Arroz Caldo

Since the New Year was also upon us and also because TC was coming down with a cold...I decided to make Arroz Caldo. This is a chicken & rice porridge (for lack of a better word) cooked with ginger. My mom used to make this when we were sick. She also made this traditionally on New Year's Eve, along with palitao .


Arroz Caldo

Ingredients:

5 tbsp vegetable oil
4 tbsp minced garlic
several pieces of ginger, cut into thick slices (depends how much you want)
1/2 large onion, peeled and diced
2 cups uncooked rice
8 cups water
2 1/2 - 3 lbs of chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces (again, I used wings & drummettes)
patis to taste
chopped green onion tops
ground black pepper

(pictured below) Lovely...bloody chicken parts...
Butchering the wings into separate pieces:
Mincing the garlic:

Here's the patis (you can even see the price on it!) and black pepper mill:

Directions:

In a pot, heat 3 tbsp of the oil and saute 2 tbsp of the garlic, the giner and the onion. The onion is done when light brown and the onion translucent.

Add the chicken and add the cover. Let it steam for several minutes (stirring occasionally) until the chicken is no longer bloody.

According to the recipe book, I was supposed to add the rice and saute for 5 minutes before adding the water. I didn't.

I used a different recipe book this time. In the past, I've never sauteed the raw rice. Anyhow, I poured in the water. Let the mixture come to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Continue cooking for 30 minutes or until the rice is done.

As you wait for the rice to cook, make yourself useful and heat the remaining oil in a skillet and fry the remaining minced garlic until it is golden brown. Set aside.

Ahh...golden brown garlicky goodness (except for some big pieces there...oops).

When the rice is finally cooked, add the fish sauce and continue cooking over lowheat for another 3-5 minutes. Serve in a soup tureen or soup bowls. Sprinkle the fried garlic, chopped scallion, and freshly ground black pepper on top. This is SUPPOSED to serve 4 people, but it serves more!

This is what Arroz Caldo looks like ungarnished (it still tastes good this way):

and here it is with garnish...

I put my Arroz Caldo in this Corning Ware dish that we hardly use:

My mom would use all kinds of chicken pieces. For example, she would cut the wing and thigh pieces in half which I didn't like because the bone fragments would be floating around; those were not fun to encounter while eating! Ronin said he makes his arroz caldo with lemon because that is how his mother makes it...Any other variations?

White Chocolate Peppermint Bark

This is a late post. I made this White Chocolate Peppermint Bark during the holiday break for fun. I first saw a version of this recipe on Life on Manitoulin's blog. However, I couldn't find the White Baker's Chocolate it called for, so I found a similar recipe here which used Nestle's White Chocolate Chips. I thought, hmmm, easy enough.

White Chocolate Peppermint Bark

Ingredients:

1 (12 ounce) package Nestle Toll House white chocolate morsels
24 hard peppermint candies

DIRECTIONS

LINE baking sheet with waxed paper.

MICROWAVE morsels in medium, microwave-safe bowl on MEDIUM-HIGH (70 percent) power for 1 minute; stir. Microwave at additional 10- to 20-second intervals, stirring until smooth.

PLACE peppermint candies in heavy-duty plastic bag. Crush candies using rolling pin or other heavy object. While holding strainer over melted morsels, pour crushed candy into strainer. Shake to release all small candy pieces; reserve larger candy pieces. Stir morsel-peppermint mixture.

SPREAD mixture to desired thickness on prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle with reserved candy pieces; press in lightly. Let stand for about 1 hour or until firm. Break into pieces. Store in airtight container at room temperature.

One thing I would do is add a tiny bit of peppermint extract to the white chocolate. It tasted a bit plain to me. Also, I didn't use a rolling pin to smash the candies. I used this metal ice scream scooper we had and whacked those things in a zip loc baggie.
As a prime example of screwing up this easy recipe, I skipped "straining" the candies over the chocolate and dumped all the pieces in there. In retrospect, I should have dumped some, but not all of the candies. Why? The white chocolate covered the prettiness of the freshly crushed candies. I would have saved some of the bigger pieces and placed them on top of the bark as specified in the recipe!

That being said, it was relatively easy. Bert liked it, but you'd have to be a major white chocolate and peppermint fan to like this. It sure does look nice though.

Another recipe I saw on the web was pretty much the same except you dipped the broken pieces into melted milk (or you could even use dark) chocolate! Even better!

Dump Cake (try at your own risk)

When I first saw this recipe for DUMP CAKE in my Cake Mix Bible, I thought, hmmm...interesting.

I remembered seeing another version of this recipe in a book (100 TV free things to do with your toddler) I bought when TC was still small. Then, recently I saw yet another version of this in the Food issue of "Simple" magazine except it was called "Dolly Parton Dump Cake" (WTF?). Well, I decided to try it. It has the lovely name of Dump Cake because you are supposed to "dump" all the ingredients into the pan. If you like your desserts to resemble fruity slops, then this is the dessert for you. I made it for Christmas Lunch at my mom's. I ended up begging her to toss it. Not that it tasted bad (to others), but I didn't like how it looked (or tasted). The end result is kind of like a cobbler but more wet. Yeah, that sounds gross. Well, I tried it once. Seemed easy and it was. But...as Antoine Merriweather and Blaine Edwards from "Men on Film" would say, "Hated it!"

Dump Cake

Ingredients:

1 box yellow cake mix
1 can crushed pineapple
1 can blueberry filling
1 can cherry filling
1 stick of butter

Directions:

Dump the cake mix into a greased and floured 9 x 13 pan
Actually, I poured it in nicely, anal person that I am. Then, pour the crushed pineapple, including the juice on top of the cake mix.

"Dollop" the cherry pie filling on top of the pineapple topping.

Here's the whole can of cherries plopped on top of the first two ingredients.

Next, you add the can of blueberry filling. Look appetizing yet?

This is what the dessert looks like so far.

Then you get out a stick of butter and cut it into pieces and dot it on top of this concoction.

Here's a close up...

This is the end result, a bubbling, oozing dessert.

Fruit slop or delicious dessert? You decide!

Warning: Perhaps I didn't soak the yellow cake mix layer enough with the pineapple, but parts of it were still powdery! Ugh! How could I have fked this up? Aargh!

Roasted potatoes

After lunch at my parents, we had Bert's side over (sans his older brother and his family). Among the side dishes were sauteed mushrooms and roasted potatoes. Here are a few of the potatoes which I had quartered. You know...I just realized, these are the white potatoes I used for the Chicken Nillaga recipe. Oh well!

You can use any kind of potato, but for that night, I used the waxy red and white potatoes because I find russets to be too mealy.


Roasted Potatoes

Ingredients:

2 lbs small red and white potatoes (cut and up quartered )
salt
black pepper
olive oil

Directions:
Scrub, wash and dry the potatoes thoroughly.
Cut and quarter them.
Place in roasting pan or dish.
Brush tops with olive oil. I used a garlic olive oil for this recipe.
Sprinkle salt and pepper.
Roast for 40 minutes at 425 F.

By the way, this amount of time can be played with. Same thing with the temperature. You can choose to roast in less time. I wanted these potatoes to be browned so I cranked the heat a l ittle higher than normal. You can also check at the halfway point to see if they're done.


If you wish, you can garnish with rosemary, but I didn't have any.

Chicken Nillaga

I made Chicken Nillaga (boiled chicken stew) for Christmas dinner, along with Adobo and a store bought (gasp) pot roast from Costco. My side dishes were sauteed mushrooms and roasted potatoes.

Chicken Nillaga

Ingredients:
1 3 lb chicken, cut into serving pieces (I used wings & drummettes here)
8 cups of water
cut up coins of ginger (skin on)
peppercorns (whole and/or crushed)
2 tsp patis (Philippine fish sauce)
1 small quartered onion
several stalks of celery, cut into 2-inch lengths
4 medium potatoes, quartered
3-4 medium carrots, cut into big chunks
1 small cabbage, quartered


Directions:

In a large stock pot, brown chicken pieces, onions and ginger in a little bit of olive oil.
Do this until the raw chicken is no longer oozing blood (my mom's blunt terms).

When the chicken is lightly browned, add the water, patis, black peppercorns and celery. Bring to a boil. Lower the heat, cover and simmer until the chicken is tender. Add potatoes and carrots.

Simmer until tender.

Add the cabbage last and simmer until soft.

This took me about 1 hour from start to finish.

Serve hot with white rice.

Kutsinta

This is another dessert my mom made for Christmas lunch. It's called "Kutsinta" which is a brown rice cake. Kutsinta is pronounced "Koo-chin-tah". I have never made this. It seems too time consuming but my mom says this is easy. Plus, I do not have a steamer! The recipe is from "The Food of the Philippines" by Reynaldo Alejandro.

My mom used to sell tons of these cakes at her old work (back in the late 70's) for extra pocket money. She would steam racks of these in mini muffin tins when we were young. These were especially popular with her co-workers. Kutsinta is best served with fresh, grated coconut. Do not use the sweetened flaked coconut. Bad!!! Bad indeed!

My mom buys fresh coconuts and grates the damn things with this special stool. Check out the Coconut Grater Stool. Although the stool pictured is of Thai origin, Filipinos use the same thing. Because this is a time consuming dessert, my mom only makes this for very special occasions.

Kutsinta
Ingredients:

1 cup rice flour (Mochiko brand)
2 cups brown sugar
3 cups water
1 tsp lye water (potassium carbonate solution sold in Asian food stores)
Freshly grated coconut

Directions:

In a mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients and mix well. Pour into muffin pans, until halfway full. Steam in a large pan with a cover; the water should be about 2 inches deep. Cook for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Add more water if needed until cooking is done. Remove from the muffin pans and seve with freshly grated coconut.

I'm sure this recipe could be doubled. The recipe book said this onlyserved 4 (huh?)?

Espasol

This is one of the desserts my mom made for Christmas lunch. It's called Espasol (Sweet rice flour cakes). Not everyone's favorite but I like it. This recipe was taken from Reynaldo Alejandro's "The Philippine Cookbook". I'm sure my mom's recipe is similar, but I don't feel like calling her right now to check...so...

Espasol

Ingredients:

4 cups sweet rice flour (Mochiko brand)
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 cans coconut milk
1/2 tsp salt

Directions:

Toast the sweet rice flour on a cookie sheet.
Bring sugar, coconut milk and salt to a boil.
Add 3 cups toasted sweet rice flour.
Mix well and cook until thick, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat and transfer to a board well sprinkled with some of the reserved sweet rice flour.
With a rolling pin, flatten to about 1/4 inch and cut into diamond shapes.
Roll in the ramining rice flour.

Yield: 15 - 20 cakes.

Chicken Adobo

Although I posted this recipe (in my other blog) months ago, I am posting it again with photos. Chicken Adobo has got to be one of the most easiest Filipino dishes to make! I decided to make Adobo for Christmas dinner since we had lunch at my mom's. I wanted my food offerings to be different because most of the same folks who went to my mom's would be at our place at night and I didn't want to serve up my mom's leftovers (because she gave us a lot)! Here are the main ingredients (raw chicken not pictured until later):

Chicken Adobo

Ingredients:

1 3-lb chicken, cut into serving pieces (again, I used the wings & drummettes)

1/2 cup soy sauce (I used Kikkoman low sodium)

3/4 cup white vinegar (although you could also use apple cider vinegar for a sweeter taste)

1 medium onion, quartered

1 or 2 HEADS (heads, I say, NOT cloves) of crushed garlic

*optional: several sliced coins of ginger (not a traditional ingredient), skin on

3-4 bay leaves

1/2 tbsp black peppercorns

*optional: several tsp of annatto powder (also known as 'achiote' or 'atsuete') to give a reddish color. My mom does this. I tried it for this shoot but didn't put too much. I think my mom uses a lot!
Directions:

You could either brown the chicken first, or do it the easy way. Here's the easy way:
Dump ALL of the ingredients into a non-reactive pot (the vinegar in this dish will screw up the pot, so use a non stick one). Bring to a boil and simmer for half an hour. I did mine for about 40 minutes. It depends on how soft you want your chicken. Here are the chicken wing pieces. I hacked off the wing tips (to use them for a future stock) and separated the drummettes from the wings.

TIP: Once you put all of your ingredients in the pot, leave it ALONE! Resist the temptation to stir it around and mess with it. Let it simmer. Also, never add water to adobo!

After simmering the chicken, remove the chicken pieces from the pot and place in a separate serving dish.

Let the sauce in the pot boil until it is reduced by half. I am not a fan of 'wet' adobo but I don't like it super dry either.

Close up of the sauce. You could see the bits of garlic and ginger in there.

Here is the chicken without the reduced sauce.

When we were young, I would hate biting into the black peppercorns. As an adult, I still do but now I'm more careful to pick them out.

The sauce is nearly reduced now.

Cover the reserved chicken pieces with the newly reduced sauce.

Nearly every Filipino I know does his or her adobo recipe differently. A friend of mine used red wine in hers. Another friend does this recipe in a crock pot! My own brother uses red onions and he fries potatoes and adds those last in his adobo. I only recently started adding onions in my adobo to give it a sweeter taste, along with the ginger. The addition of potato wedges also gives adobo another twist by soaking up all the saltiness. I personally don't prefer potatoes in my adobo, but I'll eat it! Serve hot with white rice.

*Note: Adobo tastes even better the next day. Unlike the old days in the topics when there was no refrigeration, I do keep my leftover adobo in the fridge. You can scrape off the fat that rises to the top of the sauce the next day if you want to cut down some calories.