A Bit of Luck in the Kitchen

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I’ve been lucky in the kitchen during the past couple of weeks. I was able to serve good meals! (lucky mister!) Of course I want strangers to know how I did it.

We had the Bow Ties in Tomato Sauce.

As you can see in this photo there wasn’t too much sauce. We like simple food, and to enjoy the pasta as much as the sauce there has to be just enough to coat. We pair this with regular table wine (nothing fancy..or too expensive..) I don’t have an exact recipe for the sauce it was more of a spoonful of this and that, but here goes:

250g of dried pasta, a bit of olive oil and salt went in the pot of water for boiling

about 1/2kg of tomatoes, chopped

a handful of fresh basil leaves, chopped
1 small red onion, 1 small white onion, chopped finely

1/2 a head of garlic, smashed to bits
2 tablespoons capers, chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

a couple of pieces of sundried tomatoes, chopped

parmesan cheese for grating

Heat the olive oil. Caramelize the onions over medium fire, wait until it’s translucent before adding the garlic. When the garlic is golden in color, add the tomatoes. Stir over low fire. Simmer until tomatoes are soft. Add capers and sundried tomatoes. Simmer until flavors come together. Add the fresh basil last and remove from the flame. Toss pasta with sauce, serve topped with freshly grated parmesan cheese and garnish with sundried tomato or basil if you want it prettier.

This is also the same sauce for the spaghetti we had the following week. Simple enough for a cook wannabe like me. haha..

We also had mixed greens with lemon vinaigrette but that’s old news, still here’s a photo. Looks boring to me, but it went well with our salt baked fish..which we forgot to take a picture of. But we had a different salt baked fish again. It was a local fish called tulingan.

The thing is, when you salt bake a fish, you don’t lose any of its flavor. And it’s so easy. All you have to do is buy fresh fish (pick one the has a firm belly, no fishy smell, clear eyes that are still intact and check the gills too, should be a nice red), get a baking dish, lay the fish down, cover the entire fish with wet rock salt or sea salt if you have it(just mix in 2Tbsp of water to keep it together), and then bake for 15-20 minutes. That’s it. Remember: you’re not supposed to eat all the salt. When it’s done just remove the salt and serve.

We had Squash and String beans in Coconut Milk with the salt baked tulingan. and here’s how I did it:

saute a spoonful of smashed garlic, 1 medium chopped onion, 4 small tomatoes, and spoonful of alamang guisado (sauteed shrimp paste available in supermarkets). Add about 1/3kg chopped squash (make large pieces since the edges will get soggy later on and get mixed up into the milk, they will definitely get smaller as they cook) and a cup of water. Boil. Add the coconut milk slowly, and keep stirring as you do. if you don’t stir the coconut milk will curdle and you’ll have lumpy sauce. When the squash is almost done (can be poked but not yet squishy on the edges) add the string beans (cut them into 2 inch pieces). Simmer until string beans are cooked.

I ate it. And I don’t even like vegetables.

This was sunday fare. Baked Beef Ribs in Barbeque Sauce. We had two sides for this, buttered corn (canned kind) and two cheese baked potato.

For the baked potato, just rub it with cooking oil and stick it in the oven until it’s tender when you poke it with a fork. When it’s done, break it apart and grate mozzarella and parmesan cheese on top, salt and pepper.

For the corn, just drain it, get rid of the water. You can put it on a strainer and let it drip while you prepare the potato. When that’s done, melt some butter on a pan, dump the corn, stir it a bit. season with salt and pepper.

For the ribs, this was something that went a bit wrong. We had this marinating overnight, and baked it straightaway. The meat was tough. And so the following week we tried again, this time we boiled it in the marinade until it was tender. MMmmmmmmmmm. We used store bought barbeque sauce/marinade(just like before) and the ribs turned out fine. As you can see, we were able to get some corn on the cob! And made some mashed potatoes too. We had the melted butter and a brush on the table for the corn too. It was one of those meals we never wanted to end.

The mashed potatoes were easy to make. Wash, peel, chop and boil potatoes until tender. Drain. mash with a bit of milk, a bit of butter, a bit of cheese. Add salt and pepper. Top with grated parmesan before serving. It’s important that you don’t handle the potatoes after boiling them so they don’t spoil easily.

I can’t believe I prepared so many edible dishes! It was unbelievable. But wait, there’s more!

Steamed Chicken in Lemongrass with soy sauce -sesame oil dip and Broccoli. This is also one of those meals that don’t require so much effort.

I used chicken breasts. I used the rice cooker to steam this because I don’t have a stove top steamer. Bring chicken stock and a pound of crushed lemongrass stalks(remove the roots!) to a boil. You’ll need about 3-4cups, steaming time is about 15-20 minutes. For the chicken, use a couple of stalks of lemongrass per breast. Slice the stalks thinly. Use the part near the roots, that’s where the good stuff is(you can add the tops to your simmering stock). Cut diagonally. Stick your fingers between the chicken meat and the skin, lift the skin. Stuff the lemongrass slices under the skin. This will give the chicken very good flavor. Steam chicken. When it’s done, eat it while it’s hot!

This is why you must prepare your side dish ahead. I just blanched the broccoli flowers and sprinkled a bit of grated parmesan cheese on top, some salt and pepper too. I also prepared a dipping sauce. 1 cup of the chicken stock (after cooking your chicken breast, the drippings make it extra tasty), 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, 1 tablespoon sesame oil, salt and pepper.

And the final winner as of this time is Fettucini Carbonara. As you can see, it looks so good! Well, it was. I followed a recipe for that carbonara sauce(none of the bit of this and that..). It’s from Cookshelf Pasta by Tom Bridge.

2Tbsp Olve oil

1 large onion, thinly sliced

2 garlic cloves, chopped (I smashed this to get the full flavor)

175g/6oz rindless bacon, cut into thin strips

2Tbsp butter

175g/6oz mushrooms, thinly sliced

300ml/half pint/1 1/4cups double(heavy cream)

3 eggs, beaten

100g/1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

salt and pepper

fresh sage sprigs to garnish (i didn’t have this so I added a pinch of dried sage instead)

1. Cook pasta until tender, transfer to a dish, keep warm.

2. Heat olive oil in a frying pan/skillet over medium heat. Add the onionand fry until transparent. Add garlic and bacon and fry unti bacon is crisp. Transfer to the warm dish.

3. Melt the butter in the frying pan. Add the mushrooms and fry,stirring occasionally, for 3-4 minutes. Return the bacon mixture to the pan. Cover and keep warm.

4. Mix together cream, eggs and cheese in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper.

5. Workng very quickly, tip the pasta into the bacon mushroom mixture and pour over the eggs. Toss the pasta quickly by using two forks. Garnish and serve with extra parmesan cheese if desired.

The thing with this dish is it can’t be reheated the next day. I tried doing that with our leftovers, what happened was, the eggs cooked through and it turned into pasta with scrambled eggs. And then also, the garlic turned brown before the bacon could get as crisp as I wanted it to be. So the bacon should go before the garlic.

It has been crazy in our kitchen. The kitchen god has blessed me. hooray! Let’s hope I can do repeats better than this..

 

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Filed under Food, baby back ribs, baked potato, baked ribs, barbequed ribs, beef, beef ribs, carbonara sauce, dipping sauce for steamed chicken, fettucini carbonara, fish and seafood, fresh tomato sauce, kalabasa at sitaw sa gata, mashed potato, poultry, spaghetti with tomato sauce, squash dish, steamed chicken in lemongrass, vegetables in coconut milk, veggies