Crêpes

crêpe with sweetened cream, sliced bananas, and chocolate sauce

2 weeks ago I watched the Japanese movie Linda Linda Linda about a High School all-girls rock or J-pop band. The movie is about a tradition in Japanese schools' fall or holly festival where they have a number of food and souvenir booths and the highlight is the performance of several rock bands towards the end of the festival. The drummer of the group is working in a booth that sells crêpes, the most popular are the banana with chocolate sauce on a bed of sweetened whipped cream. It made me crave for the banana chocolate combo which I used to have in Hong Kong in one of the Japanese coffee shops where the coffee machines look like they belong in a laboratory, see photo below. Those machines make really good coffee, btw. That was nearly 20 years ago when I developed a taste for anything Japanese. Our apartment was a few minutes from the Causeway Bay area where there were (I'm not sure if they are still there) 4 Japanese department stores: Sogo, Matsuzakaya, Mitsukoshi, and Daimaru, and several coffee shops. Daimaru was the one I went to regularly because of their bake shop which is located at the entryway on the ground floor. When I was done with the grocery and household shopping (my first santuko knife which I still use, a pair of leather gloves which I still use, and a 3-fold umbrella that, you guessed it, I still use after almost 20 years!), I stopped by the bakeshop watching and waiting for the still warm milk loaves being sliced by a machine and for the buns (kashi-pan) filled with chocolate or vanilla cream and sweet azuki bean paste. In my honest opinion the Japanese bakeries make the creamiest, softest, most delicious breads and buns. I miss those breads, but at least I had my fill of choco-banana crêpes today. Mmmmm.

Photo: Peter DaSilva for The New York Times

Crêpes
7/8 cup flour
¼ cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1 teaspoon lemon zest
2 tablespoons cognac
2 tablespoons melted butter
1½ cups milk

• Sift flour, sugar, and salt into a bowl. Add eggs, one at a time and mix until free of lumps. Mix in lemon zest, cognac, and melted butter. Slowly add milk and mix until batter is consistency of thin cream. Let it stand an hour or two before making crêpes. Heat a crêpe pan or a 10-inch non-stick skillet and rub with a little butter. Pour some batter on the pan and tilting about to let it run over the bottom in a fairly thin layer. When lightly browned at the bottom, turn carefully and brown on the other side. As each crêpe is cooked, remove to a hot platter and keep warm. Re-butter pan as needed.

Filling suggestions:
- sweetened whipped heavy cream, sliced bananas, chocolate sauce
- sweetened cream (or pastry cream), sliced strawberries and Nutella

Bulalo (Beef Shank In Onion Broth)

bulalo in onion broth with cabbage, corn, and baby bokchoy

I went out late this morning to buy a few staples from the store, I was there for less than half an hour and when I came out it was snowing heavily. I knew it was going to snow later in the day but did not expect it to fall before 12 noon and THIS heavy. The meteorologists or weather people are sometimes, if not always off the mark in their forecast. I hurried home but can't really drive fast because the roads are already very very slippery and the falling thick snow is diminishing my visibility. I love snow, it's beautiful to look at and it's fun playing with it but not when you are driving, and when it's been plowed to the curb they become muddy and yucky.

Anyway, as I was driving (very slowly like a little old lady that I am) I was already dreaming of the bulalo soup I was going to have for lunch. I had this dish just once in a restaurant, about 20 years ago or so, have never cooked, seen, or ate it since, can't explain why. My mother also never cooked it because I can't remember eating it at home growing up. Maybe my father didn't like it, I should ask her one of these days.

Making this dish was brought on by a Filipino instant noodle soup with bulalo flavoring that I had recently. The instant soup is flavorful and has the bulalo taste but the chewy fake meat thingies, which I think are vegemeat bits, floating on the soup are quite disgusting. So I bought beef shanks and made my very first Bulalo In Onion Broth, the recipe adapted from my cookbook FLAVORS OF THE PHILIPPINES by Glenda Rosales-Barretto of Via Mare restaurants. I love this dish which is almost a complete meal in itself with meat, vegetables, and carbs. But of course I ate it with steamed rice and patis with calamansi dipping sauce. I am so full I think I'll take a nap.:D

Bulalo
3 pounds beef shank, bone in, pre-cut with marrow
½ pound onions, quartered
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
2 tablespoon sea salt, or to taste
4 pieces corn on the cob, cut into 4 - 5 pieces
½ pound baby bokchoy, well cleaned
½ head cabbage, cut into chunks

• Place the beef shank, onions, peppercorns, and salt in a large pot. Add enough water to cover. Bring to the boil, skim off top, then reduce the heat and allow to simmer for 5 hours. Add the corn and cook for 10 minutes, then add the cabbage and continue to cook for a further 3 minutes. Add the bokchoy and cook for another 3 minutes. Transfer to a large dish and serve with a mixture of fish extract and calamansi juice.

A rather blurry photo I took this morning from inside the car

Mulligatawny Soup

mulligatawny soup with buttered pumpernickel toast, yum yum

Our area had an unseasonably warm temperature which went as high as 65 degrees. Winter is back after a 2-week vacation and I'm glad I can finally make soups. Winter in my house means oceans of soup for dinner. First in my soup repertoire is mulligatawny. I haven't made this soup with a funny name in a while. It is supposed to be Indian in origin, it has curry powder as flavoring so I believe it is. The recipe I always use is from Betty Crocker cookbook because it is the simplest and I like simple. Other recipes I found online have lentils, rice, heavy cream, or coconut milk which in my opinion will make the soup heavy. Some puree the soup which makes it look like baby food and unappetizing. I don't really care if my soup is not authentic, I love it and with a slice or two of buttered pumpernickel toast it makes a delicious satisfying dinner.

Mulligatawny Soup
2 pounds skinless chicken breasts with bones, cut up
4 cups water
2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon lemon or tamarind juice
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp ground mace
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon light olive oil or grapeseed oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tablespoons flour
1 medium carrot, chopped
1 large apple, cored and coarsely chopped
1 medium green bell pepper, diced

• Heat chicken, water, salt, curry powder, lemon juice, cloves, and mace to boiling in a Dutch oven, reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 1 hour. Remove chicken from broth, leave until cool enough to handle.
• Remove chicken from bones and cut into bite-size pieces, set aside. Skim fat from broth and add water, if necessary to measure 4 cups.
• In a skillet, heat butter and oil over medium heat and cook onions until soft, remove from heat. Stir in flour, gradually stir in some broth. Add the flour mixture into the Dutch oven and mix well. Add the chicken pieces, tomatoes, apple, carrot, and green pepper. Heat to boiling, reduce heat. Cover and simmer until carrot is tender, about 10 minutes.

Ghosts, Ghouls, Zombies, And A Succubus

What a way to start the new year: a book and a movie with ghosts, ghouls, zombies and a she-demon.

THE DEVIL YOU KNOW by Mike Carey A
Mike Carey is the creator of the character Constantine in his graphic novel Hellblazer which was made into a movie with Keanu Reeves as Constantine. The Devil You Know is his first novel published in 2006. The hero, Felix Cantor, a semi-retired freelance exorcist, after a botched job exorcising a demon from his best buddy, is working as a magician in birthday parties to pay his bills. That was until the day he was asked to banish a female ghost in the Bonnington Archive. He could not resist accepting it because he needs the money and gets curious when the ghost would not show herself to him. He wants to know who the ghost was and why she is haunting the archive. The story becomes a murder mystery with Eastern European mafia in the middle of it. Our hero employs a Hawaiian-shirt clad computer expert zombie, gets help from his Catholic Wiccan landlady, falls in love (lust, actually) with a succubus named Juliet (who in the movie version should be played by Angelina Jolie), and almost gets killed by the mafia. Very entertaining, excellent story and writing style. Highly recommended. I can't wait to read the sequel VICIOUS CIRCLE.

RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION B
Milla with machetes in both hands fighting superzombies! Not an intellectual film, just entertaining. I liked it!