Fish Tempura

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This fish recipe brings to mind my memories of a little boy who once lived with us. His name was RJ. His mother, Mercy, was our helper. No one could look after him if his mother were to continue working for us at that time, so we told Mercy she could bring him along. We thought it would benefit everyone if she did. Work and shelter for them, househelp for us and a play buddy for Choychoy.

Choychoy seemed to like RJ, but RJ didn't like him back. Mainly it had to do with him and Choychoy accidentally bumping against each other on their very first play session. RJ ended up being thrown a good 4 feet across the room. Imagine a small car colliding with something big, say, the planet Jupiter. No one's fault, really, just simple physics at work, but the incident traumatized RJ a great deal. He would react to Choychoy's every move as though it were life threatening. It didn’t help that RJ weighed only about as much as all of Choychoy's toes combined. My poor baby worked his way around RJ as gently as he could but RJ would run like hell for the nearest exit every time he found himself in the same room as my son.

Diyos ko, iligtas nyo po ako...

Choychoy was the biggest boy he had ever seen, RJ said, and he couldn't believe how a boy his age could be as strong as a bull. (Honestly, we couldn't believe it, either.) Needless to say, the play buddy plan didn't work out.

There was one thing that RJ couldn't stay away from, though. It was my Fish Tempura. He just couldn't get enough of them. Ate it like Chippy, actually.

The day RJ and his mom bid us goodbye, I served up a Fish Tempura that (along with his memories of a giant playmate) he will never forget.

..... Looking back now, I think the only logical way I could have gotten him to play with my boy was if Choychoy was wearing a string of Fish Tempura around his neck. :)

 

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FISH TEMPURA

1. First, prepare your boneless fillet. I use Cream Dory (Pangasius) which you can easily get at any supermarket's frozen section. Slice them into strips and season with salt and pepper. Put in freezer first while you prepare the batter. You can also start heating a pot of vegetable oil at this point, for deeep frying.

 

2. Mix the following dry ingredients in a bowl:

• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1/4 tsp. baking powder
• 1/8 tsp. baking soda 

3. In another bowl, beat an egg and an extra egg white slightly, then add a cup of ice water. Again, that's:

• 1 egg
• 1 egg white
• 1 cup ice water

4. Put the egg mixture in the bowl of dry ingredients. Stir very slightly, even leaving some portions unmixed. Mixing it will produce gluten and will fail you to achieve that lacy, bubbly texture on your tempura.

5. Put the bowl of batter in a bigger bowl of ice cubes. This is to ensure the fish batter is very, very cold when you drop them in a pot of very, vey hot oil.

6. Put all the cold fish in the lumpy batter. Fold to cover the fish just before dropping it on the very hot oil. Watch it sizzle into a light and lacy Tempura. Fry for about 6 minutes and serve with Tentsuyu.

Dipping Sauce (Tentsuyu):

Put the following ingredients in a pan and cook under low heat until sugar is melted. The original recipe calls for dashi soup stock instead of water but this surprisingly turned out delicious.

• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup mirin
• 1/4 cup Kikkoman soy sauce
• 1/2 Tbsp sugar

Summer Vacation Tip #1

Do not force your children to pose for pictures. It won't be worth it.

Looong Weekend

I looove long weekends! I really, really do. The sun shines.... parang brighter. The air smells.... parang fresher. For some reason, even when you lack sleep, you wake up early; long drives look more appealing than lounging around the house all day watching Barney. Parang... ang kati sa paa!

Luckily, Totoy often feels the same, and such was the case this weekend. We found ourselves all packed and seated in the car before we even knew where we were heading.  

Then off we went, in a dazzling place we never knew; where there was no one to tell us no or where to go. The gasoline boy told us though, "Wala hong Jolibee rine"....... Say we're only dreaming!

  

It turned out we weren't. San Guillermo didn't have Jolibee and we were hungry. And then we saw it, shining, shimmering, splendid!

Angel Hamburger. Ok na din, 'buy one, take one' pa.

Yes, it did feel like a Whole New World out there, (umn, in case you still don't get it?) and the trip was turning out exactly how we wanted it. We did get an itty-bitty more of what we were asking for though, when finally the road signs were leading us to a finally familiar town, Tagaytay. This back door to the city turned out to offer the most doglegs and the steepest trails you can imagine.

But we survived. Needless to say, among the countless trips to this nearest yet coolest of getaways, that route gave us the most fun, memorable and thrilling Tagaytay journey, ever.

The day continued to favor us with perfect weather. Our little boy got to see several things for the first time.

Every minute spelled FUN.

Then it was time to head back home. In keeping with the day's theme of unplanned adventure, dear husband chose to take the untried route, Imus.  

No more sharp bends or scary slopes. Somewhere near Bacoor, however, a magnificent sight had the domestic diva in me commanding the vehicle to a screeching halt:  heaps of fresh Tahong  on a sidewalk table glistening beautifully under a lamp.

Perfect, I thought to myself, this long weekend has just begun.

BAKED TAHONG

Here are the ingredients you need to make this luscious dish:

• 3 kg. tahong (mahirap na, baka mabitin)
• 1 1/2 cup melted salted butter (3 sticks or 1 1/2 brick dito satin)
• 1/3 cup finely pounded garlic
• 1 to 2 cups grated quick-melt processed cheese
• 1/4 cup chopped parseley
• lemon, for serving

1. Clean the mussels in running water. Remove the "beard" by pulling it towards the hinge side of the tahong. You can sometimes buy them still with those nasty barnacles attached; remove them with a knife.

2. Boil a pot of water and put in the tahong. Ready your tongs or ladle because you just want to open the shells and not really cook them. Remove each tahong as soon as they open. The toughest to open could take about 15 minutes.

3. Let cool and remove the top shell.

4. Lay them out in baking trays.

5. Melt the butter. Pound the garlic to a paste and mix in the butter. Put at least half a teaspoon of the mixture on each tahong.

6. Top with grated cheese and parseley.

7. Put in the oven, preheated to 375° F or 190 ° C. Bake for about 10 minutes. Note that an overcooked tahong shrinks and gets tough. Asteeeg, hehehe.. (RPG hangover)

8. Serve with lemon.

The long weekend did not end here, of course; but this blog post has to - with a promise that Part II or even Part III will follow in the days to come.

Killer Chicken

Although the recipe I'm sharing today is my husband's own, I'm sure he's with me in dedicating this great dish to the one who loves it the most -- my nephew Oyel.

Allow me to share a little story about Oyel. (bawal mag-skip)

He had an unusual upbringing in the sense that he was never baby-talked. Never. Having been born to young parents, he was surrounded with fun-loving adults who talked to him like he was grown up. Pretty soon we had ourselves a toddler who himself talked like an adult. Like one time, he was standing in line behind a nursery classmate whose hair he happened to smell. He told the poor kid, "Sabihin mo sa mommy mo, shampoohin ka nang maige ha." And he'd justify that to us on his adult tone, that the girl needed that, and that someone had to tell her. Haay.

Every so often we'd find ourselves unmindful of his age and would be sharing our thoughts with this little boy. Once when he was barely three, we got engaged on this talk about me being bullied when I was in college. He listened intently, and when I was done, he uttered calmly but with conviction, "Paglaki ko Tita Ai, papatayin ko sila". Juskupooo, binaby-talk na lang dapat ito.

Mabuti na lang, the killer instinct in him did not progress (thank you Lord), and he has since grown up to be a fine young college boy; his thoughts replaced with fondness for pretty girls and good food. Having said that, this chicken dish is one of his super favorites.

Oo na, eto na, 'to na!

THE KILLER CHICKEN

(dubbed as Peppered Chicken too)

Prepare your griller; some uling of course. Then you'd be needing:

• Chicken thighs

Make a few slits on your chicken. The skin shrinks evenly; thus prettier that way, when grilled.
Now make the mixture for the rub:

• rock salt
• cracked peppercorn
• MSG

Mix 2 parts of salt to 1 part of pepper in a bowl and taktak some vetsin =). Rub on the chicken thighs. Be careful not to add too much, baka umalat.

Now prepare the mixture for basting. You're going to need the following:

• Star margarine
• Achuete oil

To make achuete oil, cook on low heat 2 cups of vegetable oil and a cup of achuete (annatto) seeds for about 5 minutes or until you get that dark yellow color. Discard the seeds and there you have your achuete oil.

Back to the basting mixture, put the margarine to 2 parts achuete oil. So for 2 cups of achuete oil, you need to put about a cup of the margarine. Please do your math. You may not be needing this much but it won't hurt to keep the excess.

There goes your basting mixture. Just brush generously on the chicken while grilling, walang hindi masasarapan =).

Oh. For the sawsawan we put soy sauce, calamansi, salt and pepper on vinegar.

It goes very well too with what Oyel named "Margarine Rice".

To make that, just heat on pan 2 tbsp. of that basting mixture, add another tbsp. of margarine, saute about 1 tbsp. of garlic then add about 3 tbsp. of green onions. After a few seconds add about 8 cups of rice. (naparami yata yung about) Put 1 pack of Maggi Magic Sarap and konting salt pa.

There! That's for you, Yel! =)

Ribbon Tutorial Part One

As promised here.

Watch and learn!