Philippines Cooking

Philippine cooking is surprisingly simple; no special utensils are needed. Even a wok, which is commonly used in the Philippines and is almost essential for Chinese cooking, can be done without for most Philippines dishes.

No special skills are needed, either. If you can prepare American dishes, you can prepare the food of the Philippines. In fact, most of the dishes that follow are either sauteed or stewed. Other dishes are boiled, braised or fried. Baked dishes are rare, which is perfectly sensible for a tropical cuisine.


Great Philippine Recipes





adobo - cooked in vinegar, soy sauce and garlic
guisado - sauteed
sinigang - boiled with a sour fruit or vegetable
paksiw - cooked in vinegar and garlic
estofado - prepared with a burnt-sugar sauce
ginataan - cooked in coconut milk
rellanado - stuffed
sarciado - a sauce

Although Filipino food is one of complexity with its varied origins of Malay, Chinese and Spanish, yet the cooking methods are rather simple. Basically, the four cooking methods that support the foundation of Filipino cookery are boiling (nilaga), grilling (ihaw), roasting and steaming (halabos). These cooking methods form the very basis of the modern-day demand of healthy cooking. It was not until the arrival of the Spanish that the method of sauteeing (guisado) was "Filipinized" and introduced into the Filipino kitchen, adding to the basic forms of Filipino cookery.




Two styles of preparing food in the Philippines are part of the cuisine not only because of their delicious taste but also because they keep well without refrigeration. Dishes cooked adobo or sinigang style are preserved because of the effect of vinegar or souring ingredient. In rural tropical areas, this makes storing leftovers possible. Dishes prepared in both these manners seem to improve when stored, so it is a good idea to prepare large amounts to ensure having leftovers.

In many of the recipes that follow, vegetable ingredients that are used may be difficult to locate in ordinary food stores or supermarkets. But most major metropolitan centers have "chinatowns" or Oriental neighborhoods where all the ingredients can be purchased. In small cities, "Oriental stores" can often be located by checking the local Yellow Pages under Oriental or Filipino stores.

One of the ingredients that may prove difficult to locate is patis. Patis is a very salty, thin, amber-color fish or shrimp sauce that is sold in bottles under various brand names. Nuoc mam is the Vietnamese equivalent, and nampla is the Thai equivalent.


Though patis is commonly used in many dishes in the Philippines, it is marked as an optional ingredient in all the recipes in this book because the flavor it imparts takes some getting used to. Its pungent odor and strong flavor put it into the category of "acquired tastes." Salt is its closest and best substitute.

Among the other ingredients commonly used in Meat Dishes that are not readily available in local food markets but that may be found in Oriental or Hispanic food stores are the following:

Coconut milk and coconut cream can be bought in 6- or 12-ounce cans.

Anatto seeds, commonly known in the Philippines as achuette or achiote, may be bought in 4- or 8-ounce bottles.


Banana blossoms or flowers are clusters of matchlike flowers found inside a banana pod. Dried banana blossoms are sold in most Oriental food stores.

Bagoong, or shrimp paste made from small salted and fermented shrimps, is sold in jars in Oriental food stores.

Chorizo de Bilbao, a Spanish sausage used in most Spanish influenced meat stews, is sold in most Hispanic stores; however, a good substitute is pepperoni or any other spicy sausage like the Polish kielbasa.

Dried Chinese mushrooms and Chinese sausages can be bought in most Oriental food stores. Salted black beans can be bought in cans or packages, also in Oriental food stores.

Other Oriental ingredients such as bean curd, Chinese cabbage, a Chinese vegetable called bak choy and even some Chinese egg and bean noodles are now available in local food markets in big cities on the East and West coasts of the United States.

Even though some of the more exotic vegetables called for in some dishes simply are not available in the United States, adequate substitute are everywhere. For the most part, all the ingredients and spices can be found in a well-stocked food market

The World Recipe Book

What can i do with Freijoa's?

What can i do with Freijoa's?

Feijoa's

So what exactly is a Feijoa and where did they come from?

It seems Feijoas were introduced into New Zealand during the 1920`s. In some countries the feijoa is also called "pineapple guava". The feijoa was first collected in southern Brazil by a German explorer Freidrich Sellow in 1815 and introduced to Europe by French botanist and horticulturist, Dr Edouard Andre, in 1890. It was named after Brazilian botanist, Joam da Silva Feijo.


.Feijoa Recipes


New Zealand has an ideal climate that produce's large fruit, and because it has few pests this enabled feijoa's to be grown organically (chemical sprays therefore are not applied to New Zealand fruit, making NZ feijoa's some of the most natural fruit available).

The New Zealand season runs from late March to June but don't fret as the fruit can be easily frozen without loss of quality. The fruit has a very distinctive, aromatic flavour with
tropical overtones including pineapple and guava hence if you live in the USA you may know this fruit as Pineapple Guava.

When are the fruit ready to eat?

Feijoas are prime and ready to eat when they are slightly soft and when the inner jellied sections in the centre of the fruit are clear. Depending on the variety this may happen on the tree or within 2 -5 days of natural fruit drop. The fruit is unripe when the jellied sections are white and past it's best when they are browning. (Unpleasant flavours develop when browning occurs and the fruit should be discarded.) Handle the feijoas very gently - as you would ripe peaches. If you have a tree be ready for the drop as it happens very quickly and all at once you can be flooded with ripe fruit. Usually if you have a
friend with a feijoa tree they are more than happy to give away much fruit as it is really hard to use that much fruit all at once. Making jams and chutneys is the best way to use excess and they are great for the ensuing winter months.

There are reasonable amounts of vitamin C in a standard sized fruit, around 100gm of vitamin C and around 45calories. Great fibre content and they are naturally full of good winter antioxidants.

If you want to buy a tree they are usually easy to find in the plant nursery's of New Zealand and the western states of the USA.

Storage

If you've bought fruit that are not quite ripe, just leave them at room temperature and they'll ripen in a day or two; speed up the process by putting them in a paper bag with an apple if you need to. Ripe feijoas are best stored in the fridge.
Feijoas are incredibly versatile: use them in muffins, loaves, desserts, cakes, jams, chutneys, sorbets, smoothies... you name it! Ginger and pineapple are both great with fejoas, so try combos like feijoa and ginger bran muffins or feijoa and pineapple sorbet. Here are some more ideas:

Eat them just as they are, straight from the skin with a spoon. Look for pale-coloured, soft-textured centres.

Add chopped feijoas to salads. Not only a taste sensation, the vitamin C will enhance your absorption of iron from cereals and plant foods in the meal.

Use in a fresh salsa: try chopped celery, tomatoes, red onion, avocado and feijoa. Add chilli flakes, mint, coriander and a generous squeeze of lemon.

Use your favourite banana cake recipe to make banana and feijoa cake – or feijoa and ginger cake.

Scoop out the centres and pack into plastic bags with a squeeze of lemon juice, and freeze for later baking.

Add to apple for a delicious pie filling.

Use in muffins with other fruit. They go very well with apple and almonds.

Poach in a little sugar syrup with a knob of ginger.
Spoon over cereal with yoghurt.

Add to juices and smoothies – try banana, feijoas, vanilla yoghurt and honey.

Mix into fruit salad with fresh and canned fruit. Especially nice with pineapple.

Make a feijoa crumble: top fruit with a mix of rolled oats, sliced almonds, brown sugar and coconut flakes. Or try our Feijoa crumble recipe.

Purée in a blender with lemon juice, vanilla and a little sugar. Use in baking instead of half the sugar.

Feijoa Recipes

Muffin Man

Bringing Out The Muffin Man In You

If have kids and you are anything like me you may often end up, somehow, with several over ripe bananas constantly in the bottom of your fridge or in the fruit bowl. My mum would always make a banana cake with these but I like to make these very simple muffins and the kids love to help. In fact this recipe from www.theworldrecipebook.com uses only one bowl and one wooden spoon in the whole process. Apart from over mixing (which my little boy particularly likes to do with vigour) you can’t really stuff them up.

The kids love to weigh the ingridients as they put them into the bowl. My kids are of the age where as we weigh the ingridients I get them to add the weights together on a piece of paper and we check the final weight against their answers. The whole process only takes 5 mins, really!

So if you find some black or over ripe bananas lying around (you can freeze bananas in a bag for a later date) Crank up the oven and you will have muffins in 1/2hr. These last for 2-3 days in a sealed container in the cupboard. The recipe makes 6 large or 12 small. Print this page or for a easy to read saveable printed recipe go here.
SO gather the kids and heat your oven to 200c
Chocolate chip Banana Muffins
· 60 g Olive Oil or other
· 260 g Self Raising Flour
· 114 g Castor sugar
· 120 mL Milk
· 1 Eggs
· 3 Ripe Bananas
· 200 g Chocolate chips
· 2.5 g Baking powder
1. Put paper muffin cup in muffin tins
2. Into a large mixing bowl put the egg, oil, sugar, chocolate chips, B/Powder, banana's and milk and mix well together
3. Now simply fold in the flour with a spoon until just blended together. Don’t over mix as this may toughen the muffins
4. Spoon into muffin cups and cook for 15-20 min. They should just be firm. Leave in the tins for 5 min before cooling on a wire rack.
5. You can freeze these no problems. Great frozen and into a lunch box, they will be fine by the time it comes to eat them.

Why not start a recipe book that is just for things you and your children make. Collect printed recipes and paste them into a book Kids love a project. Better still take a picture and upload the recipe to The World Recipe Book.com Build you own online recipe book. It’s really easy, register ( http://theworldrecipebook.com/register.php)and start uploading, it’s 100% free and the kids love to see their name in lights.
Remember that cooking is something you and your kids can do together but remember to make it fun. The odd bit of spilt flour should not be a drama. Cooking builds confidence and it’s something (if you keep your recipes) that they will continue with forever.
Enjoy.The worldrecipebook