Cow Brand Beef Jerky, image courtesy of http://darnedgoodeats.tumblr.com/
It was the late 70s.
I am probably around 11 years old. My 2 sisters would be 10 and 9, and the youngest at that time is my brother, who would be 7 then.
Sundays were always special. We get to wear our better clothes, apart from our school uniforms, we only have a few other pieces of clothing. I don’t remember any of us having a big wardrobe, unlike my children today who could not fit their clothes in their drawers, shelves and clothes cabinet. Not that it’s a fault, it’s just the way it is then. We don’t have regular shopping trips to buy clothes, we buy them only for special occasions such as birthdays, school recitals, graduation, and Christmas.
It doesn’t take much to keep us happy. Inexpensive treats, or “pasalubongs” from my father and mother when they arrive home at night are more than enough. I especially remember treats such as “Choc Nut”, “Curly Tops”, “Chippy” and “Cow Brand” beef jerky make us excited in anticipation of our parent’s coming home.
- Choc Nut, image courtesy of http://365greatpinoystuff.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/182-choc-nut/
And going back on those Sundays when we get to wear our best clothes, I remember another thing that made the day special. “Nanay” (mother) will bring us kids to church at probably 9 or 10 in the morning and afterwards take us to this really small shop that sells ice cream, It is so small you conduct business with the retailer from a tiny window, with a size just enough for the store minder to see us, ask what we need and hand over to us the merchandise.
Nanay will let us select an ice cream flavour for us to enjoy at home. Unanimously, my siblings and I would agree to have the “Flavor of the Month” from Magnolia Ice Cream, be it Halo-Halo, Rocky Road or Double Dutch.
My siblings and I are now grown-ups, and there are now 5 of us with the last addition being another brother born in 1980. We recently got together last Christmas, as Nanay had been in the hospital, and we had the chance to reminisce about our good ol’ days.
Along with many happy memories of growing up together, our Sundays with Nanay were among those that we remember well.
As I go back memory lane, there will be more stories about our life with Nanay. She passed away on January 8th, 2011, physically taken away from us by cancer but never gone from our hearts and memories.
Adobo. Image from http://media.photobucket.com/image/filipino%20adobo%20photo/frizz_11/DSC08695.jpg.
Adobo is described in Wikipedia as:
Adobo is Spanish for sauce, seasoning, or marinade used in Latin American and Southwest U.S.-style cooking.
However, Filipino adobo is different. It has evolved from the Filipino practice of stewing food in vinegar, a method that will prolongs a dish’s shelf life, very important in a country that has always a warm weather, where unrefrigerated food spoils very fast.
It is also one of the major food that identifies us with our culture, and a very easy dish to prepare. From my own experience, whenever I serve adobo to guests (including non-Filipinos), it is always commented with a word of appreciation, while some just simply fall in love with it and try to cook it at home!
Here below is my fool-proof recipe. Why not give it a try?
Adobo with whole black peppers. Image from http://www.1bestcuisineguide.com/images/filipino-cuisine-adobo.jpg.
Fool-proof Filipino Adobo (Cha’s version)
- canola oil, olive oil or corn oil
- 1 whole garlic (minced, or much better, sliced and crushed using a mortar and pestle)
- 1 kilo chicken legs or wings (I highly recommend chicken pieces that have bone and skin and not skinless chicken fillets, although healthier, it makes a drier adobo. Note: if using “Maryland” cuts, cut up into 3 or 4 pieces. In Australia, Maryland refers to a butcher’s cut comprising of the thigh and leg of chicken.)
- 1 cup vinegar (Use “Datu Puti” brand white vinegar when you can. If not available, other white vinegar brands would be fine.)
- 1/2 cup soy sauce (Any Philippine soy sauce brand from Asian stores is fine, but you can also use a Chinese “light” soy sauce if you prefer the dish not to be too dark.)
- freshly ground black pepper, about a teaspoon, or more if you want it to be spicier (It is best to use whole black peppercorn that is freshly ground than whole peppercorns, which is the traditional way. Do not substitute with store-bought black pepper in powder form, the taste is not as rich as freshly ground ones. Invest in a good pepper grinder instead.)
- 3-4 dried bay leaves (Note: Leave the bay leaves on the adobo when serving. It is for flavouring and a garnish, but not meant to be eaten.)
- a dash of brown sugar (Optional. This practice picks up the sour flavour and highlights it with a slightly sweet taste. Remember not to add too much. Adobo is meant to be on the “tangy”side.)
1. Heat oil on a medium-sized sauce pan or casserole. (I recommend an enamel-finished cast iron casserole, at least 28 cm to 34 cm diameter. A sauce pan or a deep frying pan can also be used. Do not use any aluminium cooking pot as the vinegar acids will react with the aluminium.) Add garlic pieces and saute until light brown. Take care not to burn the garlic because it will be bitter to the taste.
2. Add the chicken pieces and saute the chicken with the garlic for about 5 minutes or until lightly browned. Do not skip this step and proceed to step 3 right away; browning the chicken pieces add to the flavour at the end.
3. Pour the vinegar, then pour the soy sauce. Mix together with the chicken.
4. Add bay leaves and freshly ground black pepper to the mix. Cover.
5. Bring to a boil, and then simmer, covered, for 3o minutes until the chicken is thoroughly cooked. (To check this, slice away a part of chicken meat that is close to a bone. If no blood/red juice comes out, it is done. Chicken is something that has to be cooked really well, so be patient.)
6. Add the sugar (optional) at this stage. Keep on low heat for a further 5 minutes.
This is now ready to serve, and goes well with boiled white rice. (Optional, another traditional Filipino method of cooking rice is to add pandan leaves along with the rice before boiling. The pandan leaves infuses a sweet aroma to the rice.)
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The steps above produce adobo with a thin brown sauce. Some people prefer a thick, rich adobo sauce, which is more like a gravy. Here are 2 ways to do it:
Methods for a thick rich adobo sauce:
Method 1: Follow steps 1-4 as above. On step 5: Bring to a boil. When boiled, instead of covering the sauce pan or casserole while simmering, uncover the pot and let it simmer away until the chicken is thoroughly cooked. You can add the sugar (optional) at this stage. Wait a few more minutes until the sauce is reduced (it will evaporate gradually when left uncovered) and you will be left with thick gravy-like adobo sauce. Serve with boiled white rice.
Method 2: Follow steps 1-4 as above. On step 5: Bring to a boil. When boiled, instead of covering the sauce pan or casserole while simmering, uncover the pot and let it simmer. You can add the sugar (optional) at this stage. While simmering, heat a frying pan, add some oil and take the chicken pieces out from the adobo sauce pan or casserole and fry the pieces one at a time in the other frying pan. Fry each of the chicken pieces until brown; they should end with a lightly crisp skin but because it was removed from the adobo sauce, it will not be dry but will come up with a somewhat sticky layer. Once fried, arrange the chicken pieces on a platter. Wait until the simmering adobo sauce has thickened (the sauce will be reduced as it evaporates gradually when simmering and left uncovered). Once thick, pour the adobo sauce over the chicken pieces and serve. Goes well with boiled white rice.
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Additional notes:
Adobo can also be made using pork (pork belly is best). The method is to substitute the above recipe with 1 kilo of pork, or to use half a kilo pork and half a kilo of chicken.
Chicken and pork adobo. Image from http://test.datasphere-group.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/chicken_pork_adobo.jpg.
Some people add potatoes to the recipe, as I sometimes do, especially to extend the dish to feed more people. Just cut up 3 or 4 medium-sized potatoes into 4 cm cubes and add to the mix on step 3.
My mother, on the other hand, adds boiled eggs to adobo, which I also like to do sometimes. If you prefer to do this, boil 4 eggs while cooking the adobo separately. Wait until the eggs are hard-boiled, remove the shells and set aside. Once the adobo is done, add the eggs to the adobo and serve.
A similar result will be the image below. To get the marbled eggs effect, please follow the link on the photo.
Chicken-adobo with eggs. Image from http://houseonahill.net/cooking/chicken-recipes/chicken-adobo-with-hard-boiled-eggs/.
Enjoy your adobo!
It is a beautiful day! Image from http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3059/2981506003_c83ecb15b7_o.jpg.
Today is Friday the 13th!
This, to me, is like any other day. The sun is up, the winds are blowing, in fact it is a beautiful day!
I’ll be up and about just like any other day.
Have a wonderful day everyone!
Here is the link to “Beautiful Day” by U2! Enjoy!
Yesss!!! I made the chocolate and cheesecake brownie on Sunday, as I have been intending to, and it was well, turned out to be OK, in the sort of way that is acceptable but still not in the way that I would have been very happy. I would say, it’s great!, if it had been.
I followed the recipe to the hilt, well, except for the missing 20 grams in the recommended amount of butter. I still can’t bring myself to use the full amount because as I was adding the butter to the mix, I felt my heart constricting.
Imagine that! Although I did use the exact amount of butter, I thought the brownies was overlodged with oil when it started to ooze oil while baking. My sister in law assured me that that was alright, as they tend to ooze out oil and settle later. Which it did, after I left the brownies for 10 minutes in the oven after I turned the heat off.
I would have called the brownies great! if it had been fudgy and chewy. Instead it was just a regular brownie, only made rich with the swirling layer of cheesecake mixed in with the chocolate brownie.
Sorry I don’t have any photos as we took off with the still hot ceramic dish straight to my cousin’s party that I didn’t have time to take snaps of it.
Maybe next time I’ll be more relaxed to take a photo right afterwards!
I have been looking forward to the day that I can bake cakes again. I have this vision of luscious chocolate brownies that are just waiting to be made, to be churned out from my kitchen.
Lovely week, this is. No work, only a physio appointment, driving lessons and some errands to do.
Hmmm, and the house needs to be cleaned as well. But let me start work in the kitchen.
I probably spend 2/3 of my waking hours in this kitchen, when I am at home. But alas, for a long time I had no time to bake.
Now as I’m presented with the right opportunity, I made a mental note of the things I want to do. Yes, banana bread would be one, then some brownies, And ohh, I read that scones are very easy to make.
I reckon, since I am getting all my kitchen tools and the ingredients at the ready, I might as well bake as much as I can. Hubby will not be so impressed if I use the ‘electric’ oven just for one item, so three it will be.
First on the list is the scone. 5 ingredients is all I need. ‘This is easy!’, or so I thought.
I normally halve the butter that is recommended so I use only about 30 grams instead of 60. We have no milk, so I reconstituted some powdered milk with warm water, and added it to the flour/baking powder/salt/butter mix.
‘Turn dough onto a lightly floured board and knead very lightly until smooth’, the recipe said.
The batter was so sticky, I had half stuck to my fingers as soon as I attempted to knead it on the floured marble board. ‘Roll out to 3 cm thickness and cut into rounds using a cookie cutter’, it continued.
Since I got most on my hands and fingers when I tried to knead the batter, I thought, ‘what the hey? I’ll just roll them around this floured board and form them into balls.’ It should end up as scones anyway.
And so I did, form them into balls by hand and placed the ‘scones’ side by side and hoped for the best as I put it into the already warmed-up oven.
Next on the list is the banana bread. I know I have 3 or 4 seriously spotted bananas somewhere, so yeah, this is good. I opened 3 bananas (Eldest Son ate the fourth one) and I cut them up and mashed them. While the bananas are oxidising and turning brown, I turn to read the recipe for ‘Banana bread with almond and oat topping’. I have all the ingredients except for the flaked or slivered almonds, but I do have some roasted almonds so I put some in a freezer bag and put the bag on my mortar and pestle and beat the poor almonds kernels until they are evenly crushed.
Somehow I got together the banana bread batter and poured it in the Pyrex loaf pan. After I smoothed out the top, I spread my almond ‘crunch’ and oats mixture over the top and pressed them lightly to stick.
In it went to the oven while the scones are still merrily baking.
I just wondered why my scones are not getting any bigger. I was expecting them to grow while in the oven’s bosom but they were still just the same size as when I put them in. The only change is the colour, which is by now getting a happy tinge of tan.
Oh well, it will probably pop up if I let it finish on the timer and if I stop watching them on the glass window.
The last one to do is the chocolate brownie. I had tried and tested a recipe from a packet of Nestle chocolate buttons and they were very good. But I did not keep the packet, nor did find the recipe again whenever I check Nestle packets during my shopping trips. So this time I am going to use an untried recipe.
The one I am going to use is ‘Chocolate walnut brownies’. Makes 16 squares. Mental note: I can eat the 8 in one go.
I have no bran, so this is the only ingredient that I have not included. The recipe asks for 60 grams plain flour (to make the 16 squares). Are they kidding? Do they know what 60 grams is like? Anyway, judging by my measuring cup (250 mL) then 60 grams is like a teeny tiny cup.
Did I mention that I own a measuring scale? A digital one. I got it to make sure I have just the right weight whenever sending packages overseas to my mother and father, and this has been useful for Eldest Son when he made his school project: a healthy burger.
I digress. I have a measuring scale but I did not bother to take it out of its box and use it. I thought, ‘How could I go wrong, I’ll just estimate the ingredients’. And so for these 3 recipes, I was just ‘guess-timating’ all the time.
I doubled the amount of ingredients for the brownies because as I’ve said, you cannot make 16 squares out of 60 grams flour. Or can you?
How would I know? I did not measure it per se, but just poured a cup and a half of flour into the mixing bowl, and so it went for the rest of the ingredients. 60 grams butter times 2 for the recipe is 120 grams, but as I halve the butter every time, I used only what I thought was 60 grams.
I got all ingredients in the mix and I tasted the batter, as I always do. It tasted great!
So I took the scones out, which by its final moments still remain the same size but browner and harder, and placed the brownie mixture in its place in the oven.
I reckon the banana bread is ready, and I took it out. It is by now twice bigger (taller) and the top (almond/oats mixture) looked just cooked. I don’t want it to be overdone and burnt, so I took it from the oven 10 minutes earlier than what the recipe recommended.
Another twenty minutes, then I took the walnut brownies out and turned the oven off.
Though the scones did not expand, it did taste like scones after all. The walnut brownies were on the dry side, and the banana bread, well, when I cut it up, the texture looked like it was on the premature side. It was damp and packed tightly, something more like a fudge than bread. It should have stayed a little bit longer in the oven. Or I should have mixed the batter longer.
So why did the recipes fail? For one, I thought my amounts were right, or just about right when they probably are not (as I did not really measure them correctly). And I didn’t follow the steps as recommended, just happily slapped one ingredient after the other, a few steps omitted. And then the length of baking is another matter that I did not follow right.
So the lessons: follow the recipes, check the weight, use the right tools (measuring scale). Do not hurry and do not open the oven door frequently.
Do not be lazy, be in control at all times, and no guessing! Hopefully next time the results will be much better!
And as for the scones, my sons took it to school for small lunch; the brownies were almost finished and the banana bread will be for their small lunch box tomorrow!
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For my sons,
Embrace life!
Cheers:)
