Spicy Spaghetti with Bacon and Basil

I love pasta dishes and I am glad that whenever I cook any pasta dish most of my family and friends compliment the taste.

Sometime ago I was in a meeting. We were at Black Canyon Coffee shop here in Bangkok. Whilst it is a coffee shop, they also serve some meals. Since my boss was craving for something spicy that time, she ordered Spicy Spaghetti. When the order came, she offered me some and I tasted it..it’s really good. Since then I wanted to try my own version of Spicy Spaghetti.

Last week while it was raining, I was in a supermarket and saw dried chillies. Suddenly I remembered the Spicy Spaghetti. I then grabbed a pack of pasta, some fresh basil leaves, bacon and dried chillies of course. I head back home and started cooking my Spicy Spaghetti. In Thai, they usually term it as Kee Mao style. Kee Mao is a term they used to tag foods that are good match for some alcohols like Beer, Wine, etc. In Filipino term, “pang pulutan” because it whets your appetite.

Ingredients:

200 grams spaghetti noodles
1 pack of Bacon strips
1 cup of fresh Holy Basil leaves
4 pcs dried chilli cut into 1/2 inch strips
1 medium sized onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
Olive oil for stir frying

Procedures:

Cook the pasta until tender but still firm. In a separate pan, fry the bacon strips. Set aside and let the oil drip or place in a bowl with paper towel. Cut into smaller pieces.

Sautee garlic and onion in olive oil. Add the bacon, dried chillies and basil leaves. Then add the cooked spaghetti noodles. Stir fry it until the ingredients are mixed well together (around 2-3 minutes).

You can sprinkle with white ground pepper and dried oregano leaves too to add more flavor.

Serve immediately with a glass of ice-cold soda.

Enjoy!

Pancit Bihon Guisado

There are a lot of Thai noodle dish available but there are times you just miss all the good Pinoy foods and Pancit is definitely one of them though I believe it is a Chinese-inspired dish.

Pancit Bihon is a staple food in our family because my Mom really love it. I can’t remember any month that we didn’t have Pancit Bihon for snack.  Some restaurants combine Bihon with Miki noodles to call it Pancit Miki Bihon which is a very heavy meal.

Ingredients:

5oo g. Pancit Bihon
250g. Ground Pork
2 pcs. Chinese Sausage, sliced thinly
250 g. Shrimp, cooked, deveined and peeled
1 medium carrots, chopped thinly
1 head broccoli chopped into small florets
1 medium Chinese cabbage, chopped thinly
1 medium garlic, minced
5 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup of Soy sauce
Ground white pepper to taste
Sesame oil
Water
Cooking oil for stir frying
Calamansi or lime

Procedure:

Heat a wok, saute garlic and onions in cooking oil then add the ground pork,  Chinese Sausage, a bit of soy sauce and ground pepper to taste and cook until the pork is tender. Add the shrimp, carrots and broccoli and put some water and let it simmer until the vegetables are half cooked. Add the cabbage and cover until tender. Remove from heat and set aside the vegetable mixture in a bowl.

In the same wok, boil about 2-3 cups of water. When the water is boiling, add the bihon noodles and season with soy sauce to make the noodles look darker and not bland taste.  Bihon noodles absorb a lot of water so make sure you pour in some more water if the noodles becomes dry. When the noodles is almost done, pour in the vegetables and mix together all the ingredients in the wok until the noodle is cooked. Season with sesame oil to add characteristic taste.

Serve while hot and squeeze sliced Calamansi or lime.

Lumpiang Sariwa

I was craving for Lumpiang Sariwa or Fresh Spring Roll (some people call it Lumpiang Hubad or unwrapped Lumpia) since it has been very long time that I last tasted this dish because I do not cook it here in Bangkok mainly because it is difficult to prepare cos it involves a lot of chopping plus if you combine all the ingredients even how small portion you try to cook, the end result is still too much for me.
I did it anyway because I am preparing a Philippine dish for my colleagues. I decided to cook it because it is a safe dish as almost everyone eat vegetable plus the taste is not too strong.

Ingredients:
1/4 kg. ground lean pork
1/4 kg. fresh shrimps, deveined and peeled
1 whole hard tofu, chopped into cubes
1/2 cup water
1 medium carrots, chopped thinly
10 pcs. Baguio beans (also called Green Bean or runner bean), chopped thinly
1 medium sized turnip (or sweet potato), chopped thinly
1 medium sized cabbage, shredded
1 stalk celery, chopped thinly
1 pack ginisa mix
1 medium sized onion, minced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced

For the sauce:
3 tbsp soy sauce
2 cups water
2 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 cup crushed roasted peanut
2-3 tbsp cornstarch dissolved in water (as thickener)
5 cloves garlic, crushed

Procedure:
Heat the pan. Sautee garlic and onions. Add the ground pork. Season with ginisa mix. Add the tofu and shrimp and let it cook.
Add the water and let it simmer.Add the sweet potato and let it cook until soft.Add the celery, carrots, beans and cook for 3 mins.
Add the cabbage and cook for another 3 minutes. You may add some more ginisa mix if desired.
Remove from fire.

To prepare the sauce, combine the soy sauce, water, brown sugar, peanuts and garlic in a sauce pan while stirring occasionally. When the sauce starts to boil, add the cornstarch dissolved in water and stir constantly until sauce becomes thick.

Serve the Lumpia with sauce on top and garnish with crushed roasted peanut. Normally, Filipinos would wrap the vegetable mix in fresh spring roll wrapper with lettuce.

Sweet and Sour Fish

Sweet and Sour Fish

I had posted Pork Meatballs with Sweet and Sour sauce earlier. To those who do not eat pork, do not fret as there is a healthier version to this dish, by using Fish instead of pork and it is easier to prepare.

Ingredients:

1 whole medium sized fish. Normally we use Lapu Lapu (Red Grouper)
Cooking oil for frying

For the sauce:

1/3 cup white vinegar
4 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoon ketchup
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 medium sized carrots, sliced
1 red bell pepper sliced into strips
1 medium sized onion, sliced
2 tablespoons cornstarch mixed with 4 tablespoons water

Procedures:

Fry the fish in a frying pan. Once done, remove the fish from the pan and drain excess oil.
To prepare the sauce, mix all the ingredients together except for the last ingredient.
Bring to a boil.
Wxhen the mixture is already boiling and the vegetable tender, add the cornstarch+water mixture to thicken the sauce. remove from fire.

Batchoy Tagalog

Last week, I suddenly missed eating Batchoy that my Mom would usually cook if we want some dish with soup but we already get bored of Sinigang, Nilaga and Tinola. So I quickly asked my Mom through my sister who I was chatting over Yahoo that time for the recipe.

Our Batchoy is different than the La Paz Batchoy commonly sold in Restaurants. La Paz Batchoy is usually with noodles and so far I love Ted’s La Paz Batchoy the most. I also tried authentic Batchoy when I went to Iloilo some years ago and it was really good!

Our Batchoy Tagalog is very easy to prepare. Ingredients and procedures as follows:

1/2 Kilo Pork Loin, sliced in small cubes
1/2 Kilo Pork Liver and innards (spleen, heart), cut into small cubes
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium sized onion, minced
1 small ginger, chopped thinly.
3 stalks Chinese Celery, chopped
Fish sauce to taste

For my recipe, I added 1/4 cup Jelly ear mushroom sliced into thin strips

In a pan, heat oil. Brown ginger, garlic and onions. Add pork slices and innards. Season with fish sauce to taste. Simmer until tender.
Add about 5 cups of water and bring to a boil. Add the celery and mushroom and simmer for 2 minutes.
Serve while hot.

Paksiw na Pata

It’s been a long long time that  I haven’t posted a new recipe here. Some of my followers (friends) are asking me to post new dishes soon as they had been trying some of the recipes I post in my blog as I try to make cooking easy especially for working people like us.

For my next entry, I am posting Paksiw na Pata recipe. I last tasted this dish long time ago and suddenly I craved for it. Since I haven’t tried cooking it before, I searched Mr. Google and fortunately was able to find the recipe online.

Cooking it is easy. Here are the ingredients and step by step procedure:

Ingredients:

1kg Pork Leg (Pata) sliced crosswise (many supermarket sells ready to cook Pata nowadays)
6 cloves garlic, crushed
5 pcs. dried bay leaves
1/2 cup soy sauce
3 tbsp vinegar
1 pack dried banana blossoms, soaked in water
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp whole pepper corns

Procedures:

Boil the pork leg (with a bit of salt to taste) in water on a cooking pot until tender.
Add the peppercorn, bay leaf, garlic and soy sauce and bring to a boil.
Pour the vinegar but do not stir. Just let it simmer for about 10 minutes.
Put the banana blossoms and boil for another 5 minutes.
Add the brown sugar or salt up to your desired taste.
Serve while hot.

Pork Menudo

Pork Menudo is a staple dish in Birthdays, Fiestas, and various Philippine celebrations. It is a Spanish-inspired tomato based dish so it is healthy and flavorful not to mention colorful.

We have a different style of cooking Menudo, I guess it is a Kapampangan style of cooking.

Ingredients:

500 grams lean pork, cut into cubes (they call it Menudo cut)
200 grams pork liver, cut into cubes
1 pc large carrots, cut into cubes
1 red bell pepper, cut into strips
2 medium potatoes, cut into cubes
1 pack of dried raisins
3 pcs. cheese dog (or some put hotdogs), sliced diagonally
1 pack of tomato sauce
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 whole onion, minced

Marinate:

3-4 pcs calamansi (or 1 pc lemon) squeezed
Soy Sauce
Procedures:

Marinate the Pork and liver in soy sauce and calamansi juice for at least 30 minutes to 1 hour. If you have time, you can marinate for overnight.

In a skillet, saute garlic and onions. Add the bell pepper. Pour in the pork and some of the marinate excluding the liver. Cover and let it cook for a while. Add the tomato sauce and some water up to your desired amount of sauce. Let it boil until the sauce becomes thick. Add the carrots and potatoes. Cover until the vegetables are cooked but still crispy. Add the liver, hotdog and raisins and bring to a boil.

Remove from fire and serve while hot.

Chicken Salpicao

I tasted Salpicao when a friend cooked it and it really tastes good. I was surprised to find out that it is a very popular dish especially on bars wherein they eat it while drinking ice cold beer. Not sure if this is a real Filipino dish or not but it found a way into my taste bud..and it’s really good.

Ingredients:

500 grams chicken breast cut into strips
3 cloves garlic, minced (for marinate) and another 3 cloves for sauteeing
3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
3 tbsp seasoning liquid (Maggi Savor)
1 tbsp ground black pepper
2 tbsp butter
1 can button mushroom sliced

Procedures:

Marinate the chicken in Worcestershire sauce, liquid seasoning, garlic and pepper for overnight.

In a skillet, sautee garlic and mushroom. Add the chicken with some of the marinate. Do not put all sauce cos it may tend to be a bit salty so you have to taste first.

When the chicken is tender, remove from fire.

Serve in a sizzling plate if available.

Pork Dinuguan (Pork Blood Stew)

Pork Dinuguan or Pork Blood Stew is considered as exotic food by some and a no-no for some Religious sect. But this dish is a very popular Filipino dish and served in most Philippine restaurants and can even be taken home in small packs sold by Goldilocks Bakeshop (together with their uber delicious Puto).

I have never tried cooking Pork Dinuguan before. On a recent party among friends here, they asked me to cook several recipes including Dinuguan so I immediately called my Mom to ask for instruction how to cook this dish.

Ingredients:

500 grams Pork belly
250 grams Pork intestines or lungs, cleansed thoroughly
2 cups pig’s blood (make sure you go to the local market early in the morning to get the fresh blood)
2-3 pcs long chillies (siling haba)
3 laurel leaf (bay leaf)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 whole onion, minced
1/4 cup vinegar
Fish sauce to taste

Cooking Instructions:

Boil the Pork Belly, Intestines or Lungs in water until tender. Add a little salt to taste. Cut all these ingredients into cube.

In a deep skillet, saute garlic and onions (some put ginger to remove the “lansa” or pork smell).  Add the boiled pork and parts and part of the broth. Season with Fish sauce and add bay leaf. When it starts to boil, add the vinegar. Make sure you do not stir it until all the vinegar evaporates. Add the remaining broth if taste is too strong.

Pour the pig’s blood and stir continuously until it starts to boil and stew becomes thick. Add the chillies and let it boil one more time.

Sinigang na ulo ng Salmon sa Miso (Salmon Head in Sour soup with Miso)

I remembered few years ago while working in Ortigas Center, I am fervently looking forward to my lunch date with colleagues almost every Saturdays. We work half day and immediately we troop to either SM Megamall or Robinsons Galleria for lunch. Our favorite stop is the food court not only because it is more affordable but also because our favorite food, Sinigang na Salmon sa Miso can be bought in the outlet called Sizzling Seafoods.

A serving of Sinigang na Salmon then costs about PHP 85 which is good for 2 people, if I can clearly remember. We will just order an extra soup for about PHP 20 plus bowl of rice served in coconut shell. There goes our sumptuous lunch.

To prepare this dish, you will need the following:

1 fresh Salmon head with few slices of meat (about 500 grams)
1  large onion, minced
3 large tomatoes, diced
6-8 stalks of mustard leaves, removing the roots and cutting into 2 inch strips
1 pc  medium labanos (radish), sliced thinly
1 pack Sinigang sa Miso mix (if you need the authentic miso, you would need about 1/4 cups + 1 cup of tamarind extract)
2-3 pcs. long green chillies (siling pang sigang)
5-6 cups water
Patis (fish sauce to taste)

Bring water to a boil and add the onion, tomatoes and sinigang mix. Season with fish sauce to taste. Add the Salmon and Chillies  (you noticed I used red chillies here cos I like a bit spicy) and simmer for about 2 minutes. Add the labanos and mustard stalks and simmer for another 2 minutes.  Remove from fire and add the mustard leaves. The remaining heat will blanch the leaf but not overcooked.

Serve while hot.

(Pardon me if the picture here has no presentation. My friends and I are so hungry that time so I just hurriedly take a snapshot of my cooking. But I tell you, everyone enjoyed the meal).