A scientist in the kitchen

One of the perks of working in science is the opportunity to travel in different places to present one’s work. It is a time to meet other scientists with the same interests as you, meet up with former teachers and classmates, find contacts for collaboration but more importantly a time to update oneself with the latest in the field.  Like me for instance, most of my travels out of the country have been through attending workshops, presenting papers or giving lectures in the field of plant pathology and in molecular biology. The conference that I am looking forward to this year is the Centennial Meeting of the American Phytopatholigical Society (APS), the largest gathering of plant pathologists in the world. This year it will be held in Minneapolis, MN. This event is very special because it is our 100^th year anniversary and a lot of activities, interesting talks, and symposiums will be held. It would be a chance for me to go job hunting as well J 

The problem with travel to attend this kind of events is getting hotel reservations with the best price possible. Mind you, travel to the US can be very expensive so I need to get as much hotel discount as I can. Hotels near the venue usually get filled up easily and usually out of my budget range. But looks like I may do better this year! I found this website that offers as much as 70% discount in hotel reservations. Now isn’t that great? I am new to online booking and HotelReservations.com does a great job of helping find potential places to stay in Minneapolis.

With the conference of course is the opportunity to visit around Minneapolis, find restaurants to eat, must-visit places as well as cultural events happening. I really look forward to this side trip. So weeks ahead of the trip, I will surely look up destination guides to Minneapolis so I can make best of my stay.  

Now, I’ve got to get back to my research so I can have something to present!

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The coconut (Cocos nucifera) is not called “the tree of life” for nothing. From the leaves to the roots, coconut has a lot uses which Kai aptly sums up on her announcement of the Lasang Pinoy 24th edition. Let’s go loco over coco!

To go to specifics, here are the many ways that coconut has found its way into my family’s life. For one thing, Our house is made of local materials- sawali, nipa and yes, coconut lumber as walls. In the kitchen, the coconut husk has its rightful place in our grills. We grill with coconut husk instead of the usual charcoal. They are quite easy to lit up and can have you grilling in a few minutes.

We have our staple of dishes that uses coconut as well. Chicken adobo sa gata, ginataang hipon, sinugno, to name a few. For this post, I will share with you a coconut soup. But before that, here are some more ways we have found uses for coconut. Before the virgin coconut oil, we produce our own coconut oil buy cooking coconut cream till it oils. Oops, don’t throw away the grated coconut left after getting the cream. We use this as feed for our native chickens.

Creamy corn and crab soup in coconut milk

Chop 1 large carrot, 1 large onion, 2 bell pepper and five celery stalks. In a pot, add 2 tbsp oil. Add all the choppped vegetables and let them sweat in the pot. Add about eight cups of coconut milk from second extraction. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add 1 tsp chili flakes. In a bowl, mix 1 cup of coconut cream (from first extraction) and a pack of Knorr crab and corn soup. Add to the pot, stirring constantly until soup is thick. Best served hot.

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To continue with my Thai dish escapades for Weekend Herb Blogging, here’s another variation of pork stir fry with red curry paste. Most red curry recipes call for ading coconut milk to the dish. While I love using coconut milk in my dishes, somehow the combination of coconut milk and red curry paste does not suit well with my taste. I love red curry as it is, stir fried with meat and with lots of vegetables.

For this recipe, I added some green beans to the stir fry and finished it off with the addition of Thai basil from our garden. There are three common Thai basil varieties that are commonly used in Thai cooking. These are bai horapa (Thai or anise basil), bai gka-prow (holy basil) and bai maeng-lak (lemon basil). The most popular in the west is the Thai basil with an anise/licorice-like flavor, and is also popular in Vietnamese and Laotian cuisine.

Pork and red curry stir fry with Thai basil

300 grams thinly-sliced pork strips
2 tbsp red curry paste
1 tbsp sugar
5 clove garlic, finely chopped
50 grams green beans, cut into 2″ pieces
5 or more basil leaves

Heat oil in wok and add the red curry paste. Add the chopped garlic, mix for several seconds then the meat and sugar. Stir fry till meat is done. Add 1/4 cup water and scrape the paste that stuck to the pan. Adjust flavor for saltiness, sweetness or hotness (these flavors should be balanced). Add the beans and mix a few times till beans are half done. Add the basil last and mix 3-5 times. Serve with rice.

Zorra from Kochtopf is hosting WHB this week.

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Del Monter is a very popular food brand in the Philippines. Think tomato sauce. Think fruit cocktail for fruit salad. Think pineapple. Del Monte is always associated with these products. What I love about Del Monte, though, is it’s Kitchenomica Club, which dishes out a lot of viands and desserts through newsletters and pamphlets. My mom collects all these pamphlets and we get ideas from them. Mind you, this is not a paid post by Del Monte ok? I’m just setting the background to where I got the inspiration for this recipe. Well, it was my mom who got the idea for this recipe and insisted that we cook it during my dad’s birthday party. I tweaked it a bit, though and here’s the recipe.

Fried Wontons with Pineapple

1 kg ground pork
1 large carrot, chopped
1 large turnip, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 large onion, chopped
1 tbsp freshly ground pepper
salt to taste
2 cans Del Monte Pineapple tidbits, drained (reserve syrup)
3 tbsp sesame oil

Mix all ingredients together. Take a small portion and wrap in wonton wrapper. Fry till deep brown. Taste and adjust saltiness. It should have a slight sweetish taste. When it is according to your taste, place the mixture in the refrigerator to marinate for at least an hour. Wrap the meat in wonton wrappers, adding a small portion of meat only so it would still be well wrapped. To wrap, bring opposite corners of wonton wrapper together and seal with water or egg white. Fry until golden brown. Serve with sauce.

To make the sauce:

Mix 1/2 cup cane vineger, the reserved syrup, 1 tbsp of sugar, 1/2 cup of water, 1 tbsp soy sauce (optional), 1 tbsp of chili flakes, and 3 tbsp of tomato paste. Bring to a boil till the volume reduces to half. Meanwhile, mix 2 tbsp of flour to 1/4 cup of water. Pour slowly into vinegar-sugar mixture while constantly stirring. When sauce thickens, it is done.

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Want more recipes with pineapple? Check out Root Source Challenge # 2. Ever wondered how a market looks like in other parts of the world? Check out “To market, to market”. Or you can share yours, too.

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