Sans Rival Cake

My daughter asked for the Filipino sans rival cake for her birthday. I don't make this often as it's unhealthy, eh all cakes are unhealthy. My recipe is from Pat Limjuco Dayrit's cookbook but changed some of the procedure. The cake is pretty easy to make although time consuming, cooking sugar to mix with egg yolk then has to be chilled for an hour before blending with the butter. I also leave the meringue in the oven (turned off) for another 2 hours to crisp properly, then I freeze the finished cake for at least 3 hours. This cake will stay crispy for about 5 days, I keep it in the freezer pre-sliced and ready to enjoy. This cake is of course French in origin (dacquoise). Most probably a rich kid from the Philippines went to France perhaps to study, came home, recreated this cake and named it gateau le sans rival.

Meringue
5 egg whites
1 cup sugar
1½ cups chopped cashew or almonds
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

• Beat the egg whites until stiff. Add the sugar gradually, continue beating. Fold in nuts and vanilla. Divide mixture into 4 - 5 very thin 9 inch rounds.* Bake in a 350°F oven until golden brown. Turn off oven, leave in the oven for total of 2 hours.**

*I do not bake these in cake pans. Using an 8 or 9 inch cake pan as guide draw 2 rounds with a pencil on a piece of parchment to fit a large cookie sheet without sides. You will need 2 to 3 sheets of parchment. Flip the paper so that pencil mark is facing pan. Using the round shapes divide mixture equally, spread and smooth with an icing spatula.
**After turning the oven off, leave meringue for 1 hour, remove from oven, touch the surface if dry, turn paper meringue side down on a clean surface and carefully peel paper. Turn meringue bottom side up, still on paper return to oven and leave another hour to dry. There, no more sticky meringue and it will turn out super crispy.

Filling
¼ cup water
2/3 cup sugar
5 egg yolks
1 cup butter, room temperature
½ cup chopped nuts

• Boil water and sugar until it spins a thread. Pour mixture gradually over well beaten egg yolks and continue beating until thick. Transfer to a bowl and chill in the fridge for an hour. Cream butter then add the well chilled egg mixture. Fill layers, sides and top of cake. Sprinkle nuts all over. I freeze mine for 3 hours before slicing and leave leftovers in the freezer.

Diced Chicken and Peppers with Salted Black Beans

I'm tired of tofu and seitan so for tonight I made my favorite Chinese stir fry, diced chicken and peppers with salted black beans (tausi in Filipino). This is perhaps the easiest dish to prepare.

Diced Chicken with Sweet Peppers and Salted Black Beans
½ pound boneless skinless white or dark chicken pieces
¼ teaspoon sea salt
1 egg white
1 tablespoon cornstarch
3 tablespoons light olive oil
1 each red and green bell pepper, diced
3 tablespoons salted black beans
4 pieces spring onions
½ tablespoons finely minced fresh ginger
salt
1 tablespoon cornstarch

• Dice the chicken and place in a bowl. Mix in salt, egg white, and cornstarch, set aside. Heat a wok or a large non-stick pan on high, add the and stir fry chicken for 4 to 5 minutes until slightly colored, transfer to a dish. In the same pan, add the remaining oil and when hot, saute ginger, spring onions, and peppers for 2 minutes, put the chicken back in the wok or pan and stir fry for 1 to 2 minutes, add the black beans and stir fry for another minute. Voila! Healthy, tasty, very easy. Perfect with steamed Japanese short grain rice.

Stuffed Green Bell Peppers

Green bell peppers grown in the US are abundant lately at Wegmans, they are huge and meaty which means it's time to make rellenos (stuffed). To prepare: saute garlic and onions, add half a pound of ground meat and 1 pound of ground beef flavored seitan, 1 cup raisins, and a little soy sauce. Char the peppers on stove burner, let cool, then scrape off the skins, cut in half, throw the innards. Add 2 eggs to the meat filling, stirring well, then spoon them into the bell peppers. Fry meat side down until brown. Serve with rice and Jufran or tomato ketchup.

Longsilog for Dinner

2 days ago I was looking for something online (I can't remember what it was) when I clicked on a blog about a Filipino restaurant specializing in tapsilog, that's short for tapa, sinangag, itlog, which means seasoned thin sliced beef, garlic fried rice, fried egg. If I translate tapsilog in English it would be beefricegg, nah, it doesn't sound right, it only works with Tagalog, haha. Anyways, the blogger goes to ethnic restaurants around San Diego, eats and writes about the resto and the food. He has written about Vietnamese, Malaysian, Slovakian, Russian, etc. The menu on the wall reminded me of the regular girls-only outings I had with friends when I was working in Manila at ADB. We usually went out on a Friday afternoon after work. Before going to the theater we stopped by the open eateries at Greenbelt (this was in 1985-87) where they served all the silogs: tapa, longaniza (sausages), tocino (Filipino bacon), fried bangus (milkfish), etc. We shared a very large table with strangers, sitting in very long and very narrow bangko (banquette/bench) that seats 12 people. Today I made pork longaniza, origin is Spanish but have a very distinct Filipino taste: sweet, slightly sour, garlicky, yummy. These are usually eaten with salted native vinegar, a salad of diced green mangoes and tomatoes with a little fermented micro-shrimp paste. I didn't realize I ran out of sausage casings but was not willing to postpone making them so I made them hubad (naked). They are delicious, just not so good to look at. Silogs used to be breakfast fare but carinderias (small scale eateries) in Manila started serving them anytime of the day and why not, when it's so Sarap!