Couldn't get more sinful than this, Sinfully

When was the last time you entered a store and wouldn't want to leave it, ever?  This is probably the reason why Sinfully, the offsite branch of the Makati Shangrila patisserie didn't provide dine-in facilities in their store.  No one would wanna leave.  

Whoever thought of putting the chocolatier and all the chocolates in front of the store, in full view of the malling public is a genius!  The chocolates, I swear, called out to me to come into the store and buy them all.  Haha.  

We looked at everything and couldn't decided which ones to try.  If only I could take all of them home. *Sigh*.  So finally we decided to skip the chocolates and tried two mini cakes instead, Desire and Endless Summer (I think that's what its called) and tried to find a bench where we can vent out all out ooohhhhs and aaaaahhhhhs.

                                               Desire at its finest

                   Endless Summer

Between the two, we both agreed we loved Desire more.   Its layers perfectly blend and compliment to make each forkful a perfect bite.  The chocolate sponge bottom supports a layer which reminds you of a Ferrero rocher chocolate piece, topped by a thick rich caramel layer and finished with a dark chocolate mousse, all enrobed in a thin and shiny dark chocolate icing and topped with exotic fruits such as a physalis (my current obsession), a bunch of cranberries and a strawberry holding a blueberry. Miraculously, even with all these, the cake wasn't cloyingly sweet.  Definitely a piece of heaven on earth!

No doubt about it, I'm coming back for the chocolates but for now, I'll just dream and drool.

Pork Ribs with Tomato Sauce

I have shelves full of cookbooks, some given, some bought while others inherited.  I still add a few more titles each year whenever one piques my interest but it seems I always bring down the same titles whenever I want to try a new dish.  

And every time I feel like cooking Chinese, my hands just automatically reaches for this book "The Technique of Chinese Cooking", a 36 year old book I inherited from my Nanay (Mom).  I may have several books, all teaching how to cook a variety of Chinese dishes but this one seems to be the most authentic (I think I saw a peking duck recipe there which starts with teaching you how to kill the duck.. haha).  But since it was made in Taiwan, the translation could sometimes be off, fortunately the gist can be understood anyway. 

Today, I wanted to eat pork.. period.  Its been awhile since I cooked anything with pork but I didn't want to go out anymore to buy ingredients so I had to make do with what was inside the freezer and cabinets.  Fortunately, there was a pack of pork ribs.  Yey!  This is definitely my day.  

I searched the book for a simple pork rib recipe and found this.  Easy peasy.  I didn't have celery in the crisper so I omitted it,  added more sugar to the sauce and replaced hot soy sauce (didn't have this ingredient) with soy sauce and chili powder. So worth to try, definitely finger-licking good. (Sorry Col.Sanders, this one really is) :)

Pork Ribs with Tomato Sauce (Cantonese dish)

Ingredients:

1/2 k pork ribs, sliced about 2 in long and 3/4 in wide)

Marinate

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp MSG (omit if you want)

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp sesame oil

1/8 tsp black pepper

1/2 Tbsp soy sauce (I used Kikkoman All Purpose soysauce)

2 tsp Shaoxing cooking wine

1/4 tsp meat tenderizer

1 pc celery (I omitted this since I didn't have it at home)

Glaze

2 Tbsp soy sauce 

1/8 tsp chili powder

1 1/2 Tbsp tomato catchup

2 tsp sugar

Other ingredients

oil for deep frying

parsley for garnishing

1. Mix all the ingredients of the marinade.  Massage onto pork and let it stand for an hour or two.

2. Combine all the ingredients for the glaze.  Set aside.

3. After marinating, deep-fry pork ribs in very hot oil until crispy.

4. Boil the glaze mix, drop in pork ribs and mix evenly.  Garnish with parsley.

  

Cravings part 2: Mocha Chiffon Crunch with Caramel Buttercream frosting

Another rainy day crazy craving: sweets!

Don't you just have them, too?  But since there was an extended blackout, I just had to console myself with fruits but it wasn't working.  I still want a fluffy, really sweet cake to satiate my cravings.  Though it could be done, the thought of hand beating eggwhites until stiff was out of the question. I just had to wait  until I could use my trusty mixer.

After a few boring hours, at last its back! Hurray! I was still mentally debating what to bake until finally deciding to make a mocha chiffon.  I tried to use brewed Barako (a coffee variety native here) but the taste was too subtle, I had to add in powdered instant coffee.   Wasn't able to decorate this last night so I iced this the following day. I thought of doing some fancy shamanzy icing but its a work day so had to contend with caramel buttercream.  I still had leftover orange flavored whipped cream and caramelized sugar with cashews from last weekend's project so I just incorporated it into this cake project.  How can anyone go wrong with chiffon, coffee and caramel? :)

Mocha Chiffon Crunch with Caramel Buttercream frosting
 

Cake (from a Heny Sison cake class I attended with some changes)
1 1/4 cups cake flour, sifted
1 tablespoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 c vegetable oil (I used coconut oil for this)
1 tablespoon instant coffee dissolved in 3/4 c water
7 egg yolks
1 c egg whites
1/2 c sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar


1. Preheat to 325F
2. Grease or line with wax paper two 9 1/2 inch round pans
3. Sift flour, baking powder, salt and 1 cup water.  Add the oil, egg yolks and water with coffee.  Blend until incorporated.
4. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites, cream of tartar and the 1/2 c sugar.  Beat until stiff.
5. Fold in the egg yold mixture into the eggwhites.  Pour into prepared pans and bake.
6. Bake for 30-45 mins or until done.



Caramel Buttercream frosting
25 g Water
185 g White sugar

50 g Water
35 g Whipping Cream
5 g Coffee Extract


1 egg yolk
300 g butter, softened


1.  Cook the 25 g water and white sugar to caramel stage (when the mixture turns golden brown, you can take it off the heat).
2.  Let it cool to 120 deg C and add the 50 g water and cream.  Be careful, it will produce steam.
3.  Add in the coffee extract.
4. Whip the egg yolk until light yellow in color then add in the caramel mixture.  Cool this to 30 deg C.
5. Whip in a third of the butter.  When this has been mixed, whip in the rest of the butter.

Cashew Crunch
1. Melt about 3/4 c of sugar to light golden brown and pour it into a silicon-lined baking pan. (You have to be careful when handling hot sugar, sugar burns are nasty ).
2. Tilt the pan from side to side to spread it more thinly then sprinkle about 1/4 c of cashew.  When cool, chop it into small pieces. 

To assemble:
1. Cut each cake rounds into two.  Spread a thin layer of the icing on each of the layers.
2.  Cover the whole cake with more of the icing.  If you want, you can also whip some whipping cream with a bit of sugar and pipe mounds on top of cake.  
3. As a finishing touch, sprinkle some of the cashew crunch.
 

Cravings on a Dreary, Rainy Day

There was a typhoon and didn't even know it was signal no.2 already.  So, I drove to the office but came home after a few hours when I realized that 1) no one came to the office except one and 2) I might get stranded if I stay until 6pm.  

So, I came home unexpectedly to a dark house (no electricity) and no lunch set on the table.  Ok, no biggie.  I just have to whip up something that's using ingredients already in the house in 15 mins or less.  

Then I remembered my little piece of heaven in a bottle, my forgotten white truffle oil. Everything seems to taste better with a drop, really. What can I say, its culinary magic.

So, I started cooking the pasta and while this was boiling in the pot, I began making my version of Alfredo sauce. In less than 15 minutes, both pasta and sauce were ready.  I added a few pieces of Spanish sardines and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese on top and once again, I was in truffle heaven :)

While still waiting for the electricity to come back and nothing to do but wait for the weather to improve, I styled and shot this using two plates.  Which do you think looked better?  :)

Spanish Sardine Spaghetti in White Truffle Sauce

Approximately 5 pieces Spanish sardines in oil (you can keep it whole or break it into chunks)

200 g spaghetti, cooked as directed

8 cloves of garlic, pounded 

3 slices of bacon, cut 1 inch thick

1 Tbsp of butter

4 pieces of fresh shitake mushrooms(leftovers from last weekend), sliced into slivers

1 Nestle All Purpose cream

1 Nestle heavy cream can

1/4 c water

1/4 tsp of white or black pepper

1 pc of laurel leaf

1/8 tsp of nutmeg

iodized salt to taste

Parmesan cheese, grated 

1/4 tsp white truffle oil (I used Sabatino Tartufi)

1. Cook bacon until crisp. Lower the heat then add the butter and garlic.  Fry till fragrant.

2. Add in the shitake and saute for about 2 minutes.

3. Add both creams, 1/4 c water and the rest of the ingredients except parmesan and truffle oil.  Cook until thickened, about 5 minutes.  Remove from fire.  Add drops of truffle oil.

4. To assemble, top some of the cooked spaghetti with the pasta sauce and spanish sardines.  To finish, generously sprinkle with parmesan.

Enjoy!

The long awaited Pizza post

Its been a few months since I tried making pizza but let me write this lest I forget how I did it.

After my pizza failures, i tried making it 3 more times, talk about persistence, right? After my no-knead pizza failure, I began looking for another pizza crust recipe and found this by Heny Sison: http://www.yummy.ph/recipe/Pizza-Dough.  Seems easy enough.  

I used the bottom of a large clay pot to serve as my pizza stone since I didn't have one and I read somewhere that you can use clay tiles instead.  What I forgot to do, though, is preheat the pizza stone before topping the pizza with the sauce and dried meats.  Huge mistake!  Even after baking the pizza for 20 minutes, the middle part was really soggy that it fell apart when served.  Yikes!  I knew I had to repeat this the following week, I just can't let it defeat me, right? 


So, on with pizza 3 and 4. From previous pizza attempts I made the following adjustments:


1. Preheated the oven at 425- 450F.  (The recipe didn't set a time)
2. Preheated the pizza stone in the oven for 10 minutes before baking the crust on it.
3. Sprinkled some flour on the pizza stone if the crust is kinda moist.  This prevents the crust from sticking.
4. Parbaked the crust for 5 minutes in a preheated oven before smothering it with sauce and toppings.
5. Baked the pizza with the toppings for another 10 to 12 minutes.  Do not overbake.  
6. Spread some butter or oil to the crust before spreading the pizza sauce.  It makes the crust less prone to sogginess.
7. Used a different flour. For some reason, this pizza flour seems to work. Found it in a supermarket but I'm sure our usual all purpose flour will work too.

And here it is, after 4 tries, my thin crust pizza! 

I used the same tomato paste-based pizza sauce as in my earlier post, topped it with sliced bell peppers, mozzarella, basil leaves, canned mushrooms and sliced salame picante.  I made another pizza with the same toppings except I replaced the salame with slivers of bottled spanish sardine, a more healthy version but nonetheless flavorful.  Can't wait to try that one again.

Pino Resto Bar

When you drove for 2 hours a 25 km stretch, ok I might be exaggerating, it might be 30 km, you just wanna lie in and sleep off the stress the following day.  But the family hasn't been going out lately, so we decided to have a Sunday lunch out.  It was choice between Romulo Cafe somewhere near Timog or Pino Resto Bar in UP Village, both we haven't tried and both within the vicinity.  We chose Pino since it was nearer and it was already 12 by the time we got out. 

Pino is one of the new restos that has opened within the UP Village that I've read a lot of good things about.  But since everyone has his own preferences and food tastes, I'd rather try it then form my own impressions about the resto and food.  

Pino is kinda unique as it has a vegetarian sister resto, Pipino just above it plus the place turns into a cooking school in other days.  Dining at the ground floor, you can enjoy the best of both restos since you can order from both the Pipino and Pino menus but this doesn't apply to Pipino. Since I'm not so ready to go vegetarian (how can I let go of lechon??), it has to be Pino.

The menu was a mix of fusion and traditional.  To get a taste of their starters, we ordered their Pino-ka Platter 1 made up of their Pork and Shrimp Lemongrass, Skewers, Nori Cheese Sticks, Pino Fries, Crispy Calamares, Chicken Lollipop.  Good presentation, loved the pork and shrimp lemongrass.  

I would have preferred to have it as a Vietnamese wrap though, and was looking at the lettuce leaves from our Fried Kesong Puti Salad with Mango Vinaigrette but the leaves were  vinaigrette coated.  Too messy and too sweet to use.  Maybe next time.

Fried Kesong Puti Salad with Mango Vinaigrette

Tatay (my Dad) wanted the Pininyahang baby-back ribs but they were out that day so we decided to just try the Kalderetang Lengua and the Bagnet and Tofu Stack-O with Mushroom Rice.  From Pipino, we tried the Soba noodles with soy mirin sauce and the Vegetable curry with couscous.

Cold Soba Buckwheat Noodles with Mango Salsa, Crispy Tofu and Soy-Mirin

the Bagnet and Tofu Stack-O with Mushroom Rice, my fave

The Lengua was perfectly tenderized but I'm not too sure if I like their Kaldereta sauce but the Bagnet was spot-on.  It was perfectly seasoned and cooked till crisp.  I was honestly thinking why it was paired with tofu (could it be to lessen the guilt??) but presentation-wise, it was perfect.  The Cold Soba Buckwheat Noodles with Mango Salsa, Crispy Tofu and Soy-Mirin was your usual Japanese buckwheat noodle dish with a mango salsa twist. I wasn't too keen on the Vegetable curry with couscous, though.  The curry tasted of Japanese kare which I'm not too fond of. Price wise, it was reasonable.  Just for the Bagnet, I'm definitely coming back:)

Vegetable Curry with couscous

Pino Resto Bar

39 Malingap St., Teachers Village

Quezon City, Metro Manila

Philippines

(02) 441-1773

Burfi, so easy!

I'm a dessert fiend.  Apparently, I'm also a recipe hoarder.  Found so much written or printed ones lying everywhere in my room and the funny thing is, most haven't been tried yet.  So, I made a decision to try a recipe I thought was interesting as soon as I can before its either lost, forgotten or thrown into a drawer.  

Last weekend while watching someone cook Indian cuisine, the girl demonstrated this really easy dessert.  I've bought most of my Indian sweets from my favorite shop, Assad along U.N. Ave. but I've always wanted to make my own so today while in the kitchen trying to do some clean up, I saw my dessicated coconut and cardamon then remembered I also recently bought pistachios, all ready for my burfi.  Since the recipe called for cardamon powder and I only had the whole seeds, I dry roasted some then powderized it using a blender. I was in cardamon heaven.  I also pan roasted the pistacios a bit to give it some crunch and more nutty flavor.

I followed the recipe except for the cardamon which I sparingly used, just a bit less than a half of a teaspoon since it might be too overpowering. Good decision. I mixed everything and cooked it in 8 minutes with continuous stirring, letting it cool a bit before rolling into balls and dredging it in more dessicated coconut.  Easy and so addicting!  Made this in about 20 minutes or less.

Burfi

200 g dessicated coconut + more for dredging
a bit less than 1/2  tsp ground cardamon
380 g of condensed milk
1/3 c roughly chopped, shelled and lightly toasted pistachios



Note: Cardamon comes in both green and black varieties.  I like the green ones since they seem to have a better flavor.  They can be bought in Indian stores.  You can also opt to just leave it out if you can't find them but if you can, please do.  It makes it much more authentic. As for the pistachios, you can replace it with any nut but cashew might give a better flavor.  Lastly, cook it in a thick sauce pan and stir continuously.  The sugar and milk might burn if you heat it without stirring.