The kulinarya experiments
What to do with plenty of basil from the garden? Make lots of pesto, of course! I didn’t follow any set recipe for making my pesto, just followed my taste and my feelings – garlicky, peppery, and lots of olive oil. Pine nuts, which is scarce here in GenSan, were replaced by either peanuts and cashew nuts.
Homemade Pesto
For the recipe, I followed Connie’s suggestions on making her own pesto.
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We have a three-day weekend here in GenSan and it was a rather lazy one for me. I didn’t even get out of the house! I had ran out of rice then so the solution was to eat pasta all day. Even Pasta had pasta! But it seemed like perfect timing as I came across the book Under the Tuscan Sun (Francis Mayes) at Booksale and bought it. I loved the movie, and have watched it several times. And yeah, I dream of going to Tuscany one of these days. She had a lot of recipes of bruschetta and my taste bud was hankering for it.
Saturday came, I’m finishing the book. Taking a break from reading and go on the web. Checked on my Google Reader and came across a love story over a bruschetta. I wasted no time in getting to the kitchen and made my own.
This was just a simple but filling lunch. Toast some bread, rub with garlic. But being the garlic lover that I am, I grated the garlic over the bread. Diced some tomatoes and roasted bell pepper and mixed with chopped basil, olive oil, and a bit of black vinegar (I ran out of balsamic vinegar) and some cheese. Topped this on the toasted bread, and heated this in a covered heavy-bottomed pan (no oven!). I like my bread on the dark and crusty side.
A perfect way to end a good book. Now, if only I can find someone to make the bruschetta for me next time…
One of the fish I bought last Sunday was barilison. It looks like a smaller version of yellow fin tuna which I got weighing just a kilo. This will be my baon for lunch or for a quick dinner this week. This is a good alternative to tulingan to make sinaing na isda, something I’ve been wanting to cook lately. I couldn’t find any sampalok or kamias though so I used tomatoes as my souring agent.
Kinamatisang Isda
1kg fish (barilison or tulingan)
8 ripe tomatoes
2 pcs sibuyas dahon
siling haba
salt and pepper
For the 1kg-fish, slice it cross-wise into several pieces. Slice the tomatoes crosswise and the sibuyas dahon into 2-inch lengths. In a wide-bottom pot, place a layer of tomato slices, followed by a layer of the fish. Add some salt and pepper, siling haba and sibuyas dayon. If you have more fish, repeat the same procedure. Add about 2 tbsp water, not too much since you don’t want to boil the fish but rather steam it with the tomato juices. Cover the pot and let it simmer slowly till fish is cooked.
Looks good, right? Something to look forward to for lunch this week…
For the last few weeks, I have been eating a lot of seafoods. My plan is to buy whatever interesting find I could get. Cook something I have never cooked before. And nothing could be more interesting than this sea creature, almost like those coffee-loving critters from Men In Black!
These are called alupihang dagat or sea centipedes. I bought half a kilo just for me to try how it tastes like. Others call this mantis shrimps. I don’t know which is correct. But they look like centipedes.
Any suggestions on how to cook them?
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