A Scientist in the Kitchen

We got a whole yellow fina tuna and sliced into serving pieces then cooked them adobo style minus the soy sauce. Half is cooked with coconut milk and the other half with curry sauce. Both are delicious.

Adobo

First, cook the fish as adobo by simmering in water, vinegar, salt, pepper and lots of garlic. When fish is cooked, remove half of it and half a cup of sauce and reserve. To the rest of the fish, add a cup of coconut cream and simmer till coconut cream is cooked and the sauce has thickened. Serve with rice.

Curry

To the reserved fish, pan fry till browned. In a pan, mix the reserved sauce, a cup of milk and a teaspon each of curry mix and chili flakes. Simmer till sauce is thickened and add the pan-fried fish. Coat evenly with the sauce and serve.

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Sinigang reminds me of home. This is the dish I used to cook when I am homesick. I like the salty-sour thick soup that goes with it. At home, we use sampaloc (tamarind) instead of the usual mix you can buy. And we use lots of gabi to thicken the sauce. We usually use pork belly or liempo for sinigang.

Sinigang na Liempo

1 kilo pork belly
2 large tomatoes
2-3 pcs eggplant
200 grams gabi/taro
1 bunch of kangkong
2-3 long green sili (siling haba)
a handful of sampaloc
patis (fish paste) or salt to taste

Cut the liempo into serving pieces. Place in a pot and cover with enough water. Bring to a boil, remove scum then continue boiling till tender. Add more water if necessary and make sure there is enough broth left when meat is tender. Chop the tomatoes then add to the pot. Continue boiling till tomatoes are softened. Next add the gabi (slice into serving pieces - depending on how you like it, actually). When gabi is soft, remove half of it from the pot and mash. Set aside. Add the sampaloc (the handful is just an estimate, we usually buy it in a small bunch of several pieces and use all of them) and boil till tender. Remove all of the sampaloc and put in a bowl. Add the egg plant and siling haba to the pot and continue to simmer. While eggplant is cooking, scoop out about a cup of broth and add to the bowl of sampaloc. Mash the sampaloc to remove the flesh. You can add more broth if you like. Strain the sampaloc and return the broth to the pot. Add the mashed gabi and bring to a boil. Season with patis or salt. Add the kangkong and simmer a few minutes till  it is cooked. Serve with rice, of course.

How do I like my sinigang? The salty-sour taste should be well-balanced - “nag-aagaw ang alat and asim“, thick soup with a hint of chili.

Sinigang is not complete without the dipping sauce. I usually have patis and kalamansi and mashed siling haba that cooked with the sinigang.

I can’t miss this Presto Pasta Nights edition as it will be Katie of Thyme for Cooking (one of my favorite blogs) who will be hosting it this week.

I’ve had in the backburner for quite some time. I prefer red sauce than white sauce and that is what I usually cook at home. But it was my Mom’s birthday then and she requested for white pasta. So this was what I served for her birthday then (among other things and a gift from Beautifeel).

Linguine with Bacon and White Sauce

250 grams linguine pasta
200 g bacon
5 cloves garlic
1 medium sized onion
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell prepper
1 tbsp mix of dried herbs (basil, rosemary, sage)
1 pack of all-purpose cream
salt and pepper to taste

Cook pasta according to package instructions. Drain and set aside the pasta. Reserve about half a cup of broth. Fry bacon until almost crisp. Remove from pan, chop coarsely and set aside. Chop garlic, onion and bell peppers coarsely. In a pan, heat 2 tbsp olive oil then saute garlic and onions. Add the bell peppers and dried herbs. Stir well then add the cream. Simmer for a few minutes then add salt and pepper according to taste. Add the pasta and mix everything to coat the pasta. You may add some of the reserved broth if the mixture is to thick. Add the bacon then check again for salt and pepper taste and serve.

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CHECK THIS OUT!!!

Grow Your Own is now a twice-a-month blogging event, and celebrates the foods we grow or raise ourselves and the dishes we make using our homegrown products. This edition is hosted by Bee of Jugalbandi.

I used tilapia heads for this sinigang and kamias as the souring agent instead of the usual sampaloc. We have a kamias (bilimbi) tree that bears fruit profusely when in season. Coupled to that are young leaves from the birds’ eye chili (talbos ng sili) which is commonly added to tinola - a type of ginger-based soup.

In this case, I used kamias and talbos ng sili to make sinigang, this time a sour soup similar to the Thai tomyam soup minus the spicy flavor. Rather, it’s more like a blending of sourness and saltiness. Meat or seafood can be used and vegetables such as tomatoes, long beans, taro, egg plant and water spinach are the ingredients. The souring agent is commonly tamarind but other alternatives are ripe guava, kamias, or kalamansi.

In a pot, bring to a boil 2 cups of water. Add 2-3 chopped tomatoes and about 5 large kamias (also chopped). Add 1 tbsp patis. Simmer till tomatoes and kamias are tender. Mash some of the kamias on the side of the pot to release the sourness. Add 3-4 tilapia heads and 2 pcs of siling haba. Cook until tilapia is done. Taste for saltiness and sourness and adjust according to your taste. Add a cup of talbos ng sili, cover the pot for a minute or two then serve immediately.