Menthol-Guy

My sister usually cooks Tuna Croquettes during the Holy Week. It’s like tuna nuggets with mashed potatoes on the inside, covered with bread crumbs and partnered with a garlic-mayo dip. These days I cook it for pulutan.

I’ve cooked this three times this vacation and I’m proud to say I’ve achieved the desired taste I want from my croquettes. It’s definitely easy. You can adjust the taste according to your preference; put chilis in the tuna-potato mixture if you want it hot and spicy. Put finely chopped bell peppers if you want.

Now, for the recipe…

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Szechuan dishes (it’s se-shwan or see-shwan, though I prefer the latter) are oily, spicy and especially peppery–perfect for a cold January.

I first tasted this dish during a baptismal get-together (my cousin’s daughter, Summer, chose me as his godfather). I thought it was plain ground beef with the usual diced potatoes and carrots but I was wrong.It was slightly flaming, like it numbs your tongue for minutes and sucks the flavor out of you–which is bad, I think, since you can’t enjoy the other dishes.

Then last week, I asked my Dad if he could still remember that soupy dish we ate at my aunt’s house at California (her husband was Chinese-American so she cooks Chinese dishes a lot) with broccoli and tofu and ground pork. Dad told me it was Mafi Dofu, or something similar to the name.

I searched it to the net and it was called Mapo Dofu (in Chinese, it means “pockmarked grandmother’s bean curd”). Regrettably, the dish we ate in California and this dish Dad told me about–this Mapo Doufu/Tofu–isn’t the same. They are totally different, and until now I am still in pursuit of that lovely Chinese dish.

I cooked it anyway.

Anyways, my version of Mapo Tofu is a stir-fried kind–I wouldn’t like it to be soupy, for one. I also used red chili peppers in replacement with that of Szechuan peppercorns, and green bell peppers (I added these for color, lol).

Here’s my version:

First, you put oil in a wok. Even out the oil by sort-of shaking the wok (or rotating the wok) to the sides.

Put the marinated ground pork (the marinade I made is simple: Five Spice and Teriyaki Sauce will do). Remove the pork after it becomes slightly cooked–don’t overcook it.

After removing the ground pork, put oil on the wok again.

This time, saute minced garlic and finely chopped spring onions. Fry them for thirty seconds or less.

Put tomato paste (not too many) and diced tofu.

Put back the ground pork and let it simmer for five to ten minutes, or less if desired. Dash pepper (not too many, I’m warning you) and black bean paste (or tausi) to taste. Be careful in adding black beans / paste–it should be a spoonful or two tablespoons, since putting lots of it would kill the spiciness of the dish.

Put green bell peppers and red chili peppers. Stir-fry for a couple of minutes until the pork becomes brown.

For the first time since I made my Thai Spring Rolls, Dad told me to cook this dish again for next week. That means something.

Yesterday I cooked Adobo.

I first simmer all the ingredients together–garlic, soy sauce, vinegar, black pepper, laurel leaf, a little bit of cooking oil and pork broth dissolved in water. When the pork is tender, though–and this is a top secret–I separate the pork from the remaining stock and fry it in a wok/non-stick pan with lots of finely chopped garlic and a hint of oil. The pork becomes slightly crispy on the edges (but watch out for oil splatters) and the garlicky taste dominant as well. After all sides have been seared with garlic, I put the fried pork and garlic bits back on the stock where it was boiled before, and I let it simmer for a good five minutes and oh, was it really good.

I’m not really against the conservative adobo with pork stock and all; I do it since I love my adobo to be a bit fried, yet it still has the soup and all. You could also put oyster sauce in it for consistency.

And of course, tomatoes, itlog na pula and atsara!

Today I cooked Beef Bourguignonne

The French may be losers in terms of pronunciation and spelling (it’s beef ber-gin-yawn, with a slightly silent, nasal n on the last syllable) but their dishes are worth the spelling headaches anyway. Today I cooked something out-of-ordinary, something that’s completely European.

You need these ingredients:

cooking oil (or olive oil)
dry red wine (somewhat expensive, ranging from 190 to 300, I think)
1 kilo blade steak, cut into strips
button onions (or preferably, small onions)
shallots, chopped (onions would still be good)
garlic, minced
butter
flour
bay leaf
basil, chopped
parsley, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
beef stock (or broth cubes)
button mushrooms, halved

This is basically what I did (I wouldn’t want to put the entire cookbook here):

First, sear the blade steak on all sides in cooking oil. You can do it in batches if you want, as long as your pan is nonstick.

Put the garlic and shallots, then let ‘em fry for a couple of minutes.

While doing step 1, prepare a saucepan and boil your red wine in medium heat. Put bay leaves. Let it boil for 4-5 minutes (until the volume becomes 1/3 lesser).

When the garlic and shallots are cooked, put flour. I don’t really follow the measurements, but you shouldn’t coat the entire pan (lol). It’s for the wine to become viscous in the next step.

Transfer the wine you boiled in the saucepan to the beef.

Put beef stock (or a single Maggi Beef Broth Cube) and herbs. You don’t really have to buy basil and parsley since these guys are optional (but I went all the way to the mall to buy them, anyway).

Boil for two hours or until the beef’s tender.

Right before the beef becomes tender (like thirty minutes before the boiling reaches two hours), in a different saucepan, heat and fry button onions and halved mushrooms in hot butter.

Transfer them to the main dish when the beef’s tender.

Serve with toasted bread or rice.

What’s really amazing with red wine-based stews is that it has this different punch–that punch that’s out-of-our-tongues since it’s definitely not Filipino, the sweet taste of red wine. Also, the aroma is just inebriating at some point. It’s great for the kind of dinner dates where you would want to get laid and everything since you’re not-so-sober. Nah, kidding.

_{Reference: Pol Martin’s Supreme Cuisine cookbook. It’s my Mom’s.}

Wow. I don’t know where I got this flu but I had it and it was wow.

It has crippled my ability to cook (or at least, to taste what I have cooked).

Yesterday I cooked Braised Short Ribs with lots of red wine on it and basil and thyme and tomato purees and I can’t even TASTE if it’s good. My Dad told me it tasted very well, that it was surprisingly sweet (given that the recipe was full of tomatoes).

A while ago, I de-scaled the tuna belly leftovers last New Year’s Eve and made them Tuna Fillets (soaked it in cayenne pepper and flour, egg, and bread crumbs) and I can’t even TASTE the garlic-mayo sauce I made! I can’t believe it myself that even the strong, garlicky taste was totally bland for my taste buds.

Meals are so bland when you have flu. Well it’s good for people who diet but how about chef wannabes like me? How can I even establish a cooking empire?

Wait, did I say I was on a diet? No?

I hate this flu spell. It was bad. I attended a Saturday night party somewhere, a debut celebration, and all I did was sneeze a bit and put my handkerchief on my nose and blow my brains out. I could have enjoyed the party and the beer (heck I didn’t even finish my beer) and the food (my friends said the fried chicken’s great, and that the pseudo-Mongolian vegetables are spicy) but the flu’s a big killjoy I went home at around 10PM just because I can’t stay any longer in the party sneezing my way to live.

Anyway, I’ve finished reading Running with Scissors and I’ll post a review someday. I’m now reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, and hopefully it’ll be a good read. I think this book is included at Time Magazine’s 100 Best Novels. Sadly, it involved an asylum of some sort. Strike two for me, since Running with Scissors had an asylum-like atmosphere while reading.

Oh, and I’m thinking of installing an anti-spam plug-in in this blog. Any suggestions? I’ve checked the comments and I had 283 comments: one non-spam comment I was able to rescue, and it is from Skron (thanks for dropping by!) and the rest were Viagra promoters and nude DVDs salesmen. Nice try, really.

_{I’m sorry I’m lazy to post something halfway decent today. The flu may have also crippled my ability to blog. Oh, I also posted something similar in my Tumblr. Go visit! No?}