily alert, but I felt great!  No palpitations.

Of course, this isn't something I'd do on a daily basis.  I don't think I'd ever get to experience that in a commercial coffee shop, or even in a hotel.  It was such a treat (thank you so much, Dante)!  I learned so much about coffee that I never knew before.

I like to support Philippine coffee bean producers.  My usual coffee at home is Arabica from the Cordilleras or Liberica from Batangas ("barako"), so Dante suggested I try the local coffee brand Monks' Blend.   It's produced by Benedictine monks from the Monastery of the Transfiguration in Malaybalay, Bukidnon.  We have an active Philippine Coffee Board, so maybe one day I'll work my way through the different local coffees, which I see being sold in organic weekend markets, food trade fairs and sustainable lifestyle stores like Echo Store.

Dining at Bale Dutung

When our American friend Tom said he'd finally visit the Philippines last August, Carlos immediately organized a trip to the province of Pampanga, complete with a ten-course lunch at Claude and Mary Ann Tayag's restaurant, Bale Dutung.

"Bale Dutung" means "house of wood".  If this house looks somewhat familiar, it's because it was featured in Anthony Bourdain's Philippines episode on No Reservations.  Here's the Pampanga clip on Youtube, showing artist and chef Claude Tayag's restaurant.

Mary Ann Tayag welcomed the seven of us warmly.  We had to call ahead and reserve, so the Tayags could put us together with another small group in order to make the 12-head minimum.  We chose the "Anthony Bourdain menu", which referred to an all-Kapampangan lineup of dishes.  As each dish was served, Mary Ann would annotate, explaining the origins and flavors of each dish.

A salad of wild ferns and tomatoes topped with half a soft-boiled egg.

Grilled chicken buttons (it's the behind, folks!) with brown rice.

Quail stewed in soy sauce, garlic and vinegar (adobo), with egg pan de sal.

Lechon taco.  Each diner is served only one ( in order for them to be able to appreciate the rest of the ten-course meal properly), but the fixings are buffet style.

Beef bone marrow.  You get a wooden popsicle stick to scoop out the delicious marrow, plus a straw to help you get all the juices.

A thick guava-flavored soup called "bulanglang", featuring "ulang" (large river prawns).  There's a small serving of plain rice inside the banana leaf package.

Seafood kare-kare (a stew with peanut sauce).

The courses I didn't photograph were the appetizers (crackers and dip made of homemade herb pesto, "taba ng talangka" or crab fat, and "balao-balao" or fermented rice flavored with shrimps); the coffee and dessert (maja blanca with corn and young coconut).

The meal took us four hours to consume!  It was amazing how we could all still stand up at the end of it all.  Claude visited our table and signed the books we bought.  He and Mary Ann co-authored the book Linamnam, a regional food guide to the Philippines (Anvil Publishing, 2011).  Claude also styled Kulinarya (A Guidebook to Philippine Cuisine), by Glenda Rosales Barretto.

Was it worth it?  Foreign visitors and locals who aren't too familiar with Pampanga cuisine (like myself) can definitely check this menu out.  Some of the dishes were known quantities with a distinctly Pampanga/Tayag twist.  Some, like the balao-balao dip and the guava-redolent bulanglang, were exotic. If that doesn't strike your fancy, there are also other menus to choose from.  I truly enjoyed Mary Ann's entertaining and informative spiels, and learned a lot about Pampanga's rich history and culture through its food.

What to do after an afternoon of eating?  We decided we all wanted a richer dessert, and went all the way to Kabigting's a few towns away in Arayat, for white halo-halo (with pastillas milk candy instead of ube jam)!

Thank you, Tom, for visiting the Philippines, because if it weren't for you, we wouldn't have thought of going on this Pampanga food tour!

Theo & Philo Artisan Chocolates

I've bought Theo & Philo artisan chocolates three times in the last month alone. My family and I end up enjoying it before I even think of taking photographs. The Green Mango & Salt bar above is the remaining bar in my stash. It's my favorite flavor: unique and very Filipino in taste. The pretty packaging proclaims: "By the Philippines, For the Philippines, Of the Philippines." What's not to like?

I found out about Theo & Philo from my friend and neighbor Karlo, via Google+. He recommended I get it from Echo Store in Podium, which sells sustainable, eco-friendly and proudly-Filipino products. Now I am a sucker for quality local products - I comb trade fairs for products like this. The website says the cacao is from Davao and the sugar, from Bacolod. I just HAD to try it.

On my first purchase, I chose Dark Chocolate and Labuyo (chili) flavors. The Dark Chocolate was of very high quality. It had depth, and a delicious, bittersweet flavor. The following day we tried the Labuyo. It was Dark Chocolate with an appealing, spicy end note which everyone (with the exception of my 6yo niece) enjoyed. Apparently it's one of the bestsellers in the Theo & Philo lineup of flavors. On my second purchase a week later, I got Milk Chocolate and Green Mango & Salt. I'm not a very big fan of generic milk chocolates per se, but was glad that this version had a high cacao content and wasn't very sweet. The Green Mango & Salt was a happy surprise. There were dried bits of green mango interspersed with occasional rock salt crystals in a Dark Chocolate matrix. I loved the contrast in flavors and textures! On my third purchase a couple of weeks later, I bought TWO Green Mango & Salt bars, and one flavored with Barako coffee. Embedded in the Dark Chocolate were crushed bits of roasted Barako (Liberica) coffee beans. Crunchy-gritty, with the full flavor of coffee. Another winner!

They make wonderful gifts, don't they? Christmas is coming and I'm already thinking of who to give them to. I've posted about them on Facebook and by now a number of my friends have tried them too. I've already given some balikbayan friends a selection of flavors. In fact, I'm looking for Calamansi and Ginger for my next purchase. Echo Store doesn't always carry all the flavors (it depends on the delivery, and of course some flavors are more popular than others), but you will be able to find them in these stores. Each bar is PhP 95, and so worth it.

I'm so happy with such a quality product - it's definitely worth our support.

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I'm not affiliated with Echo Store, but am a regular customer.

Rapture at Mercato, Cocowonder

While the world was supposed to be ending, Joy, Tristan and I were out hunting for organic and fair trade products at Cocowonder and the Mercato Centrale weekend market.

Cocowonder is an exporter of virgin coconut oil based in Makati. Joy was researching on VCO in an attempt to find cost-effective organic local or fair trade products for cosmetic and internal use (hair, face and body). She bought culinary grade and raw VCO (both cold-pressed), VCO hair conditioner and body wash, amino seasoning, nectar and cocoa tablea. Local sellers at various trade fairs don't label their products very carefully, and oftentimes can't answer detailed questions, so she found the Cocowonder site very useful.

I've tried VCO massage oils in the past, but this time I finally tried the culinary grade VCO as a facial night moisturizer (a tiny amount goes a long way) . It's only been a couple of days, but I notice it's absorbed quickly by my skin and it seems to be successful on my dry problem areas (more on this in a future blog entry). It doesn't have that off-putting bukayo smell, just an initial faint scent of nutty baked goods, which eventually fades. As a family we're trying to use more natural products, so this is right up our alley.

We arrived at Mercato just before noon, and decided to have lunch at the al fresco dining area. It's fun to walk around before deciding what to eat - there were so many yummy choices! We shared a quarter-pound burger from Monster Burger, delicious grilled sausages, some very tasty prawn-bacon and kani-bacon skewers, cheesy baby potatoes and stuffed tomatoes, washed down with icy cold cantaloupe juice. I don't have any pictures since we were so hungry we ate it all. Only then were we fortified enough to browse in the market.

Since our last visit was only 2 Saturdays ago, we didn't really buy a lot this time. I bought more different brands/varieties of whole coffee beans from the National Coffee Board stall. One was from the Mt. Apo area (Altura Blend, a Dizon Farms coffee). Continental Coffee is a CAFEX brand, which is a local coffee they serve at McCafe's nationwide. I was curious about Culinary Exchange's Embarcadero Blend, which has beans from Northern Luzon and the Visayas. There's coffee from Mt. Kanlaon which I mean to buy next time (I didn't get it because it was already ground) - I tried the coffee sample they served me and it was very good. Joy bought Ifugao Heirloom brown rice, and wasabi vinaigrette from Comida Rica. One day we'll go on a Sunday morning instead of a Saturday, bring our parents and have lunch.

"Fate could not harm us, for we have dined today." - Sidney Smith (1855)

Food Trip - Mercato & Sweetcraft

My sister and brother-in-law were going to the Mercato Centrale weekend market at Bonifacio Global City, and invited me to join them. It was my first time to visit Mercato, I heard it was similar to the Salcedo and Legaspi markets, only in tents. We were very excited.

Joy found some organic sweet corn that she wanted to try. At the same stall a guy was selling a gigantic sunflower head full of seeds. I had never seen one before up close. The heads were going for PhP500 each, and he'd sold 3 heads already. We were looking for fresh mint for tabbouleh, a Lebanese bulghur wheat salad, but there wasn't any available. A few tables further down I found some fair trade coffee beans, a "Red Cherry Blend" from Mt. Apo, and got some of that (the name refers to coffee beans picked at the height of ripeness). I've been trying different coffees from all over the country for some time now, so I couldn't resist. Next was a table selling bangus pate in different versions - Asian, Mediterranean and Pinoy. Joy got a pack of 3 to give as a birthday gift. Then we met Vicky of Comida Rica, who sold melba toast, salad dressings and dips. I got a spinach cheese dip to go with the crusty No Knead Bread we bake every other week. When we mentioned we baked our own bread, Vicky said she wanted to try it at home, and exchanged emails with Joy. From her we got a tip that we could get different kinds of flour wholesale at Sweetcraft in Mandaluyong. We decided we'd go there after shopping.

At the next tent Tristan decided to buy a pair of buy one-take one sausage sandwiches. He had the Schublig and special hotdog sandwiches, which he claimed were the best he's had in a long time. Joy met a Moroccan lady selling tagine clay cookware and various Moroccan dishes. She bought zalouk, a spicy eggplant salad flavored with paprika and other spices. Next to that table there was an importer of nuts - walnuts, almonds, pecans, pistachios, even dried fruits. Joy bought a package of assorted nuts, and I found myself a pack of lavender tea. I use lavender tea for relaxation and to help me sleep when I'm under the weather. The last place I was able to find lavender tea was at Bizu in Greenhills, and since I ran out I haven't had a chance to buy some more, until now. As we walked along we came across a frozen yoghurt seller, who urged us to try their mango, black sesame and green tea flavors. We discovered their office was near our house, and thought we'd order from them the next time we have a children's party. Their frozen yoghurt still had that tangy tartness I love so much and which seems to be missing from some over-processed brands in the malls. On our way out of the tent I paused to buy some tinapa (smoked fish) and Vigan longganisa (Ilocano sausages) for next week's breakfasts. Then we discovered some absolutely delicious spinach and cheese empanadas! We bought enough for the entire family's merienda.

There were tables for cooked food, organic grains and vegetables, baked goods, organic body care and household cleaning products. We were a bit disappointed that our chef friend Elena wasn't around selling her artisanal breads, but we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. Having blowers fanning air all around us in the tents made the experience a pleasure. (In this heat I can't imagine going to Salcedo market, which is open air.) On Sundays and during the night markets there is a different set of vendors. One day we will return and have lunch at the "food court" area, where the stalls were groaning with delicious food, some of which were exotic or were international dishes. These weekend markets aren't really places for bargains, but rather places to find new and interesting (and mostly organic) products, for which a certain premium must be paid. Visiting Mercato is a treat, as opposed to going to the way less expensive fresh market weekly. Of course we're going back, there's always something new to try another time.

Once we got back to the car, we immediately called Sweetcraft for directions to their outlet along Boni Ave. in Mandaluyong. It is across the street from Rizal Technological University. The wholesale prices of their flours saved us money and parking fees. They carry everything from flours to baking chocolate to whipping cream to nuts to every baking/confectionery ingredient you can think of. We were lucky to have been referred by Vicky, who claimed that Sweetcraft ingredients were at a lower price than at Baker's Depot and similar baking supply shops. We're excited to be baking again middle of this week. Sweetcraft is at 373 Boni Ave., Mandaluyong City, tel nos. 532-1595, 532-6289, 571-8008, 571-7858, email sweetcraft@sweetcraft.net.

No Knead Bread, Redux

We've been baking our own bread for 3 weeks now. Just two kinds, the ones I wrote about in Baking Our Own Bread. My brother-in-law Tristan managed to borrow another Lodge cast iron Dutch oven from his parents. We thought we'd save on the fuel by baking two loaves of No Knead Bread at the same time.

Last Thursday night my little niece Lilo mixed all the ingredients together for two recipes' worth of NK Bread. One was a mix of all-purpose flour and a bit of whole wheat flour, while the other one used a mix of bread flour and whole wheat flour. This time we lessened the water from 1 1/2 cup to 1 1/4 cup, producing a less runny, but still sticky dough. The next day we put the dough on some greased foil for its second rise, and put the whole thing in the preheated cast iron pots. This made it easier to remove the bread safely.

Next time we'll try not using the greased foil and will pour the dough directly from a greased bowl. Small bits of foil got stuck in tiny creases in the bread, which were a PITA to remove. But on the whole, I thought the loaves looked delicious. This time we let them cool for about 45 minutes before we tasted. Some of it was a little gummy - we discovered (thanks to our new oven thermometer) that our oven only reaches a maximum heat of 400 degrees F instead of what we thought was 450. So next time we'll add about ten minutes to the covered baking time.

This IS a crusty bread. It's great for toasting and buttering. I love the crunch and the almost-popcorny flavor in my mouth with every bite. I've been having this for breakfast two days in a row now. We've finished the first loaf and a quarter of the second already. Next time we'll try the version flavored with beer and vinegar, called the Almost No Knead Bread on Breadtopia.com, with all the adjustments we've made to the recipe. While making our own sourdough is a bit beyond our powers, that ought to be interesting.

Baking Our Own Bread

For the past two weeks we've been enjoying our own bread. Two weeks ago my brother-in-law Tristan decided to make focaccia bread again after a long hiatus. He wanted a father-daughter Saturday afternoon activity with 5-year-old Lilo. So they trooped to Baker's Depot at Robinson's Galleria and bought bread flour (about PhP26/500gm), whole wheat flour (for roughly the same amount) and SAF-Instant yeast (PhP70/small pack).

This recipe is of great significance because Tristan and my sister Joy learned it when they were still dating. Their friend Elena taught them how to make focaccia and pizza dough in exchange for them being interviewees for her master's degree course at the Ateneo. (Elena is a baker and currently sells her artisanal breads at the Mercato weekend market at The Fort.) That Saturday produced several tasty small loaves flavored with rosemary, shallots and garlic that looked like this:

Needless to say, the bread was delicious toasted, with or without butter. It had a soft crumb and a lovely color from the olive oil spread on top of the loaves before the last ten minutes of baking.

Next Joy wanted to make No Knead Bread. New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman popularized the recipe, by Jim Lahey of the Sullivan Street Bakery, in 2006. We saw chef Michael Smith make his version on his Asian Food Channel show Chef at Home. What convinced us was Jaden Hair's Steamy Kitchen blog entry, showing her cute then-4-year-old son Andrew assembling the dough. We are 5 years late to the baking-and-blogging NK Bread party, but then we only acquired a Lodge 5-quart cast iron Dutch oven some time last year (it was on sale at Gourdo's, for something like PhP 2,500). The recipe requires a sturdy, heat-resistant baking vessel with a close-fitting cover, usually a heavy enamel casserole pot or a cast iron Dutch oven. It should be able to withstand 450 degrees F for an hour or so. The blog 80 Breakfasts even tells us of a brave soul who made her NK Bread in a crockpot body covered with a ceramic plate, then baked inside a turbo broiler. Talk about ingenuity.

We started after dinner one night and left the dough to rise overnight, producing a wetter dough than you see in the video or in the Steamy Kitchen blog. See the blow-by-blow pictures here. We're not sure if it has something to do with the high humidity in the Philippines. Next time we'll reduce the water from 1 1/2 cups to 1 1/4 cups. We'll also use foil or baking parchment as a base when the dough undergoes its second rise; that way we can put the entire thing in the extremely hot cast iron Dutch oven safely. Letting the dough fall from the floured towel made a huge plop that deflated the dough. It also left some dough on the towel that was hard to scrape off (if you took all that trouble to prepare the dough, you wouldn't want to lose some of it to the towel!). However, we ended up with an interesting 9"-round rustic whole wheat loaf that rose some 2 1/2 inches. We should have waited for it to cool completely, but we were too impatient. The bread had a tasty crust and a hole-y crumb.

We slathered it in butter and nearly finished it in one sitting! We managed to leave a bit to go with the seafood chowder we had for dinner that same night. Yes, we're making it again. I read through many other bloggers' experiences with the recipe and we will make adjustments accordingly. We'd love for the bread to rise higher, but that would require a smaller, narrower (3-4 quart) Dutch oven.

Many Filipinos prefer their bread soft and sweet, but we rather like the No Knead Bread precisely for the difference of its texture and flavor. It reminds us of French or Italian country breads, the boules and batards, the kind you toast and use to scrape up your delicious soup or gravy. The kind you dip in a mix of herbed olive oil and balsamic vinegar and enjoy as an appetizer. The kind you have toasted, spread with butter and honey for breakfast, because it doesn't need much else. As an idea, it has romantic charm. The tasty reality is a very good thing.

We're eager to try other bread recipes, of course. The cost of liquid petroleum gas is up, but baking our own bread is worth it.

Lunch at Kiss The Cook Cafe

I don't do reviews because people ask me to. I only review if I find the venue and the dining a convivial experience. Yes, Waya Araos is my friend, but I did check the reviews of other Facebook friends before taking my parents to her restaurant Kiss The Cook Cafe for a Sunday lunch.

Here's my dad, itching to pour the Passionfruit Cooler (carafe contents are good for 3 persons) but waiting patiently for me to take my photo. There's a slice of lemon and a sprig of mint in there, and that touch adds a smile to my face (added a dimension to the flavor, too). Very refreshing!

The chicken in this Thai Chicken Salad with Mango is grilled, skinless, but flavorful! There is something spicy at the end of one's mouthful that I can't identify. Two different colored lettuces and tiny gherkin cucumbers make it look pretty. Those long sprouts look like alfalfa. Quite good, can be a meal for one, or great to share.

This is the Moroccan Fish Fillet, a dish of pan-fried dory. A balanced meal on the plate. Fried crisp on the outside, tender on the inside, salting was just right. I don't know exactly what makes it Moroccan, but it tasted good. Maybe it's the olives and the citrus bits scattered on top. In hotels people usually get the thickish slab of fish fillets, but here you have the pretty slab stacked on the little fried bits towards the tail, and lemme tell you, the crunchy bits are yummy! The rice had green sprinkles that looked like powdered nori on top (for umami of the natural, non-crystalline kind).

This probably looks like the average panini with a side salad. However, the ciabatta bread in this panini is a lovely crusty BIG square cut into triangles. Most panini are served in smaller, narrower shapes. The filling is button mushrooms sauteed with chopped white onions and made tastily aromatic with truffle oil, and thin slices of cheese (unspecified, looks like ordinary but real cheddar). Truffle oil is the ingredient that sets this apart from your usual mushroom and cheese sandwich. Truffle oil makes this a fine dining mushroom melt!

And to finish, we had not one, but TWO panna cottas: Mango with Honey, and Espresso. Both are well-flavored, and sweet, but not too sweet. You get the acid of the mango tamed by the honey, and you taste the full flavor of the espresso.

There were three of us sharing this meal, and it was so good that the waiter was pleased to see our empty plates. My dad was shocked to see that the bill for 3 persons was only Php750! PhP250 per head is good for when you want to want to go out on a date or when you want the girlfriends over for a chat. The place is relatively quiet, with discreet jazz or instrumentals playing in the background. You can actually talk with your companions. The restroom is outside the airconditioned area, where there is a little patio/terrace shaded by a fruiting langka tree, for those who smoke or want to have drinks and laughter.

Would I return? Definitely, because I still have to taste the Five-Spice Spare Ribs. And the pasta with the mushrooms and the truffle oil (yes, I now have a thing for truffle oil).

Recommended attire for meals is smart casual. Prices include 12% VAT but there is no service charge. Am not sure if they accept credit cards yet as they just opened some weeks ago, but they do give senior citizen discounts. There are usually two servers at any given time, and while relatively inexperienced, they serve you correctly and quietly. We gave ours a good tip, for we had dined well, and were feeling happily indestructible after our lunch.

Kiss The Cook Cafe is located at 59 Maginhawa St., UP Village, QC, in front of Holy Family School. For inquiries, please call tel. 434-3700 or 0926-7003979.

Omnivore Galore

Today a few foodie-related things took place, which cheered me up no end.

My sister's stovetop espresso maker, a single-serve pot, resurfaced after 12 years! She bought the espresso maker, an Italian brand, when she was still single. After she got married it was lost in storage, until we had some major spring cleaning (due to typhoon relief and general de-cluttering). I finally learned how to make espresso - with warnings to keep my eye on the pot, as the process took all of three quick minutes.

Let me tell you, the smell was fantastic. I warmed up some low-fat milk in a Pyrex measuring cup and with the resulting espresso I made my very own latte! And I got a really lovely full- bodied flavor from the espresso, better than if I had used my usual coffee press method! I drink coffee more for pleasure than for the caffeine high, so this morning ritual is perfect for me (now that I wake up early).

My sister returned from Santi's delicatessen before lunch with a huge bag of sundried tomatoes. I can foresee a lot of yummy pasta in our near future!

Later this afternoon, our maid returned from maternity leave. She came from my mom's home town in Negros bearing three products we requested from my uncle: San Enrique rock salt (a really lovely salt for cooking), guinamos (lightly salted fresh tiny shrimp used as a condiment and seasoning for many foods) and batuan (a green fruit the size of a pingpong ball, sour enough to flavor our sinigang).

And this concludes my happy foodie day :) I hope your day has been tasty as well.

Cassava Bibingka

The other day our cook came upon a treasure trove of cassava at the fresh market. She decided to make one of our favorite comfort foods, cassava bibingka. We like this particular recipe because it reminds us of the cassava bibingka we used to buy from the UP Shopping Center from Aling Mary, way back when I was a kid. Aling Mary's bibingka had lots of salty cheese and had a dry-ish topping to counteract the sweetness. We've adjusted the recipe below (our version in parentheses) to reflect that. I'd like to credit the book this recipe came from, but I believe it was photocopied from someone else's recipe book.

Cassava Bibingka by Mariquita Villanueva Adriano (from a photocopy)

Ingredients:

3 eggs
2 cups sugar (home version: 1 cup sugar only)
3 cups thick coconut milk
1 cup evaporated milk
7 cups raw cassava, grated
1/4 cup butter, melted
young buko strips (optional)
banana leaves for lining pan (optional)

For the topping:

1 cup thick coconut milk
2 tablespoons flour
1 can condensed milk
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons grated cheese (or more, to taste. Use salty cheddar or a mix of leftovers.)

Recipe: Serves 12

1. Beat eggs and sugar till lemon colored. Add the rest of the ingredients. Pour into a greased 9" x 9" pan lined with banana leaves. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit / 175 degrees Celsius for 40 minutes.

2. Mix coconut milk with the flour. Add condensed milk and cook over medium heat till thick. Add egg yolks and mix well. Return to heat and cook 5 minutes more. Pour over baked bibingka, sprinkle with grated cheese and broil till golden brown.

I posted this because people asked on Facebook. Enjoy!

Because I'm Hungry

... I would like to share with you guys a snippet of Anthony Bourdain's street food tour of Binondo, Manila (Chinatown!), courtesy of TravelChannelTV.  Many other bloggers have blogged about it already, but I think there are still some people who were not able to watch the No Reservations episodes of Bourdain's visit aired early this year, so these are for you (especially Uncle Oca and TAO):

And here's a series of links of Tony with my favorite Pinoy foodblogger MarketMan, discovering what he now refers to as the best whole roast pig in the world!  Many thanks to pinoyapparel01 on Youtube.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

You enjoy while I go have lunch now.

Flavors of Happiness

AH1N1 virus just hit the Senate. Typhoon Feria just smashed through Bicol. Iranian pro-reform protesters were getting shot on Tehran streets. North Korea threatens to launch nuclear weapons against the US. Perez Hilton called will.i.am a faggot, and made a stupid ass of himself. My friends are getting addicted to Facebook games and quizzes. The day... well, the day was just too glum.

Then Tristan arrives and announces that he and Joy were having lunch in Amici. Would I like to join? For someone who's been snacking almost daily on cheese this past week I couldn't say no. Normally Amici (Megamall Atrium) fills up easily, but classes were suspended today and it was a slow retail midweek. Tristan had a "Salsiccia" or Italian sausage panini while Joy and I shared a cheese and spinach cannelloni and a "Polpete" (meatballs) dish. Excellent comfort food.

We were seated next to the gelato counter. Normally my top choices would be Nocciola (hazelnuts), Gianduja (chocolate hazelnut), mint chocolate. This time I wanted to try something different, because the strawberry gelato (with lots of real frozen strawberries!) was looking mighty fine. Tristan picked the mint chocolate, and Joy picked the blueberry.

I am physically and emotionally soothed by ice cream. "Why do dairy products have that lovely anesthetic effect on me?" What an exquisite strawberry gelato it was! It was sweet, but creamy and subtle, with hints of tartness in the frozen fruit. Joy was making little humming sounds over her blueberry. "There's a light floral aftertaste in the back of the tongue," she said, "it tastes like I'm in a garden..."

"It tastes like summer," I declared, "like... happiness." Tristan, enjoying the mint chocolate, said, "It's like getting Andes chocolates for Christmas! Happiness!"

Next time I'm having the Mango Jubilee, first recommended to me by Hector. Joy wants to try something highly unlikely, the Pineapple. Tristan, well, it depends on his mood.

We were waxing rhapsodic about the gelato, but when Joy said, "Where can you get something like this for just PhP50!" the two women at the next table started eyeing the counter. As we left their eyes were shining with anticipation.

"Fate cannot harm us, for we have dined well today," quoth a famous pundit. Take that, bad news.

Luna, La Union - Food Trip

A third of the family opted to sleep near the bonfire, under the stars. They awoke to a rosy dawn on the cool stones.

My dad decided to work up a good appetite, heading to the beach. After breakfast, he and his cousins went off to see some vendors about some yellowfin tuna for lunch. This handsome specimen weighed 22kg. The ladies obliged by preparing and weighing the fish. We bought about 10kg, for sinigang, kilawen and grilling.

We were also able to enjoy a summer's bounty of various fruits, as the balikbayans had not tasted some of the more exotic ones for years. There were Indian mangoes, bananas, oranges, chicos, guayabanos (soursops), and passionfruit. The colors of the fruit, against the warm wood of the table, against the grey stones, made each shot a still life.

Many were quite pleased to see a salad seaweed, "ar-arosep" or "lato" on the table. Its grape-like clusters had some crunch and left a pleasing, mild, briny flavor on the tongue.

Here's some delicious grilled eggplant, mixed with some sliced mild shallots, tomatoes and the local vinegar, for a salad. The region's bagoong, a sauce of fermented, salted fish, was also served as an optional seasoning.

Some horned "cowfish" were also grilled in between damp flat bamboo slats tied together with wire. Their firm white flesh was sweet.

We used our hands, foregoing the spoons and forks, and somehow the food tasted better. There was something about the salt air, and being with the people we loved that made it a feast to remember.