Pancit Palabok

Pancit palabok is my favorite pancit (noodle dish). Palabok is the Filipino word for garnish or embellishment. But the garnishings in palabok are more than decorations, they make the noodle dish very special and incredibly delicious. I have eaten palabok on a regular basis (almost once a week) in Manila in restaurants and during get-togethers. The pancit can be purchased from stores that sell them made to order, plated on different sizes of banana leaf-lined woven bamboo platters called bilao. Most Filipinos I know including my mother never cook palabok at home because it is tedious to prepare and because there are so many choices of stores in Manila that specialize in the yummiest pancit palabok. Unfortunately for us Filipinos living outside the Philippines and most specially if you are in an area like mine where there are very few Filipinos there is no chance of finding a place that sells or serves very good pancit palabok. We have no choice but to prepare it at home when the craving hits us. I prepared the garnish and shrimp sauce yesterday and assembled the pancit palabok today. It was worth all the time making it, the pancit is utterly delicious!

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Jalapeño And Cheese Sausage

When I'm chatting on the telephone with my friends we somehow always end up talking about food. A friend mentioned that she and her husband visited Austin, TX and brought home 10 pounds of jalapeño sausages from a German sausage shop. She was raving about them that I looked at my Charcuterie book for a similar recipe but couldn't find any using fresh jalapeños. So I adapted the fresh bratwurst recipe from Charcuterie and added sliced fresh jalapeños and cubed aged cheddar cheese. The sausages are so soft, juicy, slightly spicy, and cheeseliciously fantastic! These sausages will also be great on the grill and they're absolutely perfect with truffle oil flavored baked/sauteed red potatoes.

Oggi's Jalapeño and Cheese Bratwurst
3½ pounds pork shoulder, cubed, leave in freezer for half an hour
½ pound pork fat, cubed
2 tablespoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground white pepper
2 teaspoons ginger powder
1½ teaspoons ground nutmeg
½ cup soy protein powder, optional
2 small eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup very cold heavy cream
ice water, if needed
1 cup thinly sliced fresh jalapeño peppers with seeds
2 cups aged white cheddar cheese, diced into ¼ inch cubes
hog casings, softened in warm water for half an hour

• Mix first 7 ingredients. Grind using a small die into the bowl of a stand mixer atop another bowl of ice water.
• With paddle attached, add the eggs and mix on low speed. Slowly add heavy cream and increase speed to medium until mixture is sticky. Add ice water 1 tablespoon at a time if mixture appears too dry and difficult to mix. Add jalapeños and cheese and mix on low until evenly distributed.Heat a small skillet and fry a tsp of the sausage. Taste and adjust seasoning. Stuff casings and twist into 6-inch links.

• To cook: put 2 T water on a skillet, add 6 links, cover and let simmer on low-medium heat until all the water has evaporated. Uncover, add 1 T light olive oil and fry until golden brown. Freeze uncooked links. Thaw in the refrigerator before cooking.

Sauteed or Baked Red Potatoes
1 pound small red potatoes, cut into 1-inch cubes
¼ sliced shallots
2 tablespoons good olive oil
1 tsp salt
dash ground black pepper
1 tablespoon chopped flat leaf parsley
black truffle flavored extra virgin olive oil

1. In a deep roasting pan, mix potatoes, shallots, olive oil, salt, and pepper.
2. Bake in a 350 degree oven until potatoes are golden brown. Add parsley and sprinkle with truffle olive oil. Serve immediately.
3. Or, saute potatoes in olive oil for 4 minutes, add onions, salt, and pepper and continue to stir fry another 5 minutes or until potatoes are soft and golden brown. Add parsley and truffle oil.

Coffee

top left to right: sagada, Figaro blend (barako and arabica), benguet

bottom left to right: LAVAZZA pure arabica, pure barako

Italian stovetop moka pot

My husband and I did a sort-of taste test of the Philippine coffee beans we recently acquired: sagada, benguet, and barako from Baguio and Figaro barako/arabica blend he brought home from his trip to the Philippines. All of them were brewed using the Italian stovetop moka pot. I wanted to use other coffee makers but I thought it was too much trouble. I don't know if the result would have been different if I had used all 4 coffee makers: moka pot, drip, espresso machine, and Melitta manual coffee basket.

We compared the taste of the sagada, benguet, and the Figaro blend with Italian LAVAZZA espresso beans which is what we have been drinking for the last 18 years or so, with a 2-year break when we couldn't find them in the grocery stores and bought Starbucks espresso/French roast blend whole beans. When LAVAZZA became available again in some grocery stores and online I have not bought nor taken any other beans but lavAzza. Barako has a very unique Filipino taste and should not be compared with anything else. Filipinos who are familiar with barako will know with one sip if it is genuine barako beans which the H says is somewhat "grassy".

If you have relatives coming to visit or if you are visiting the Philippines, I recommend buying whole coffee beans, vacuum seal them immediately, and do not refrigerate but store them in an opaque container and keep them in your luggage to prolong its freshness. Two years ago my father-in-law sent us ground barako beans that he stored in his freezer which is the last place you want to store your coffee, and when they got here the coffee grounds were stale and undrinkable.

pure barako: medium roast which is the norm for barako, medium aroma, very good strong barako taste

ME: I love it!
H: likes it, authentic barako taste

sagada: dark roast arabica, very little aroma, okay taste, slightly acidic

ME: not my favorite, won't recommend them
H: just okay, nothing special

benguet: dark roast arabica, very sweet aroma and flavor

ME: sweet aroma, slightly over-roasted and more bitter than LAVAZZA but I love it, comparable in taste to LAVAZZA arabica/robusta espresso blend, highly recommended
H: detects a cigar-like aroma, likes the flavor

Figaro blend: blend of medium roast barako and dark roast arabica, sweet aroma, strong barako taste and hint of arabica

ME: I do not like barako mixed with other beans
H: likes it because he prefers bitter French roast type beans and doesn't mind barako mixed with other beans

LAVAZZA 100% arabica: espresso roast, strong aroma and sweet strong but smooth taste

I will not replace LAVAZZA with other coffee beans anytime soon but will have benguet and barako beans if they are available.

We are not coffee experts and this is just our honest opinion on the different Philippine coffee beans and taste is always subjective. My only advice is do not purchase coffee from McD[s and any other fast food joints, they sell the most awful coffee. The first time I had them I thought I had the flu or getting sick. What I mean is when your tongue is coated and can't taste anything, something like that and realized I was not getting sick, it's the tasteless coffee from McD's and the hotel we were staying in at the time!:D

Iloilo Tortitas

I have read so much about tortas, a very rich sweet Visayan cakey buns loaded with egg yolks and butter, similar to ensaimada. I have never tasted them before, and when I saw the recipe in the FOOD magazine the hubby brought from the Philippines as one of his pasalubongs I was excited to be able to make them. The smaller buns called tortitas, adapted from the recipe of Mrs. Cosette Montelibano, are from Iloilo. The recipe has yeast as leavening making them bready and should not be confused with the Cebuano tortas which look more like a leche flan/cake combination. The Cebuano tortas have more egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk, and have baking powder or the coconut sap toddy called tuba as leavening agent. I'll also try to make the Cebuano version without the tuba just to compare them.

I made some flat-ish buns as described below and some I baked in lined cupcake pans. I can't tell if this is what they should look and taste like but I love that they are not overly sweet, they are very soft but not very delicate, they don't get crushed or get out of shape when you bite into them or cut with a knife. Preparing the dough is easy although the rising times are long, two 2-hour risings, but it's worth all the time I spent making them. They are perfect for Easter breakfast with sliced aged edam cheese and barako coffee or hot chocolate.

BTW, the 2 FOOD magazines have loads of yummy cakes and desserts that I am salivating just looking at the photos and will make them ASAP, the 7-layer toffee crunch cake and ube roll are two on the top of my list.:-)

Tortitasadapted from FOOD magazine
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
2 teaspoons sugar
1 cup warm water
1 cup sugar
pinch of salt
12 egg yolks
1 cup butter, softened
6 to 7 cups all purpose flour
melted butter for brushing
sugar for dusting.

• In a small bowl, combine warm water and 2 tsp sugar, sprinkle yeast and whisk to mix. Cover with plastic film and leave in a warm place for 5 - 10 minutes or until bubbly.In a large bowl of stand mixer, mix together sugar, salt, and egg yolks. Add butter and mix until well blended. Add the yeast mixture. Gradually add the flour and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes. (I finished kneading by hand for 3 minutes).
• Form dough into a bowl and transfer to a lightly oiled bowl. Cover with plastic film and leave in a warm place for 2 hours.
• Remove from bowl, punch down gently and divide into 60 -70 gram portions. Shape into buns and lay on a greased or parchment-lined baking pan. Cover with plastic film or cloth and let rise for another 2 hours or until double in bulk.Bake in a preheated 300 degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes. Cool slightly then brush with melted butter. Sprinkle with granulated sugar.

this is a very yellow dough