The Sassy Lawyer & Pinoy Cook on food, family and home.
Last Tuesday, we finally did what we’ve been saying we’d do for the last two years. Speedy and I finally experienced SEx in the city. No, the experience has nothing to do with the reproductive organs. Rather, it has to do with the digestive system. SEx is short for Sinangag Express, or fried rice express, ... (more)
There are so many ways of cooking Filipino adobo and I’ve barely scratched the surface. The most popular version among my generation is the one with soy sauce but soy sauce is not even an essential ingredient of adobo. Adobo is essentially a vinegar stew. I find logic in the claim of (credible) food historians ... (more)
When does your weekend start? Like most Filipino families, ours used to start on Friday evening when the girls’ classes ended and Speedy picked up them up from the condo in the city, and end on Sunday evening when Speedy drove them back to avoid the heavy Monday morning rush hour. But we have a ... (more)
This is Filipino menudo. Pork, liver, peas, potatoes, carrots… There is a Mexican menudo which is similar to what we call callos. Although menudo is not exactly something I’d serve at a party (my mother-in-law is right when she described it as too much everyday fare), I’d crave for menudo now and then, and especially ... (more)
Sotanghon (vermicelli), shredded chicken, chopped black fungus and vegetables are traditionally cooked together in the Philippines as a dry noodle dish. But my daughter, Sam, ever the soup lover (she takes after her father), prefers the soup version. As with the dry version, annatto seeds are used to add a golden red hue to this ... (more)
One of the owners of OMA Restaurant and Bar is a gorgeous lady named Tina whom I have known since she was a young girl. Her father’s family owned the house across Speedy’s parents’ house, the families knew one another and, after I married Speedy, I met them too. When Speedy and her brother, Buddy, ... (more)
It’s not the best-looking vegetable dish in the world. But, oh man, it sure is one of the tastiest meatless dishes I have tried — and I have tried a lot. Poqui-poqui is an Ilocano egg and eggplant dish that is so simple to make and with so few ingredients. The secret? First, the eggplant. ... (more)
Marikeños like to say that waknatoy is a dish unique to Marikina. Well, the name is unique to Marikina but the dish itself is not. Waknatoy is simply a variant of menudo. The only marked difference is the addition of pickles which gives waknatoy a sweet-tangy flavor. The rest of the ingredients are the same ... (more)
We reached Vigan on Wednesday afternoon and although we had dinner in the city, the real food trip didn’t begin until the following day. Ilocano food is so good that I am prepared to say that I am officially in love with it. From the purely vegetable dishes to the very carnivorous ones, every morsel ... (more)
Terms can be confusing. When one says “goto” in the Philippines, he can be referring to tripe or to a congee with tripe. I’ve learned to use the term “goto” interchangeably depending on the occasion and the person I’m talking to. When I go to the market to buy tripe, for instance, I ask for ... (more)
To say that the English translation for suman is rice cake is a bit … »»
I would have made lumpiang ubod (heart of palm spring rolls) but that … »»
This is an updated entry. The Filipino version I grew up with, originally … »»
No, I've never been to P.F. Chang's although I read that the U.S. food … »»
The most serious reason I missed my pressure cooker was because I love, … »»
The last time I heard the word batotoy, I was buying longganisa (native … »»
After a quick trip to the market, Speedy checked his Facebook account, … »»
Still experimenting with alternative methods of cooking, after using the … »»
Casa is Spanish for house. CASA is also an acronym for Connie, Antonio, Sam and Alex. We are all surnamed Veneracion. We all love to take photos -- of anything that catches our fancy. It's a family obsession.
This is a journal of how we live, eat, learn, play and have fun. Work? Work is part of playing and having fun. Seriously.
In 2003, a time when I hadn't heard of the term "blog", I started a recipe website at cooking.houseonahill.net using a now defunct content management system that ran on ASP. Ok, never mind the geek talk, I'm sure you're not interested in that. The contents easily multiplied and, in 2004, I moved the food site to pinoycook.net. Always unhappy with the fact that the dot com versions of houseonahill and pinoycook weren't … (click here to read all »)
The avocado was supposed to go into sushi but I cooked all the Japanese … (more...)
Sam likes buying those frozen seafood balls in the grocery -- fish balls, … (more...)
It has a graham cracker crust and it is baked but at a lower temperature … (more...)
If you Google "melon cocktail", you'll find that there are two categories. … (more...)
According to Tastefully Done, age means deep fried and dashi, of course, is … (more...)
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