Razon’s halo-halo: Yes, it is possible to have truth in advertising

Posted on May 24, 2012 · 20 Comments

One of the most disgusting practices in the local food industry is how advertising rarely gives us a true picture of the product. For instance, if we look at the flyers and print ads of fast food chains, we’d see thick burgers wider than the buns smothered with the freshest vegetables. But buy the real thing and you can’t recognize it from the photos in the ads. The burgers are puny (and that’s an understatement) and the vegetables are rarely all that fresh.

The sad part is that the law allows what it calls “usual exaggerations” in trade.

The even sadder part is that the self-regulating advertising board takes advantage of a bad law by stretching the meaning of “usual exaggerations” to outright lies.

The happy note is that there is at least one exception. After that disastrous dinner at Hainanese Delights, we went to Razon’s for dessert. Halo-halo, naturally. You know, we felt there was still a chance to at least have a great dessert and end the evening on a positive note.

Razon's halo-halo

Okay, so at Razon’s, there was this the larger-than-life image of the halo-halo on the wall. See the photo above. Notice the number and thickness of the leche flan slices, the appearance of the ice and the amount of sweets near the bottom of the glass. … (Read all)

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Rice, biryani style

Posted on May 23, 2012 · Leave a Comment

If I had saffron water to drizzle over the rice after cooking, and if I had used cashew nuts instead of peanuts, this would be a more authentic biryani. Well, whatever “authentic” means considering that biryani is found in the cuisines of more than a dozen countries, including the Philippines, and none is exactly the same as another. But I didn’t have saffron and cashew nuts so I had to content myself with calling this dish a biryani-style rice. At any rate, a lot of the traditional spices that go into cooking biryani went into this dish.

Rice, biryani style

The idea and procedure I got from Malaysian cook Sherson Lian who hosts 5 Rencah 5 Rasa on Asian Food Channel. I liked the way he sauteed everything in a pan then transferred all the ingredients to the rice cooker. Modern and practical cook, I thought. That’s exactly how I did my arroz blanco and arroz amarillo — never mind purists screaming that you have to do it in a pot over burning wood or something. What the heck, eh? It is 2012, after all. … (Read all)

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Hainanese Delights: barbecue and Hainanese chicken rice

Posted on May 23, 2012 · 9 Comments

If you Google “Hainanese Delights”, the results will give you the web sites of (1) a restaurant in Penang, Malaysia and (2) write-ups and the Facebook page of a Philippine restaurant with the same name. Whether the Philippine Hainanese Delights is related to the Malaysian Hainanese Delights, I do not know. But, judging from the very different menus, I don’t think they are related. This is a review of what we ate at Hainanese Delights SM Masinag branch. Despite the tagline, there were very few delights in the many bites we took.

First, a background of how we landed there in the first place. Speedy and I were supposed to see a movie yesterday. I discovered that The Raven wasn’t showing yet (it actually opens today) so I said we could just eat out, walk around, relax and just skip the movie part. We ran some errands first, Speedy went to the optical shop for new reading glasses then we tried to decide where to eat. There was YakiMIX Sushi & Smokeless Grill, I was in the mood for a buffet, we scanned the dishes on the buffet tables and, well…

Let’s put it this way. Because I am allergic to shrimps, prawns, crabs and all other crustaceans (not mollusks, just crustaceans), I wouldn’t be able to eat half of the dishes in the buffet. So, I went straight to the dessert table to check if, at least, I could gorge on sweets. Unfortunately, I wasn’t impressed with the dessert items. So, we left.

There weren’t many other restaurants to choose from, same-old same-old mostly, and the only one that was new (to me, at least) was Hainanese Delights. I love Singaporean food so I suggested we eat there. The menu looked okay, we asked for the specifics of each dish before ordering just to make sure we knew what we were getting, we could have unlimited Hainanese rice with our meat (nice, I thought), so we made our choices and waited. … (Read all)

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Salmon and vegetables pot pie

Posted on May 22, 2012 · 3 Comments

I love pot pies. I love the surprise hidden underneath the golden crust, I love the steam that hits your face as you break through the crust, I love the contrast between the flaky crust and the creamy filling. In fact, I love savory pies more than sweet pies. And it doesn’t matter if the pie is in pocket form (empanadas), a full-sized pie or a single serve pot pie. This love for savory pies is something I share with Speedy. He adores them although if he were given the choice, he’d take the pot pie over the empanada.

Yesterday, we indulged. There were only three of us for lunch since Alex had gone back to the condo a few days earlier and it was the last day of Sam’s summer break. I’ve always made pot pies with meat and vegetables, and I thought it was high time I tried making pot pies with fish filling. Salmon was a great choice.

Salmon and vegetables pot pie

And, to make the pot pies even more aromatic, I added basil to the crust.

If you organize the procedure for making your pot pie well, the whole process doesn’t take all that long. In my case, I made the crust first, I put it in the fridge to chill so it’s easier to roll and handle while I prepared the filling. I preheated the oven while the filling cooled and, by the time it was ready to go into the ramekins, the crust dough was ready for rolling and the oven was sufficiently hot. … (Read all)

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Watermelon iced tea

Posted on May 21, 2012 · 3 Comments

It was Sam who gave us our first taste of watermelon iced tea. She cut seedless watermelon into small cubes, dropped them into glasses of iced tea, gave Speedy and me each a glass and, oh wow, were we wide-eyed with surprise! So simple, so basic, so very refreshing. How could we not have thought of that?

Watermelon iced tea

The key, of course, is good iced tea and seedless watermelon. Unless you want to spend a long time prying the seeds out of regular watermelon — who wants to do that? — I really recommend the seedless variety. … (Read all)

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Saluyot and spinach soup

Posted on May 20, 2012 · 7 Comments

Armed with the information that saluyot is slimy, I combined the saluyot leaves with spinach to make a chunky soup that wouldn’t be too slimy that Speedy and Sam wouldn’t touch it. As it turned out, Sam ate a little, then balked at the sliminess but at least she tried it. Next time, I’ll add other vegetables to make the sliminess of the saluyot really negligible.

Packed with nutrients but not short on meat, the bits of pork used in this dish were picked from scrap soup bones. Of course, it goes without saying that I had scrap meat because I made the broth from scratch. If you don’t intend to do that but still want to try making this soup, you’ll just have to use whatever cooked meat you have. It doesn’t have to be pork — it can be beef, chicken, turkey or whatever you have, even fish or some other seafood.

Saluyot and spinach soup

The one ingredient that you can’t do away with is ginger. It is the ginger that really gives this soup its wonderful rich flavor and aroma.

As to the proportions, there really are no strict rules in that department. You can use more saluyot than spinach or more spinach than saluyot. You can use a lot of meat if you like your soup really meaty or you can just add a small amount to make the vegetables really stand out. … (Read all)

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Saluyot (jute leaves), slimy yet satisfying. Something that Pumbaa would appreciate.

Posted on May 18, 2012 · 14 Comments

It doesn’t have the prettiest name in the world. Even from the auditory standards of a native Filipino speaker like me, saluyot conjures images of something dark and musty and… Okay, maybe, I’m biased because saluyot sounds similar to kuyukot and I can’t shake off the association, even if only imaginary.

The first time I heard of saluyot was from one of the office secretaries. I overheard a group talking about what they had in their packed lunch boxes, one mentioned saluyot, I stopped, looked at her questioningly and she asked amusedly if I hadn’t heard of saluyot. A vegetable, she said, that’s very inexpensive. I asked her what it tasted like but she described the texture instead. Slimy, she said.

Fast forward to yesterday, we were at the grocery, I found bags of saluyot and I debated whether or not to try it. We’ve been trying to eat more vegetables than meat over the past few weeks and, honestly, I’m running out of vegetable dishes to feed my family. We have a rather limited repertoire of vegetables in the house partly because we’ve been mostly carnivorous most of our lives and also because there are so many vegetables that we’re not really familiar with and haven’t tried. Why not saluyot? I’m okay with slimy vegetables — I love okra, don’t I? I showed the bag of saluyot to Speedy, I said we should try a small bag and, if we don’t like it, we don’t have to buy another bag again.

saluyot

Saluyot refers to the leaves of the Corchorus plant, often known as jute because the fibers are spun into strong threads and ropes. The fiber is now also used for making clothes.

The edible part of the plant is the leaves. They are slimy and they can turn bitter especially if overcooked. Known in Egypt as mulukhiyah (or is it moloukia?), the leaves of the Corchorus has long formed part of the diet of many African and Middle Eastern countries.

So, the saluyot leaves are slimy and a bit bitter. Not ampalaya-bitter but more like chili leaves. If you can eat chili leaves in your tinola, you can eat saluyot. Do they have a positive side? Well, they don’t taste bad, to begin with. The sliminess may take a little getting used to just like learning to develop an affinity with okra. And once you acquire the taste for it and start consuming it regularly, the health benefits really far outweigh the sliminess and subtle bitterness. … (Read all)

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A study says drinking coffee can lower the risk of depression among Asian women.

If you follow health and medical research news, you might be interested in findings that drinking coffee regularly can lower the risk of depression among Asian women. It has to do with the effect of caffeine on the level of estrogen. … (Read all)

Miso soup with chicken and chayote

Posted on May 17, 2012 · Leave a Comment

Some soups are so hearty that they can be the main dish. We have a lot of that in the Philippines where, as a practice, we don’t serve the soup ahead of the main dish. Soups dishes like tinola, nilaga (literally, boiled) and sinigang (a sour soup with meat or seafood), for instance, are normally served as main dishes. With rice. And we like to douse our rice with the broth.

Miso soup with chicken and chayote

That day we had the fried breaded okra, we also had soup. This soup. Miso with chicken and chayote. As the main dish. It’s just the basic Japanese miso soup but because I was using uncooked chicken, I had to modify the procedure a bit. … (Read all)

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seafood ramen

We bought a pack of seafood balls and sticks — the kind one often finds at shabu-shabu restaurants. Then, I bought a pack of soup bones. When we got home, I made broth from the soup bones (like this), boiled enough Japanese noodles for four, microwaved the seafood balls and sticks, cut some vegetables and, presto! We had ramen. … (Read all)

Avocado, tomato and onion salad

Posted on May 16, 2012 · 7 Comments

The avocado was supposed to go into sushi but I cooked all the Japanese rice we had to make oyakudon. Sam looked at the lonely avocado ruefully, suggested that we make a salad with it then she commandeered my computer to search for recipes. But I didn’t need any recipe. I knew exactly how I would make the salad.

Avocado, tomato and onion salad

My idea was to make something like a very chunky guacamole but without the heat and the cilantro that Sam dislikes so much. Fast, easy, delicious. … (Read all)

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Lobster balls and long beans stir fry

Posted on May 16, 2012 · 7 Comments

Sam likes buying those frozen seafood balls in the grocery — fish balls, squid balls, shrimp balls, prawn balls, crab balls, lobster balls… I always ask her to choose fish balls over the others because I am allergic to crustaceans. Last time, she wanted lobster balls and she couldn’t be persuaded to choose something else. I sighed — resigned to the fact that I won’t get a bite.

Earlier today, I was preparing lunch and I realized that the freezer was almost empty. But the bag of lobster balls was still unopened. I decided I’d make something with it for the girls and I could just have the leftover almondigas from last night.

I was cutting the bag open when my eyes lingered on the labels. What do you know? The darn lobster balls were made with fish. Good for me.

Inspired that I could eat more than leftovers, I did something really good with the lobster balls. I stir fried them with sitaw, very Chinese style.

Then, I made avocado salad at Sam’s insistence. The avocado salad recipe, later; the recipe for the lobster calls and long beans stir fry, right now. … (Read all)

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