Best Posts in Thread: Cooking Thread :: Recipes Added here

Was cooking up a pot roast this weekend & thought i'd share this recipe as way to utilize tough beef (carabao) hehe.

ingredients: kilo beef chuck...2 large onions...half bunch celery/ same for carrots...garlic...bottle cheap red wine...beef broth.

start in a tall pot on medium heat & add olive oil & chopped garlic...brown garlic.

turn up the heat & sear the meat (to seal in the juices). remove & set aside. turn heat back to medium.

chop carrots celery & onions as desired...add to pot scraping the meat residue & cook for appx 15-20 mins stirring occasionally.

add appx 2 cups beef broth & the same amount of red wine...bring to a boil stirring occasionally.

turn down heat to simmer...add meat...cover & simmer for appx 4-5 hrs or until liquid is absorbed/evaporated.

bon appetit....should work on pork also...serve with mashed potatos or rice.

 

Looks like this thread has not gotten much attention recently...too bad as it was probably one of my favorite threads.

Anyway, we BBQ quite a bit and I mostly use either dry or wet marinades. I rarely use BBQ sauces as I find most to be way too sweet for me. A quick and easy sauce is to use about a 30/70 mix of Sriracha chili sauce (not sure if it is available here but I usually bring a bottle or two home) and oyster sauce. I also mix in some fresh crushed garlic as I like garlic. It has some kick so if you do not like too spicy just mix it with more oyster sauce and/or add some honey so give it just a bit of sweetness. All the oyster sauce I've gotten locally are somewhat sweet so it is enough for me and the wife. You could just use honey instead of the oyster sauce but I think the oyster sauce has some additional flavors that really work well with the kick of the Sriracha sauce.

A bit of garlic or onion salt on the meat first, BBQ and add the sauce when things are just about done so you don't burn the sauce.

Shawn

 

I am a huge BBQ guy with my grill getting used 4 or 5 times a week on average. I mostly BBQ pork or chicken so coming up with good marinades or rubs can bit a of a challenge to mix things up.

Many years ago when stationed in California a man originally from Guam hooked me up with a great marinade, 2 ingredients, fish sauce and thinly sliced onions...a lot of onions. This is an overnight marinade. You would think that using fish sauce would make it taste "fishy" but it doesn't. This is for chicken, I prefer to do thighs as they do not dry out like breasts can on the grill. I also add chopped (or crushed garlic) and some chili peppers. The local fish sauce here is a bit stronger than what I am used to, so don't over do it.

Italian salad dressing is a popular marinade but I have not been able to find it here yet. I go with olive oil, Italian seasoning, sea salt and some calimansi juice. Not the same but not bad either as a marinade.

I've also tried some of the local marinades and have found them to be way too sweet for my taste. Thinking outside the box a bit I've used the sinigang soup base for both chicken and pork and it is great (if you like sinigang). Quick marinade as it only takes 30 minutes, though I try to wait an hour. You can also add garlic, onion and chilis but need to wait a bit longer before throwing the meat on the grill.

Another one that I had never tried before was using taco seasoning. I've used for both chicken and pork (tonight again for some chicken thighs and wings). You need to use a little oil or water to get things to coat well. The taste really comes out great, I use one pack for each kilo of meat. Another quick marinade as it is good to go in 30 minutes to an hour.

Sesame oil is a good base with garlic, chili peppers and some sea salt. I will mix it up sometimes with chili powder and black pepper as well.

Just a few different marinades that I normally go with.

It is summer everyday here so few things better than grilling and a couple cold ones.

Shawn

 

I decided to make a beef stew today, which takes a long time especially with the beef here (it turned out fantastic by the way). My point is that I'm leading into a side dish called Jangjolim in Korea. I spent 12 years in Korea, 7 years on various assignments and 5 years as a contractor so I can say I love the food there.

Jongjolim is basically a boiled egg that has been re-boiled in a mix of soy sauce and other ingredients. I prefer to use quale eggs as I think they are more rich tasting than chicken eggs, but the wife has not found quail eggs for the past 2 weeks (pic is of a chicken egg). I normally make these weekly as the kids and wife love them.

Simple recipe, boil some eggs take of the shell and then re-boil. I use a mix of water to soy sauce around 3-1, a bunch of crushed garlic, a few spicy peppers. I go , away from the normal recipe and use some Korean Da Shi Da, a beef based soup base, as well as some black pepper. Once the mix is boiling pop the eggs in and let them go for another 20 to 30 minutes. They do not taste like a boiled egg most of us are used to.

In my opinion they are best eaten cold. It will be a shock if you have not eaten one before as it will be a bit chewy, but trust me you will love them after the first bite.

Shawn

 

Yesterday I was in the mood for some lasagna; had some things to do around the house so I was not in the mood to go to Dumaguete. Being in Tanjay we are a bit more limited on finding ingredients. We found some flat lasagna noodles and some white cheese that I am not sure what type it is. After a quick Google search I found a recipe for making cottage cheese. Not sure if I had the milk too hot or that I used local vinegar, but it did not come out looking like cottage cheese.

I love to use my BBQ so I cooked the lasagna on one of my pizza trays (for grills). It turned out really well with the ingredients that I could get.

Shawn

 

Nobody posted in a whole four months, thought i'd fire up the ol' keyboard. Our new favorite recipe for dinner is our version of "fried rice."
Cook rice while doing vegetables
Cut, chop, fresh veggies, eggplant, green onions, bitter melon, garlic,
pechay, tomatoes, bell peppers, etc.
(do a garlic search on ggle, slice, never "press")
Saute everything, the hard stuff longest, in olive oil...
Throw in rice, cook, put pechay leaves in LAST for only a minute or so....
presto, done... enjoy ....

 

Meant to post this before but have been distracted the past few days.

I am a huge fan of cabbage; soup, fried or steamed I really like it. I got a 1/2 kilo of pork (half is fat) and fried it, starting with some olive oil until the fat started down. Once the outside was starting to look a bit browned I removed it and cut into small pieces and fried until cooked through. The wife and son like the fat but I prefer to cut down on fatty stuff so it was a nice treat for the dogs. One head of cabbage chopped as well as one of the green beans you find in the market in a rubber banded bunch. A few of the red bell peppers, garlic and onion. The long beans are cut in pieces around 3" long, I really like them as they do not taste different to me compared to the green beans I grew up eating.

I saved the pork fat to fry up the veggies, cabbage went in last as I do not want it getting over cooked, I like it a bit crisp. From there it was just sea salt, some black pepper and some paprika. A nice little stir fry over rice that is quite good and very easy to make.

Someone was asking before about food budgets, so I'll add that it cost less than 200 peso for the ingredients and fed me, the wife and our 8 yr old son with the leftovers being the wife's lunch the next day. Inexpensive in my opinion for a nice dinner for 3 people.

Shawn

 

I've never seen red cabbage here...asked the wife and she did not think cabbage was anything but green. Another thing I like quite a bit (after tweaking it a bit) is a crunchy seaweed with the local vinegar, onions, chili and garlic. May not be to everyone's taste but reminds my a great deal of a side dish from Korea and I've stated before that Korean food is by far my favorite.

Shawn

 

When I woke up yesterday morning I had a craving for some pork tenderloin (even had some thoughts on a good dry rub)...after explaining to the wife what cut it was she knew where to go. That shop was closed (on a Monday) so we went to another place in the market. The closest they had was some meat from the rump, since it was not exactly what I was looking for I went with a Cajun marinade I had picked up before. It turned out OK, not as tender and juicy as I would want. A vegetable stir fry and rice made for a pretty decent dinner.

Shawn

 

Went with a marinade last night pretty much on the fly for some pork chops; soy sauce, oyster sauce, spicy vinegar as well as some chopped garlic and onion. I only had time to let things marinade for a couple of hours and was honestly worried that I may have used too much vinegar because the smell can be overwhelming but the pork chops came out fantastic, not sour at all and very tender. I need to try this marinade for some wings later, but loading up on some chili peppers as I love wings with a kick.

I plan to roast a whole chicken on the grill tonight (previous times have turned out well) with some potato and carrots. Very simple as well, salt and black pepper outside and inside with some chopped onion and garlic inside, potatoes and carrots outside with some salt and pepper and just let it cook in a pan on the pizza tray for the grill.

Shawn