The Chicken Tim Conspiracy

In a culture as rich as ours in the Philippines, the term fusion pertaining to food is synonymous with our local fare. Chinese, Malay and Mediterranean influences constitute most of what we dub as our "Filipino cuisine". 

One such cuisine is the dish Pata Tim. 

Pata tim is a Chinese influenced dish of braised pork leg and sometimes, pork hocks. Its so commonly found around the country that we have embraced and tweaked it to suit our Filipino palates.

With the growing need to reduce all that is unhealthy, I share with you the version that I've just started using at home, our Chicken Tim.

Getting Started:

Marinate chicken overnight ( the marinade below is for about a kilo worth of chicken, preferably the entire leg).

Chicken Marinade:

• 1 tsp 5 spice powder
• 1 tbsp ginger powder, 
• 2 tbsp brown sugar, 
• 1/4  dark soy sauce and 
• 1/8 cup Chinese rice wine. 

Brown in oil (not deep fried), making sure that skin is a bit crisp, even if the insides are not thoroughly cooked. Set aside.

Chicken Tim Sauce:

In a saucepan, bring to boil :

• 2 cups water, 
• 1/8 cup dark soy sauce , 
• 1/4 c brown sugar (you can decrease amount and add sugar gradually til you get the sweetness level you like), 
• 2 tbsp Hoisin sauce, 
• 4 pcs star anise, 
• 2 bay leaves. 

Simmer til you get almost half the volume of liquid. Dissolve 2 tbsp cornstarch in about 1/4 cup of water. Pour onto the sauce, stirring gently. This is to thicken the sauce. Once sauce thickens,remove from fire.

Add pechay and shitake mushrooms to your
heart's content

Preparation:

Ingredients:

• Pechay (1-2 bundles)
• Dried shitake mushrooms (whole or slices), presoaked
• Sesame Oil

In a heatproof casserole dish, arrange raw pechay at the bottom together with presoak shitake mushrooms. Put chicken on top. Pour sauce and steam for about 30 minutes. Do check if chicken is done (no blood inside). When done, drizzle sesame oil and serve.

IF you don't have a steamer: 

boil fried chicken in sauce BEFORE you thicken it with cornstarch. Before thickening the sauce, take out the chicken first. You can parboil the pechay and shitake mushrooms ( I buy slices but whole would look prettier), and arrange as written above. Even the kids loved it :)

 From Kitchen Wanderings, here's to a life full of flavor!

The Tuna Turncoat

Kicking off my latest blog, is a fish I absolutely love to prepare and eat, raw or cooked - the versatile Yellow Fin Tuna (a type of Ahi Tuna).

An apt star to a food related blog is an appetizer made with this as it's main ingredient. Without further ado, here's our Tuna done 3 ways:

You'll Need:

• 300 gms Tuna Sashimi (split into 3 equal portions or according to which one of the 3 ways do you want to eat more of)

POKE ingredients:

• 100 gms tuna, cut into bite sized cubes
• 2 tbsp spring onions/shallots diced
• 2 tbsp small onion, julienne
• 1/2 tsp finely minced garlic
• 1/2 freshly grated ginger (or about the same amount of powdered ginger)
• 30 ml Sesame Oil
• 1 tbsp of Chili Oil (Chiu Chow) and/or
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 3 tbsp dark Chinese soy sauce
• salt (to taste)
• 1/2 tsp toasted sesame seeds (black gives it that extra nutty flavor, but the white one's fine too) - optional  for garnish

SPICY TUNA ingredients:

• 100 gms tuna, cut into bite sized cubes
• 2 tbsp Japanese mayo
• 1 tbsp Sriracha Sauce
• 1 tsp Chili Oil (Chiu Chow)
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes

GOOD OL MAGURO SASHIMI:

• the remaining tuna, cut into thin, two inch long slices
• calamansi, lemon or lime
• soy and wasabi

What To Do:

NOTE: especially for the Spicy Tuna, make everything as close to serving time as possible. If made ahead of time, put in the fridge to prevent health concerns. 

POKE

• POKE (pronounced as POH-kay, is a Hawaiian ceviche, or kinilaw in Pinoy speak): mix em all up, except the toasted sesame. Put salt AFTER tasting the seasoned tuna, and always a dash at a time. Chances are, you might not even need the salt at all. Sprinkle sesame seeds after plating.

SPICY TUNA

• SPICY TUNA: mix. Add more Japanese mayo if you want your tuna to be covered more thoroughly. There is no heat limit. Add as much of all the spicy ingredients!

SASHIMI

• SASHIMI: we normally squeeze the citrus on the fish slices prior to consuming it, that way it won't cook in the acidity of the citrus. Use the soy and wasabi as a dipping sauce.

Yellow Fin Tuna Nutrition Facts

This makes a perfect appetizer for parties, cocktails, dinners with guests or for your family's enjoyment. Great source of protein and Omega 3.

From Kitchen Wanderings, here's to a life full of flavor!

Memoirs of a Kitchen Wanderer

My earliest recollections of my childhood always centered on food. It's preparation, going to the market with my father or to the grocery with mom. Not to mention the various dishes served at meal time, on a sick day or what my mom packed in my lunch box.

Perhaps it was my parents, who indulged me on tales of my youth, or the various photos they've taken of me, but from what I remember, food was clearly not just a basic need in our family. It was a passion.

I remember being left alone with a tin of Sky Flakes soda crackers while sitting on a straw mat while my mom owned and operated two canteens/cafeterias (one at GSIS and the other at DBP Baguio) back in the early 80's. I think I was 2 or 3. Mom and her helpers would stay up late and wake up early, making warm, fluffy asado siopao, different snacks, noodles, soups and doing the prep work for other various dishes on next day's menu. Mom was the Queen of Mise en place.

Then there was that time my 19 year old nanny poured a big pot of warm dinuguan (pork and pig offal cooked in pig's blood and vinegar) at some customer who got too "touchy" for his own good. That was literally a "food for thought" for that guy! :P

I remember the sights, the smells and the taste of food in the market after a 5 am jog around the old neighborhood in Malabon, where I spent most of my summers as a child. My father and I would visit the market, looking for great finds...shrimps so fresh, they're somewhat leaping. Smoked milkfish (tinapang bangus), just out of the smokehouse, still warm and cooked with high standards, that you can eat it straight up, without having to fry it. Then there's that heavenly smell of special patis (fish sauce) Malabon that was as good as any viand for me. Fresh seafood, authentic Malabon cuisine, no scrimping and laboriously prepared dishes make recalling those innocent times with ease.

Papa and I 1985

Perhaps it was Papa who truly got me hooked on cooking. Instead of pondering what to cook for me during those summer weekends, he would bring out his cookbooks ( The ones with pictures were the best!), making me choose what our next meal was. We'd buy the ingredients together, and then he'll let me help him cook. ( I still employ the same method in asking the folks here at home what they'd want to eat: a dish from a cookbook, market the next day and cooked that same night).

with mom (papa took the pic) off to go fishing in Navotas 1984

Mom also had her own set of books as well, not to mention bringing me to her cooking class with famed chef Sylvia Reynoso-Gala in the latter's home at Forbes Park. The baking class was my favorite! Til this day, the taste of meringue transports me to that kitchen and I can describe what it looked like then without difficulty. 

Though Baguio was our home base, the first few years of my childhood were spent in various cities and provinces, travelling with my father, who was an architect for the Development Bank of the Philippines,  assigned to areas where the bank planned to expand.

MIHCA 2011

This meant eating huge steamed crabs in a restaurant on stilts over the waters in Bohol, having ice candy (frosty) as a treat for taking a nap in the middle of the day in Calapan, Mindoro, or eating tapang usa from Dipolog and catching a big lapu lapu for lunch in a fish pond in Cagayan de Oro. Who could forget the torones de mani of Cebu, the sweet shrimps of Roxas, Capiz, eating dog meat in Cabanatuan and many other places? My dad was the original Mediocre/Kitchen Wanderer :P

Warm thoughts and fuzzy feelings are what I associate with food. Hopefully, this blog of mine could help you recreate that food-induced happy thought.

my first live cooking demo at SM Baguio 2011
(still looking for the Kraft sponsored cooking segment
I did for an  ABS CBN Baguio show)

From Kitchen Wanderings, here's to a life full of flavor!