Awesome Red Tinola

San Rafael, Bulacan for me equals authentic provincial cooking. Arriving at Tiyong Amante and Tiyang Ine's house, I went straight to the kitchen to check out what they are preparing and sorted out the sauce bottles and spices. Most of the ingredients came from other Bulacan towns that all the more excited my waiting palate and appetite. I saw an Ate Conching brand Sukang Paombong and cooking oil on the table with fresh produce picked straight from their garden. For breakfast, it’s the overflowing carabao’s milk partnered with salt and rice that brought the house down but it’s the Tinola preparation for lunch that really fascinated me.

The Tinola was prepared meticulously with the chicken rubbed with rock salt before diving into the big metal wok with ginger, onion, and garlic already sizzling and flavoring the provincial fresh air. After the chicken dive, they put in atsuete, a red food coloring used for, well, food, I guess. Then it was not sautéed but “isinangkutsa”, a term that still haunts me in my dreams. I think it is when one put everything in the wok all at the same time to mix all the possible flavors. Then a calculated amount of water, an almost ripe papaya, some dahon ng sili, and chili pepper were added and slowly simmered until reaching that Red Tinola peak worthy of an encore.

Pochero. Comfort Food

picture taken from

http://365stories.pinoybizonline.com/2010/03/03/moms-pochero-my-style/

Pochero. Comfort Food.
Comfort food is Pochero.

Was the name Pochero derived from a Spanish word? Does it sound like Cocido? I just do not know how to pronounce Cocido, but Pochero? Pochero by any other name, or pronounciation, taste just the same. Grand.

Pochero is very versatile with the possible different combination and ingredients one can think of and can still be called Pochero. It somehow remind me of Irish stew with or without tomato sauce. Its all in the boiling, so they say. The longer it boils, the more tasty and whole it becomes. I've tried cooking it a couple of times before arriving at perfection. Perfection, yes. Ive achieved perfection in cooking Pochero. Not like a perfection of reaching buddhahood but more of a satori experience perfection. A short glimpse of enlightenment whenever people say that the Pochero do taste good. it is so simple to prepare and meat can be pork or beef. What matters is the boiling time and the meticulous mixture of liquid and seasoning to arrive at what I call Pochero perfection. It is slow food cooking.

Some do and some dont saute. I do. I put a perfectly measured cooking oil then start with the onions, then garlic, Bananas, and tomatoes. I put some magic powder (ala Wok with Yan) then the meat. Then when I feel that it is enough (yes, to feel what one is cooking is important. It is called oneness), I put in water then boil it until the meat softens up with the potatoes and carrots. After that delicate process, I enter the most important part of balancing the taste. I add some fish sauce, more magic powder (if and when required), sugar, and tomato sauce. It is a balancing act as I mix the sweet and salty in portions to reach what philosophers call deliciousness. Then I put in the green leafy chinese cabbage. Then it is done. Pochero perfection.

Pochero Perfection

Ingredients

1 kilo Beef or Pork
2 heads Onion
1 whole Garlic
2 Tomatoes
2 plantaine Bananas (Saging na Saba)
5 cups water
Potatoes (Kahit gaano kadami)
2 medium Carrots
2 ropes Chinese Cabbage (2 Tali ng Pechay)
Fish sauce
Sugar
Magic Powder
Tomato Sauce


Corn Cob (optional)
Garbanzos (optional)
string beans (optional)

and the list of optional ingredients can go on and on and on and on......

Stock em with Beef

picture stolen from

http://www.comedinein.info/2010/06/bistek-filipino-beef-steak.html

Lucky for me to have the opportunity to have a freezer well stocked with Beef this week. I salivate just thinking of the beef possibilities in store in the over freezing refrigerator freezer. Thelma bought beef in Tagaytay City, a place fighting the claim as the beef capital of the Philippines. Then a beef sale in our community supermarket added a couple more beef meat in our freezer. Last Saturday, it was a simple Beef stew garnished with tomatoes that brought the house down. Slow cooking at its finest as the flavory smell floats through the living room. The tomatoes gave that natural sour taste balanced by a perfect dash of sugar. Then Sunday evening, we tried another traditional beef recipe, the Bistek Filipino, or beefsteak. Like Bistek = beefsteak, digs? Its beef swimming in a combination marinate of soy sauce, calamansi, a dash of sugar, and garlic. After a few minutes of marinating the beef, boil it in water until tender then put in fresh shallots to counter the salty taste coming from the soy sauce. Good for eating!

Beautiful Women

I am a sucker for beautiful women, and good food. I like watching Rachael Ray and her bouncy disposition that I find really sexy. And Nigella Lawson. Shit! Nigella Lawson. Seeing them together in a picture sure freaked me out.

ooking cooking

Ponso cooking hamburger patties early in the morning.

(repost from www.punkrocktatay.wordpress.com)

chicken

chicken is an attempt to tell stories about food, cooking, eating, drinking. Or show pictures of food, cooking, eating, drinking. Whatever is available. Its an attempt, anyway. No one can do anything about it. Its my shit. So be it.