Pavlova

So what do you do with all those egg whites after making Leche Flan?  It would be such a waste to throw it all away.  If you're thinking meringue, yup that's the way to go.  But why not bring the level up a notch and make Pavlova instead?

Yum Char

Yum Char literally means "drink tea", and tea you must have because it goes very well with this Chinese style of restaurant dining. Simply put, Yum Cha (also an accepted form of spelling as the letter r is silent) involves choosing from a wide variety of dimsum, dumplings, sweets, and other tasty morsels in steam baskets carried around by the waiters.

Leche Flan

Ah, another testament to the Filipino's sweet tooth. Leche flan can be eaten as dessert, or as the final topping on halo-halo that makes it extra special. This is usually served on special occasions such as Christmas.  Indeed, when I see leche flan it gives me the warm feeling that I get during the yuletide season.

We've had a couple of friends have a taste and they loved it. However, they also suggested adding some lemon zest to give it more flavour so I added that ingredient here.

Many thanks to Myra for this recipe! She invited my wife over to their house to cook some leche flan and Pavlova and when my wife phoned me about it at the office, I asked if we can share the recipe here.  This cooking session was for a party (enough for around 10 moulds) but if you don't need that much, you can just use half of all the ingredients to make a smaller batch. You will also need a steamer and moulds. Thanks again!

Chicken curry

When it comes to curries, the most familiar to Filipino taste is Chicken curry. Understandably it is much milder than its Indian counterpart and a bit sweet too to adapt to our taste. Last weekend, Choi cooked chicken curry for the group and I definitely had to ask for the recipe and take some photos for this blog. The chicken curry was yummy!

Hotdogs + ketchup = fun!

This recipe is a hit with our son Jo-Lo, and is sure to be well-liked by other kids also. After all, it's a mix of hotdogs and ketchup!  This will go down well as pulutan (beer food) too, just use spicy hotdog to give it some bite. And if you're running low on food supply and you only have hotdogs in the ref, this is definitely a better option than having it just plain fried.

(In case you're wondering what those strips are in the photo, they're ham. I found some in the ref so I decided to add it in. This is optional though!)

Chicken Afritada

Afritada is one of our Spanish-influenced dishes and it involves cooking meat with tomato as the main flavoring agent, and the meat being either chicken or pork, or both.  There are slight variations to this dish; for example, some like adding liver, raisins, or pineapple chunks, or green peas.  These additions make afritada more colourful and tasty and is usually done for fiestas.  This version however uses the most basic, no-frills ingredients for a regular day, but it is yummy all the same.

(Oh, and if you have a piece of carrot, chop some up and add it at the same time as the potato. We ran out of carrots at this time but it should be part of the list).

Simple yet tasty Buco Pandan

My wife made Buco Pandan last week with only 4 ingredients.  It came out really good (don't trust my word for it, the guests also said so).  And this was her first time to make Buco Pandan!  I'd say this is the simplest yet yummy Buco Pandan recipe ever.

If fresh ingredients are not available, a quick trip to the Asian Store should do the trick.