A scientist in the kitchen

Tomatoes, onions and ginger are staples in the Filipino kitchen. For this week’s Weekend Herb Blogging (hosted this week by Rinku of Cooking in Westchester), I’m using these three ingredients to create succulent steamed tilapia steamed in banana leaves.

This is my favorite way to prepare fish. It’s actually more of broiling-steaming method as you wrap the fish with banana leaves then broil it. As the banana leaves burn, the fish is steamed such that the fish is done when the banana leaves have burned.

Prepare the stuffing. I usually use a combination of ginger, tomatoes, onions and salt.

Stuff the fish with a mixtue of ginger, tomatoes, onions and salt.

Wrap the the fish with 2-3 layers of banana leaves. Grill. Grill each side till first two layers of banana leaves are burnt.

Carefully peel away the banana leaves.

Here’s your tilapia steamed in banana leaves. Note that the skin is not burnt. The stuffing are also well cooked. To enhance the taste, I usually make a dipping sauce of fresh chili and fish sauce. This dish goes well with kamote tops salad.

So far, I use the same stuffing for other kinds of fish. Next time, I will use cilantro for stuffing like Jaden did.

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Whenever I want a simple and homey grilled chicken, I usually just marinate chicken meat in soy sauce, crushed pepper and garlic. Filipino food usually use a lot soy sauce in the dish, to add salt or color. It’s all according to taste, I really don’t know the exact measurements. And just before grilling, I add the juice of one calamansi (Philippine lemon). It has never failed to satisfy my craving and have always impressed my foreign friends whenever they visit at home. Dippings? Just a combination of soysauce, lemons and chopped chilis will do.

It’s as homey as it can get, we have what we call a “dirty kitchen”. Most Filipino homes you would find a kitchen within the house where you have a gas stove or an electric one. And outside is the old-fashioned way cooking where one uses firewood to boil away meats to perfection. It is usually sooty and smoky with the smoke from the wood-fired stove. For grilling? We use dried coconut husks which easily turns to coal which is perfect for grilling. One can use metal griller to put the meats or since I live in a farm, cut off a few branches of Madre de Cacao (Gliricidia) and put on top of the coal. That’s your griller!

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Now, baby-back ribs are not the usual cut of meat we can find in the local market here in the Philippines. In big groceries though, they are available. It’s not often I cook it, so it needs cunning and planning to get that well done succulent grilled baby-back ribs. I like to serve my grills with aplomb but never seem to pull it off. With constant reading of recipes and a friendly butcher, I finally got my own way grilling this lovely piece of meat. Mind you, it’s not really unique as you will find out. You’ve probably done the same thing before. But then, here goes my grilled baby-back ribs.

Baby back ribs, or simply back ribs, are taken from the top of the rib cage between the spine and the spareribs, below the loin muscle. They have meat between the bones and are shorter but meatier than spareribs. The rack is shorter at one end, due to the natural tapering of a pig’s rib cage. The shortest bones are typically only about 3″ (7.6 cm) and the longest is usually about 6″ (15.2 cm), depending on the size of the hog. Whilst a pig has 15 ribs, a rack of baby back ribs contains a minimum of 8 ribs but can include up to 15 ribs depending on how it has been prepared by the butcher.

You can grill one whole slab of baby back ribs though it’s difficult to get portions later when you serve it. So I what do is ask the butcher to cut through the spine so that each ribs would be joined by the meaty portion and not the bony spine. I’ve said it before, and I say it again, I love lemongrass so this time, to tenderize the meat, I boil it first in lemongrass, laurel leaves, crushed black pepper and salt till meat is tender. Then I grill it basted with with soy sauce marinade.

Ingredients:
A slab of baby back ribs
2 stalks of lemongrass
2 laurel leaves
1 tbsp salt
Marinade/baste:
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 stalk lemongrass chopped then crushed
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup pineapple juice
1 tsp crushed black pepper
juice of 1 lemon

1. Put meat in cooking pan, add lemongrass, laurel leaves and salt. Add enough water to cover the meat. Bring to a boil then simmer till meat is tender.
2. Mix marinade then rub onto cooked meat. Wrap in Saran wrap then marinate for 30 min to 1 hour.

3. Grill meat till the marinade is glazed around the meat. Baste during cooking to prevent drying of the meat.

Filipinos love to dip grilled food in a mixture of soy sauce, chilis, and calamansi (Philippine lemon) or vinegar. Another version would be to mix also chopped onions and tomatoes with the soy sauce. Or how about adding chopped cilantro to the soy sauce? Yes, non of the oil-based dips for grill meats and fish here.

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This was Christmas 2006. For some reason, I was not able to plan out our traditional Christmas dinner. So I rummaged in the freezer and found this cut of meat. I really don’t know the cut but anyway was I excited as I thought of the possibilities in cooking it. I seldom bake meat so this was something to look forward to. Or perhaps in a stew. Well, I settled for baking this slab of pork. But first I marinated it in salt, garlic, pepper and whatever herbs I could find in the kitchen - basil, rosemary, thyme and oregano. What I did first was to mix salt, pepper, and chopped garlic then rub into meat. I made slits with a knife and inserted more garlic. Then I rubbed the meat with a mixture of rosemary and thyme, wrapped it in saran wrap and left it the ref for two hours. It would be better if it’s marinated longer, but then, I was in a rush. I baked the meat at 350 degrees F for an hour and a half. Actually, I got to use my meat thermometer, waited till meat comes out around 140 degrees C and voila, I have roast pork for Christmas dinner.

Other roast pork recipes:

Garlic-Herb Roast Pork
Italian-Style Roast Pork
Maple Glazed Pork Roast
Roast Pork Crusted with Adobo

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