Fried Lumpia Taugeh (Mung Bean Sprouts)

fried lumpia with vegetables, mung bean sprouts and tofu

My daughter's friend is coming home from working overseas and he asked her if I can make him lumpia. Lumpia and pancit are the most popular or maybe the only familiar Filipino food here in the US. I asked my daughter what kind he likes because there are several ways to prepare lumpia:

• fresh with vegetables or heart of palm and wrapped either in egg and cornstarch mixture or flour lumpia wrapper served with a sweet and salty sauce
• fried with vegetables and prawn filling
• fried with mung bean sprouts, vegetables and firm tofu, true vegetarian but so delicious
• lumpia Shanghai filled with either prawns and ground pork or a mixture of both, the difference from 2 & 3 is these are thin and sliced into 2-inch pieces before frying, these are also served with sweet and sour sauce

My favorite is the one filled with mung bean sprouts eaten with vinegar and garlic dip. When I was working at the Asian Development Bank one of our co-workers came in the morning with all sorts of food stuff to sell and these were the ones I bought regularly. I never cooked fried lumpia of any kind in Manila and rarely here in the US because it is tedious to prepare. Separating the wrappers alone takes time and patience. We usually bought them or had them in restaurants and in Manila the maids cooked them for us and sometimes I asked my mother to make them, she is an excellent cook. This is only the second time I made fried lumpia and I was only able to make 3 decent looking ones that are photo worthy. The others are sort of ugly looking but nevertheless yummy. I'm not sure if I can make good-looking lumpia for him or if I have the enthusiasm to make them. Maybe she should bring him to the Little Quiapo restaurant near Washington, D.C. where the food is decent but not spectacular.

Lumpia Taugeh
8 cups mung bean sprouts, washed and very well drained in a salad spinner
3 large garlic cloves, chopped
1 small onion, sliced
1 cup firm tofu, diced
1 cup julienned green beans
1 cup julienned sweet potatoes or carrots
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon soy sauce
ground pepper
lumpia wrappers
grape seed oil for sauteing and deep frying

• In a large skillet heat 1 tablespoon oil and saute garlic and onions for 3 minutes. Add tofu, salt, soy sauce and pepper. Saute for 2 minutes then add beans and sweet potato. Cook for 2 minutes. Turn off heat and stir in mung bean sprouts, mixing well. The mixture should be dry. Let cool for 20 minutes before filling wrappers. Deep fry in hot oil until golden brown and crisp, drain well on paper towels. Serve immediately.

Ube Waffles

I wanted to make stroopwafels, unfortunately I don't have a pizzelle wafer iron but I have a 10-year old Belgian waffle maker and that's good enough for me. I have been reading about stroopwafels in other blogs and magazines for the last year now that I want to try them so badly. Strange thing, I went to visit The Netherlands in February of 1982, never noticed a single shop that sold these, or maybe I didn't know what they were, but I could have seen other people eating or lining up to buy them to get my attention but I did not. Oh, well. One thing I acquired from the Dutch and glad I did is eating French fries with mayonnaise.

Anyway, I made regular waffles using baking powder instead of yeast and replaced ½ cup of the flour with purple yam (ube) powder. I love the milky smell, taste, and texture of ube in just about any bread including puto. The butter-rich dark syrup, actually thick caramel sauce rather than syrup, the recipe I got from a Dutch recipe website, is super yummy but beware of the fat and sugar content. This snack/breakfast treat should be eaten in moderation.:=)

ube waffles with dark buttery syrup, sooo yummy

Ube Waffles
1½ cups all purpose flour
½ cup powdered ube
2 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon sea salt
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups milk
½ cup melted butter
2 eggs

• Preheat waffle maker. Mix ingredients until smooth. Bake waffles according to manufacturer's instructions. Serve hot topped with warm syrup. Or slice the waffles and spread caramel/syrup on one slice, top with the other half and eat like stroopwafels. Either way it's delicious.

Dark Treacle
1½ cups dark brown sugar
1 cup butter
6 tablespoon dark corn syrup
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

• Mix syrup ingredients in a small saucepan and heat until sugar is melted and mixture is smooth. Serve warm with the waffles.

I recently read that ready baked wafers are available at Trader Joe's. I guess it's time to go to TJ's.:-)

Peanut Butter Truffles & Grape Jellies

peanut butter truffles with various coating: ground peanut butter, cocoa powder, dark and milk chocolate and peanut butter chips

grape jellies

A few weeks ago I borrowed from the library the gigantic and super heavy THE FRENCH LAUNDRY COOKBOOK by Thomas Keller which has really superb and elegant recipes but some are too complicated for everyday meals. I prefer to cook simple dishes and if I want fancy I'd go to a restaurant. The desserts are very good, though, some are simple to make. I'm still deciding if I'll buy my copy. I got the peanut butter truffles and fruit jellies idea from this cookbook but did not follow the recipes for both the truffles and jellies.

Peanut Butter Truffles
1 cup crunchy or creamy peanut butter
1 cup chopped milk chocolate (chips are fine)
½ cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter
suggested coating: ½ cup each semi-sweet chocolate, milk chocolate and peanut butter chips, ¼ cup ground roasted peanuts, ¼ cup cocoa powder

• Melt all ingredients except coating in a small pan over low heat. Pour into a metal square pan. Place in freezer for 30 minutes.
• Using a melon baller, scoop out portions and place pieces on a piece of aluminum foil. Working quickly, shape the candies into marble-size balls. Divide balls into 5 portions. Keep 4 portions in freezer for 1 hour. Roll the remaining balls in ground peanuts. Refrigerate.
• Coat another 1/5 of the balls in cocoa powder, refrigerate. Melt chips one at a time, coat each portion, sprinkle tops with ground peanuts, if desired, then refrigerate. Transfer candies into individual paper cups, if preferred. Refrigerate leftovers.

The recipe for jellies is here.

Salmon Tocino

I never had or heard of dried fish tocino when I was still in the Philippines and learned about it recently in Christine's blog. While looking for Filipino recipes in Gene Gonzalez's The little ulam book, I got so excited when I saw the Bangus Tocino recipe which does not require drying time. The marinated fish is fried in a little oil just like pork or chicken tocino. I have a piece of wild salmon in the fridge and used it in place of the boneless bangus. It is very very good but should have added a little bit more salt to the marinade.

Bangus or Salmon Tocino
2 pieces boneless bangus or salmon
2 tablespoon calamansi or lemon juice
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste
2 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoon anisado wine (I used Pernod)
¼ teaspoon ground white pepper
¼ teaspoon prague powder (pink salt), optional

• Combine seasoning ingredients. Marinate fish in the mixture for at least one day. Fry and serve with steamed rice and hot pepper-vinegar dipping sauce.

I have a jar of pickled santol which goes very well with the salmon tocino. I will make tocino again with another kind of fish and will dry them in my food dehydrator.