Filipino food – Yellywelly

Stick food!

15 Jan 20178 Aug 2017 Yelly

There are a few things that make this life so much better. One of them is barbecue pork on sticks Pinoy style. I’m going to find out how to make barbecue Grill Queen style. Grill Queen is a small independent chain that sells barbecued meat – pork, chicken, seafood…you name it, they probably barbecue it.

I haven’t quite cracked it, but the recipe I’m tweaking is nearly there. I’ll be posting the recipe on the blog soon.

But for tonight, I am eating something comfortingly Filipino: barbecued meat, rice and sautéed vegetables!

Yelly Eats

Chocolate crinkles

24 Sep 20168 Aug 2017 Yelly

Over a week ago, I gave in to the urge to finally make chocolate crinkles. It’s a popular cookie in the Philippines. It’s rich, indulgent and fudgy. It’s something that might just make you go mmmmm. I approached the idea of making crinkles with a little trepidation. I always worry that my memories of what things taste like in Manila is different from reality. But I did manage to work up the courage to finally make crinkles!

I’ve written a recipe that I’ve tweaked below and I know that it works. I would love for y’all to make chocolate crinkles and let me know if the recipe works for you.

Ingredients:

150g unsweetened cocoa powder
280g caster sugar
150ml vegetable oil
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
300g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ salt
150g icing sugar

Directions:

In a bowl, using a balloon whisk, mix the flour, salt and baking powder together and set aside. In a mixing bowl, combine the cocoa powder, sugar and oil. To mix, I’ll use a free-standing mixer.

With a paddle attachment, on the lowest setting (just so that the cocoa powder doesn’t fly all over the place), start mixing the cocoa powder, sugar and oil for about 2 minutes. Once the mixture forms a thick paste, increase the speed and mix for a further 2 minutes. The mixture should turn shiny and smooth. Add each egg individually and mix until the mixture is again shiny. Once all the eggs are added, add the vanilla.

Add the flour mixture and mix until well-incorporated and the mixture is smooth.

Cover the mixture and chill in the fridge for at least 2½ hours (I initially only chilled it for 1½ hours and it seemed to be okay), the longer you chill it, the better.

Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F). Line your baking sheets with parchment paper. I like to use a small ice cream scoop or a 1 tablespoon measuring spoon.

Scoop a generous 1 tablespoon of the mixture and roll it into a ball. Coat each ball with icing sugar and place on the lined sheet.

Bake for 10-12 minutes. Once the cookies are baked, take them out of the oven and allow to cool on the sheets for about 5 minutes before transferring them onto a wire rack to cool completely.

The cookies have a recognisable cracked surface and that’s how you know it’s a chocolate crinkle!

This recipe makes about 40 crinkles.

Yelly Eats

The power of the crinkle

15 Sep 20168 Aug 2017 Yelly

I comfort eat. Now I know psychologists and nutritionists and every healthcare professional reading this will be gasping and tutting and shaking their head right now. Comfort eating is a terrible coping mechanism and will have far reaching consequences. Ha! How highfalluting and technical-sounding is that sentence, eh? Mind you, I am very aware my comfort eating has allowed me to balloon and gain a whole child in terms of weight since I moved to the UK.

Apart from the comfort eating, I’ve been comfort cooking and comfort baking. I’ve been trying to recreate in my kitchen the food that was readily available to me in the Philippines. My favourite English proverb (which helps me justify my kitchen sessions) is: “Necessity is the mother of invention.” Mind you, the food that I produce in my kitchen aren’t necessarily my own inventions. Sometimes it’s a result of me trawling the internet for tips on how to cook Filipino food. Since Filipino food isn’t readily available to take away or to buy at the nearest convenience store, I’ve got to learn how to make things myself if I miss eating them. I’m quite pleased that I’m able to make things that I would normally just go out and buy if I was in the Philippines.

I finally gave in to a long-standing baking to-do: making chocolate crinkles. Chocolate crinkles will feature in most Filipinos’ top 10 list of their favourite cookies. I’m not entirely certain whether it is a Filipino invention but it is certainly readily available in the Philippines, everywhere. Say the phrase “chocolate crinkles” to a Filipino and you more often than not will hear them say “Awww chocolate crinkles!”

For those of you who don’t know, chocolate crinkles are soft, fudgy chocolate cookies that are slightly firm, almost crispy, on the outside and moist and cakey on the inside. It’s covered with a generous coating of icing sugar outside and when you bite into the cookie, it’s rich and indulgent.

I’m going to share the recipe here once I’ve tried another test run, just to make sure that the recipe works properly. Any taste testers available?

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Yelly Writes

Who am I and why am I here?

13 Mar 201613 Mar 2016 Yelly

I’m late to the Blogging 101 Party but I thought I’d still work on the assignments. I need to redirect my blogging efforts and relight the blogging fire so to speak. So in this case, this start is better late than never!

Those two questions are probably the scariest questions a blogger can face…well, to me it’s very scary. Because sometimes, I forget to focus on the who and the why.

I remember starting a blog on another blog host site. It was mostly a journal for me. I place where I wrote about my rants, where I made fun of people who made grammatical mistakes, where I talked about me. I’m not exactly sure that’s where I found my voice…if I’ve ever found it at all. But I’m a lot more serious about this blog. Because I think I’m much more selective about what I write and share online. I find that as I grow older, I’m more sensitive to how what I put out in the universe affects other people – ripples in the water, and all that jazz.

So, why don’t I just write my thought down in a journal. I don’t know is the answer to that question. Sometimes it’s just knowing that you can send things out into cosmos and somewhere someone goes, “Oh I get that completely!” I think it’s a deep-seated human need to fit in, to belong or just feel like we’re not so different – am not entirely sure that that’s a good reflection on my individuality because it speaks volumes about my need to conform to the mores of society!

I write because I want to talk. I think I write because I want an audience. But at the same time, I sort of want the imagined anonymity. I mean I can hardly be anonymous if I use my photo as my Gravatar image, now can I? But it’s the ease of putting stuff out there. Of seeing if anyone finds what I have to say interesting.

I also want to talk about my food journey. I love to cook and bake and I want to share what I’m learning. Food for me isn’t just about the physical nourishment. It also holds a lot of happy memories of family and friends gathered around a table. Food is an intrinsic part of my growing up, so being so far away from my family, a way for me to reconnect and cheer myself up.

I also love to talk about Filipino food, which I think is a long-ignored Southeast Asian cuisine. I thought if I wrote about Filipino food then people would see a new facet about the Philippines. I want to get people talking about Filipino food. I mean I know that Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern have both visited the Philippines and they rave about Filipino food. So we have been featured on TV. There are a lot of tutorial videos about how to cook Filipino food floating about on the internet but I want to add my voice to that. I want people to know how good Filipino food really is. We need to be as known as our other Southeast Asian neighbour’s cuisines: Thai, Malaysian, Indonesian, Vietnamese.

I have no idea how the blog is going to help me turn my food passion into something that I do everyday. If that is even possible (yes, I know it’s been done, but in this saturated market, can I carve out a little niche for me?). But I’d like to find out what is out there, if there are opportunities.

I think the first goal is to connect to other people. See blogs that I have a lot in common with, actually read them, learn from them. Refine my writing style. Find my voice. Fall in love with blogging again (I used to blog everyday…sometimes even more than a blog post a day!). Find out if this is something I want to take further of this will evolve into something else. I want to hear from other people. I want people to come to the blog and say things, react to what I have to say. If it’s negative, please be gentle, but thoughts are welcome!

I’m excited again. That’s a brilliant start.

Yelly Eats

Hopia

11 Jun 201520 Jun 2015 Yelly

I’ve always been proud of Filipino food. I’ve always believed that if people tried the food that we Filipinos ate on a daily basis (ably prepared by our mothers and titas), people would be addicted too! Filipino cuisine is influenced by the food cultures from China, Malaysia, Indonesia, China and Spain. We also have a very pronounced American influence. These influences are due to the fact that the Malays an Indones were the early settlers on the Philippine islands and it has been historically proven that we traded with the Chinese very early on. The Spanish (and largely Mexican food tradition) influences came because the Philippines was a Spanish colony for over 300 years (the Philippine islands were named after King Philip II of Spain). Then after the Spanish, we had the Americans with us…for a while.

I am so thankful that there are enterprising individuals (who may or may not be Filipino) who have identified an opportunity to sell to Filipinos living overseas the food staples. I’ve been able to cook Filipino food here in England and it helps the homesickness.

But nothing compares to the satisfaction when one is able to make something that isn’t always available in the Oriental or Filipino supermarkets. A few days ago, whilst I was recuperating from a really bad migraine (I was signed off for a week), I told myself that I would make hopia. I had been watching various YouTube video how-to’s and I felt that I was ready to attempt the Filipino treat. I even risked eating store-bought hopia in the name of research! Mind you, it was a tad disappointing because the hopia I bought seemed to have shrunk! For what I paid for, well, it was an exhorbitant amount of money for 4 minuscule hopia pieces – not at all what I remembered eating when I was growing up!

Hopia is also known as bakpia (in Chinese). It is a bean paste-filled pastry that was apparently introduced by Fujianese immigrants in the Philippines. It is usually filled with mung bean paste (either red mung bean or yellow mung bean), or purple yam and there is a variant that is filled with candied wintermelon (called kundol in the Philippines). Apparently, in other countries (apparently this is a popular Indonesian treat as well!) the fillings can be pineapple, durian, cheese, chocolate, coffee and custard! I’ve never had a cheese hopia, but it certainly sounds interesting!

I painstakingly wrote down the recipe from all the YouTube videos and translated it into metric measurements. Then I set about making my hopia!

I was quite excited about how they looked like. Even more excited when they came out of the oven. I loved the smell that wafted out of the oven. I was definitely in hopia heaven!

I need to practice some more. I think the pastry is nearly there. A few more tweaks with the procedure and a few temperature adjustments will help. But what I’ve been allowing myself to eat is hopia. It’s not as sweet as the store-bought ones, but it is, already, hopia!

Yelly Eats

Ensaymada!

5 Jun 2015 Yelly

So because I have been at home, housebound because of illness and experiencing cabin fever, I once again cracked open the Goldilocks Bakebook and baked something familiar and comforting. I made ensaymada. It’s a sort of soft brioche-y type of bread that’s slathered with creamed butter, slightly sugared and smothered with cheese.

And just like that I am comforted. The recipe needs tweaking because the dough was unbelievably wet! I’m going look up other ensaymada recipes and see where improvements can be made. I am thankful for the ability to bring Manila to me…even if it was through several cheesy-buttery-bready mouthfuls! What can I say – baking is like medicine!

Yelly Eats

Mongo bread!

31 May 2015 Yelly

It has been quite the stressful few weeks. Mostly because of the changes in my work environment. When I get really stressed I get really homesick. And when I get really homesick I bake something that I can eat from home.

I’m really grateful my sister has bought the Goldilocks Bakebook for me. I have had feedback from friends that the book has been discontinued due to the errors and omissions in the book. I must agree that the book could do with a few editorial tweaks so that it will read smoother. The recipes and baking instructions need a little reworking so that the procedures are clear, so that the users and bakers know exactly what to expect from the recipes and the steps. But I am still thankful for the book. It has allowed me to bake things that are familiar, things I grew up eating. It has helped me with the homesickness, because even the act of simply reading the book makes home a little closer.

This weekend wasn’t any different. I’ve been planning the baking of mung bean bread for a while. Mung bean is mongo in Filipino (pronounced mong-goh). Mongo bread is a bakery staple and most local bakeries in the Philippines have a version of this bread. The Goldilocks Bakebook recipe called for red mung bean and red mung bean isn’t exactly something you can pluck from the shelves of the local supermarket. I had to go to a supermarket in Chinatown in London to find red mung beans (and even now, I’m not quite certain what I picked off the shelves were actually red mung bean, but hey, they worked!). So after having purloined the main ingredient, I studied the recipe and made certain tweaks. After following most of the directions, I have made notes and am ready to try the recipe again with my additional tweaks. But the first attempt has produced quite a pretty loaf! Hopefully, when I attempt the recipe again (and post it on the blog!), it will still turn out like the first loaf. Fingers crossed!

Presenting, my mongo bread —

Yelly Eats

The Adobo Challenge

7 Jul 201330 Sep 2013 Yelly

Adobo is arguably the national dish of the Philippines. Each family will have their own take on the adobo recipe that is passed down through generations. I wrote about it once, and shared the recipe. But I thought I’d post it again because I’m determined to introduce more people to Philippine cuisine. One of my favourite TV moments was on The Voice, when Filipino soul singer and semi-finalist Joseph Apostol brought Sir Tom Jones adobo that his mother cooked!

Filipino flavour combinations are an amazing fusion of East and West because the wonderful amalgamation of our Southeast Asian and Chinese food traditions and the Spanish flavour influences (the Philippines was a Spanish colony for over 330 years!). The best introduction to Filipino cuisine is adobo because it is a marinading meat dish. It is best eaten over a bowl of boiled rice but is also a good sandwich filling. The recipe is versatile and you can use either chicken or pork. And believe you me, it is the easiest thing to prepare!

I challenge you to cook adobo! I’ve tried to be very detailed in writing the cooking directions and I’ve posted as many pictures as I possibly could. This is one of the most basic versions of adobo. Try the recipe and let me know how you get on! Tweet a photo of your attempt at my adobo recipe to @yellywelly with your blog address or your Twitter username and I’ll post your photo on my blog! Please make sure you use the hashtag #adobochallenge. Or if you don’t have Twitter, leave your details on my message board, tell me you’ve got an adobo photo to send me and I’ll reply to you so you can send me your photo! 🙂

To make ADOBO you will need:

650g of pork belly or pork shoulder steaks cut into cubes or chicken thighs
5 tablespoons of soy sauce + 2 tablespoons for cooking
2 1/2 tablespoons of vinegar + 1 tablespoon for cooking
3 large cloves of garlic crushed (or 3 teaspoons of garlic granules)
1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar + 1 tablespoon for cooking
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon of whole pepper corns (or 1 heaping teaspoon ground pepper)
1 meat stock cube (chicken or pork, whichever meat you’re cooking) – optional
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
400 ml water

Directions:
When making my adobo, I like using a ziplock bag because using a ziplock bag allows me to “massage” the marinade into the meat. Place the meat in the ziplock bag.

Add the the soy sauce to the meat.

Add the vinegar.

Add the pepper and sugar to the meat.

In a mortar and pestle, make sure the garlic is ground to a paste and add to the meat and other marinating ingredients.

The longer you marinade the meat the better, but a minimum of two hours (with a maximum of massaging!) will do.

Heat the oil in a stir-fry pan and add the meat pieces, making sure that you keep the marinating liquid. Brown the meat on all sides. Once the meat has been browned, add the marinating liquid. Add the soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, the stock cube and water. Make sure that the stock cube and the sugar are dissolved well and make sure that all the meat are covered by the marinating liquid. Cook for about 30-45 minutes or until the fat (if cooking pork) has rendered a little bit.

Tear the bay leaves and add to the pan. Allow the liquid to reach a rolling boil, turning the meat pieces occasionally. Cover with a lid.

Allow the liquid to simmer for 30 minutes, at which time it would have thickened slightly (without you adding anything to thicken it!).

This is my little step: after the 30 minutes are over, keep the lid on and keep the pot over the hot plate (if you’re using an electric stove, or over the ring, if you’re using a gas range) for 5 minutes without lifting the lid.
Serve over boiled rice, and voila! You have my version of adobo! 🙂

Yelly Eats

Baking pan de sal!

9 Jun 201330 Sep 2013 Yelly

The pan de sal is ubiquitous (HUGE word alert!) in the Philippines. It is sold in every corner bakery, in every panaderia, in various shapes and sizes. It is bread that has been enjoyed in the Philippines for centuries, as apparently, it was introduced by the Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century.

Since moving to the UK, I have been looking for a British equivalent and there have been near misses, but not quite like the real thing. Pan de sal, when translated from Spanish, means salt bread. Funnily, it is more sweet than savoury. I wrote about baking pan de sal last year and since then I’ve been trying out various recipes from online sources. Now, though, I can finally say that I’ve perfected my version of the Philippine bread staple. I’ve tried several recipes and have now found that putting the recipes together in a system that works for me does really work. Here’s my take on the pan de sal:

Ingredients:

500g strong bread flour (can also be substituted with whole wheat or gluten-free flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
75g butter
150ml milk (full fat, semi-skimmed or skim milk)
70g sugar
1 packet active dry yeast (or 7g)
1 egg
15ml vegetable oil
1 cup bread crumbs (or dry polenta/corn meal)

Directions:

In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Mix until well combined (I use a balloon whisk to do this because I find that this mixes the ingredients quickly) and set aside.
In a sauce pan, heat the milk over low heat. Add the butter and sugar and mix until the butter and sugar are melted. Remove from the heat and allow to cool until lukewarm in temperature. Once lukewarm, add the yeast and stir until the yeast is dissolved into the milk mixture.
Add the egg and oil to the flour mixture and mix well. Mix the milk and butter mixture with the flour until a wet dough forms.
Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic. If you’re kneading by hand, this should take about 8-10 minutes. Steps 3 and 4 can be done in a free-standing mixer with a dough hook attachment with step 3 in the lowest speed setting and turning up the mixer to the next speed to add the butter and milk mixture and knead the dough for about 5 minutes.
Place the dough in an oiled bowl and allow to proof for an hour or until the dough has risen to double its size.
After proofing, punch the dough to deflate it and turn it out onto a floured surface. Knead the dough by hand for 5 minutes then form it into a ball. Cut the dough in half using a pastry cutter or a knife. Form the dough pieces into a ball and repeat until you have 8 dough balls. Once you have 8 dough balls, cut each in half and roll in bread crumbs. This makes 16 large rolls but the recipe can make up to 20 rolls.
Line a baking pan with parchment paper and place the dough pieces cut side up on the pan. Allow for enough space for the dough ball halves to expand. Allow to proof for another hour or until it doubles in size.
Preheat the oven to 190ºC (375ºF). If using a fan oven preheat to about 160ºC (320ºF). Place the baking pan in the oven and bake the dough for 15 minutes.

Yelly Eats

Just saying

21 Apr 20138 Aug 2017 Yelly

I logged on knowing that I hadn’t written anything on the blog for a considerable amount of time. I didn’t really realise that the last blog entry I’d written was the day before Easter. My how time flies, even when one isn’t having fun. I’ve been battling a throat infection and a bad bout of flu for the past few weeks.

A few days ago I was in Notting Hill, mostly to find a Filipino restaurant that I’d been looking forward to trying. I think I’m not alone in saying that if it was a Filipino restaurant, run by Filipinos, Filipinos would flock to it because Filipinos would, if they could. I had eaten in another Filipino restaurant in London, in Charlotte Street, called Josephine’s. The decor was a little dated but I didn’t mind it because the service, and of course the food, was wonderful. Despite the fact that there were other customers, I felt well-looked after, not ignored.

That wasn’t the case in this other restaurant. I know I definitely looked Filipino and made the point of mentioning that I was Filipino and read about the restaurant which was why I wanted to try it but I got an indifferent response. Colder than lukewarm. Most Filipinos would ask where you lived, how long you lived there and what you did for work. This wouldn’t really be intrusive, it’s just the way Filipinos connect. There are about 300,000 Filipinos spread all over the UK, a mere drop in the ocean compared the general population. My experience, so far, has always been Filipinos wanting to connect with each other. But funnily enough, the warm and effusive welcome for a fellow Filipino that I was hoping for was not what I got. There was no effort to connect, there was no effort to engage.

The food was okay but the ordering wasn’t explained (the menus were on clipboards on the wall and you took one to the table then ordered at a make-shift looking counter), I had to ask. The options weren’t explained but after I asked if I could have water instead, I was told they could serve me water. I just felt like they weren’t interested in the business that I brought in. And I was massively, massively disappointed.

There was another person in the restaurant, a person who, from the conversation I could overhear was a friend. The person at the counter talked to this friend more than he talked to me. I think most restaurants, in this day and age, would fight tooth and nail for punters. I didn’t feel important to this establishment. I felt like I was an interruption to their conversation. I felt completely unwelcome.

Even now when I think about it, I feel like crying. The entire experience was that awful. I know I only paid £10 in total for my food. But I would’ve rather not gone now. I hope they treat other paying customers differently. More importantly, if they’re going use a Filipino word for their restaurant name, I pray that they treat fellow Filipinos better because the Pinoys that come to them want to come in and feel like they’re in a Filipino oasis in the hustle and bustle of London.

Service is as service done, but this was badly done. Very badly done. I’m certainly not going back to this Filipino restaurant.

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