Japanese Style Dinner

I was in the mood for Japanese today and made onigiri and stuffed abura-age (fried soybean pockets). Onigiri is sushi rice individually formed into round or pyramidal shapes. The usual fillings are smoked salmon and pickled young apricot called umeboshi (very salty and taste like soft moist champoy). The sushi rice can also be mixed with chopped black olives and toasted black sesame seeds before shaping. I also pressed sushi rice and filled several canned abura-age, fried and seasoned (soy sauce, sugar and mirin) tofu pockets. I didn't have time to make green veggetable side dish and had the leftover boiled shelled edamame (soy beans) from last night. Very satisfying but so light you have to eat several of these. Japanese food, so tasty with or without fish or meat.

Florante Aguilar

I just received the 2 CDs by a Filipino classical guitar player based in California, Florante Aguilar. I read about him in Market Manila's blog and 3 days later here I am, for the first time in my life, enjoying Filipino songs. The all Filipino song CD is called Tipanan A CELEBRATION OF THE PHILIPPINE GUITAR. It has familiar tunes like Ikaw and Bayan Ko, the folk song Sing Sing (a brilliant interpretation of Atin Cu Pung Singsing) and children's song Sitsiritsit. The other CD is a compilation of suites for 2 guitars, with the music of The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and The Police played classically, exactly the kind of music I listen to. Eleanor Rigby played a la Baroque, She's Leaving home in waltz, Purple Haze a la Bartok, these are just a few of the songs in this wonderful CD.

Speaking of Filipino musicians I also have a few CDs by Susie Ibarra, a Filipina born and raised here in the US. She plays drums/percussions and has a group called The Susie Ibarra Trio (drums/violin/piano), their music is categorized as avant jazz. She is very good and got excellent reviews in Amazon.com and several New York papers. One of her CDs is a tribute to the Filipino migrant workers Folkloriko. In one of the songs, she plays the Philippine wooden kulintang. The CD is great and she has become one of my favorite artists.

Unrelated to Filipino music and musicians: the song Bayan Ko reminded me of the EDSA people power rallies and it's just a coincidence that the Washington Post today has on its front page a story on the new means to assemble a protest rally in Manila: cellphone text messaging. The reporter followed one person, a 25 year old male college graduate mobilizing people through texting and concluded it is very effective because a thousand people came to attend the protest without the police's previous knowledge of where and when exactly they will assemble. The article also pointed out that the Philippines is now the texting capital of the world. I myself have a Philippine Globe sim that I use to text my parents and relatives. I got it because my mother is hard of hearing and prefers to text. It is also very cheap (piso) for her to communicate with me, and fast (no operator to deal with), in fact she already ditched her landline and uses her cell most of the time.

Siopao and Cuapao

cuapao filled with preserved mustard greens, fried pork belly, and peanuts

Finally I found the time to make both siopao and cuapao. In a previous post I said that cuapao has no meat, I was mistaken, it should have bacon, ham or native Filipino tocino, just a little for flavoring. For the siopao I made chicken asado (Chinese-style roast chicken) filling and added sliced salted eggs and Chinese/Vietnamese sausages. The cuapao has chopped mustard greens, fried pork belly chips and peanuts. I don't make these very often as there are so many steps to do: the dough, the meat or veggie filling and slicing salted eggs and Chinese sausages, not to mention the cleaning of numerous cooking and preparation utensils. I could buy siopao from the Philippine grocery but then I won't be able to control the fat and salt contents. After consuming one of each I forget I spent more than 3 hours making them. Yum!

siopao filled with chicken asado, Chinese sausages, and salted duck eggs

The recipe for the dough is here.

Update including recipes for Chinese pork roast and burong mustasa is here.

Sprouted Mung Bean and Sweet Bell Pepper Salad

The sprouted mung beans (from an experiment) have grown so lush, about 2 inches tall. I didn't want to throw them nor let them grow as big as the full grown ones. I tasted them first, they're fine, not grassy nor bitter and the stems are crunchy.

I mixed them with sweet yellow and orange bell peppers. I made a Korean style dressing: garlic, spring onions, rice vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, salt and the most important ingredient, Korean sesame seed oil. I love it, it's delicious and very simple to prepare, no blanching required as the leaves are very tender. I think I'll make this salad regularly. I'm also considering sprouting adzuki and soy beans. My SIL suggested soft wheat but found out the calories are 200% more than mung and soy beans but will try it for the taste which she says is nutty.

dessert: Champagne grapes, aged Gouda and Manchego cheeses, homemade pistachio turron