A scientist in the kitchen

The food blogging world was surely busy Sunday celebrating one of the most special days of the year - Mothers’ Day. SO what was on the menu?

Prosciutto Arugula Salad

Berry Good Ice Cream Cake Roll

Blueberry pancakes, scrambled eggs and fruit salad

Bahama Mama Banana Rum Cake

Omelet with sauteed spinach, feta cheese and avocado

Blueberry Buckwheat Pancakes

A Very Special Mother’s Day Breakfast

Gourmet’s Spicy Crab Spaghetti with Preserved Lemons…

Durian Cream Cake

Eggs Benedict
And here’s for my Mom:

Mango and Cucumber Salad

1 medium cucumber

2 ripe mangoes

1 bell pepper

1 sprig of chives

1 large tomato

3 small green tomatoes

freshly crushed black pepper

1/4 cup vinegar

1 tbsp honey or sugar

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 tsp salt
Slice all vegetables thinly. Combine in a bowl and top with freshly crush black pepper. Mix vinegar, honey or sugar, sesame oil and salt. Taste for your preference. Drizzle on top of salad and serve.

Popularity: 16% [?]

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I cooked paella on a whim last Sunday (May 4), and while I haven’t written the whole post yet, I can’t resist showing off these pictures. I had Iranian saffron languishing to be cooked plus I have been wanting to cook paella after a long time. The first time I cooked it was Fathers’ Day, many years back. For sure, I’m going to make it again.

Paella cooking with chicken, olives, tomatoes, cucumber and bell pepper. Whatever I found in then fridge.

I topped the paella with eggs and dill. The egg is supposed to be heart-shaped after molding it with my new egg molders it didn’t shape well.

Popularity: 16% [?]

It is Presto Pasta Night again. Here’s another type of noodle that we usually cook in the Philippines. Miki is yet another noodle variation in the Philippines. It is a type of fresh egg noodles, 2-3 mm thick that is cooked in the same way as Pancit Canton - sauteed with vegetables. Or you can cook it into a soup and it is called Pancit Mami. Home cooking usually makes pancit miki, while in the market stalls, pancit mami is sold. When making pancit miki, it is also common to use Chinese chorizos. In the market, we can buy a vegetable pack consisting of vegetables used in popular dishes. For example, there is the chop suey pack which has cabbage, sayote, carrots, green beans and bell pepper. Or the nilaga pack (boiled meats) which has potatoes, cabbages and green beans. Or the pinakbet pack which contains eggplant, squash, string beans and tomatoes. For the pancit miki, I bought the chop suey pack.

Pancit Miki

1 medium size carrot
1 cup cabbage, chopped roughly
1 sayote
1/2 cup green beans
1 Chinese chorizo, sliced crosswise, diagonally
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium size onion, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
250 grams pork belly
500 grams fresh noodles

Boil pork belly in 2-3 cups water. When tender, chop in 1/2 inch thich. Reserve broth. Wash noodles to remove excess salt. Chop carrot, sayote and green beans according to picture below.

Saute garlic and onion. When onion is limp, add the pork belly slice and sautee till pork belly is a bit browned. Add salt and pepper (I like to saute the pepper aside from adding it again later). Add the chorizo and the vegetables except cabbage. Saute for two minutes, add 1/2 cup broth and simmer for a minute. Add the cabbage and cook for one minute. Add 1/2 cup of broth, bring to a simmer. Taste for saltiness and pepper taste. Add the noodles and mix all ingredients. If it gets dry, add 1/4 cup of the broth. Simmer for a few minutes then serve.

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Celebrate farmers’ markets everywhere. Join To market, to market…

Popularity: 16% [?]

Several weeks back, we had a clan reunion with all the members of my grandma’s side of the family invited. The activity was held in our place, tents were put up in the backyard, a videoke machine was rented and a lot of the cousins came. Since we were hosting, we had a lot of cleaning up to do at home and the cooking was left to my dad’s brother and sisters. I like this kind of occasion as most of the foods serve are traditional or locally available. Of course, there are pork stews and noodles. But one of the dishes served was catfish - some grilled and the others fried to be topped with sauteed tomatoes and kinchay (Chinese parsley?).

Tomatoes are sauteed with garlic, onion and black beans. Add some water and squish the tomatoes to make the sauce thick. Then kinchay is added before it is taken off the fire. Some cooks prefer to add the fried fish to the sauce them boil for a few minutes. What my cousin did was to separate the sauce. Which is a good idea as I really don’t like the sauce I prefer to dip the fried catfish in soy sauce and chili!

Speaking of cats, my friends J and K gave me saltshaker of a cat for my birthday the other week. Cute right?

Now, I can add it to my collection of cats! I might need a cat condo for them later on…

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Early this morning, a group of graduate students working on rice research were given a field tour around the ricefields by one of the rice breeders. It was quite exciting for me, as I mostly do laboratory work and greenhouse experiments. There are several species of rice, some grow really tall - most of the energy they turn up goes into growing up rather than producing grains. Some are really tiny and looks like grasses. We even walk through the fields to get an idea of how elite rice lines are evaluated and selected for further advancement. Rice breeders literally screen thousands of rice lines each cropping season (two seasons per year - wet and dry). It was hot and I was sweaty but I had a good discussion on rice breeding in general. Keeps me grounded actually with the work I am doing in the lab.

Then a job interview for a new position (cross my fingers!). It was not too bad…

Well after several weeks of absence from Pasta Pesto Nights, I finally have this chance to share my pasta and noodle cooking in the last few weeks. Got busy with graduate school work, my heart was not so much into blogging but more of eating (what else is new?). TOmatoes are rather cheap at this of the year, sometimes only about 20 pesos (~$0.50) per kilo. At the extreme end, the price could go to as much as $1.50. So I made meaty tomato sauce for linguine, a treat for my birthday two weeks ago.

Linguine in Meaty Tomato Sauce

1.5 kilos fresh tomatoes, chopped
500 grams ground pork
5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
salt, pepper and chili flakes to taste
Linguine pasta, cooked al dente

Saute garlic and onion in 2 tbsp oil. Add the ground pork and saute until it no longer pink. Add the tomatoes, mix well then cook over low fire for three hours. Season with salt, pepper and chili flakes to your liking. Top linguine pasta with this sauce. The sauce is good for around 500 grams pasta.

Some notes:

I usually cook around 200 grams first, enough for my sister, mom and me. Dad’s not so much into pasta unless it’s Filipino-style spaghetti so he just shares with my mom. If he likes it, he gets his own plate.

I cooked this over a wood-fired stove, just bringing everything to a simmer and let the tomatoes cook over slow fire.

I’d love to this again!

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Am writing this in a computer rental shop, my internet connection is crazy at the moment…

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