Overseas Pinoy Cooking

Another year has passed and it’s now time we make round ups on what we had last year. Overseas Pinoy Cooking is now about one year and six months. The site has been growing steadily with regards to visitor and page views traffic . The site page rank is also more than good enough, There are about 115 posts last year, I have tried to maintain at least 3 recipe post every week. Post distribution as per categories as follows; Recipe 94 posts, Food Trip 4 posts, Food Find 1 post and Pinoy Food Glossary 6 posts. New categories has been added to the site, Food Find – These category are for foods that I stumbled upon and find unique; Food Glossary – These are the list of various vocabulary of Pinoy cuisine, foods, ingredients, herbs, spices ect. that I’m compiling and building. I have also included a special category for recipe ideas for the holiday season called Celebration's Recipe , these are recipe suggestion for the Noche Buena and Media Noche. I have already written post of most

Ham and Bacon Macaroni Salad . Macaroni salad is another popular Pinoy celebration dish. It is made of boiled elbow or shell macaroni pasta (But lately a salad macaroni is now available, it is just a modified elbow shaped, shorter macaroni pasta.) and mayonnaise dressing, shredded meat normally pre-boiled chicken and choice of diced crunchy vegetables. For my celebration recipe version of macaroni salad, I am using ham and bacon instead of chicken. I just fried the ham and bacon and cut it into small squares. It can also be fried until crispy should you want more crunchiness to the salad. I did not add any sugar instead, I used the regular sandwich spread. I like it with a lot of onion so I used more. Here is the recipe. Ingredients: 1/2 kilo salad or elbow macaroni, pre-cooked 1 cups mayonnaise 1 cup sandwich spread 1 cup fried bacon, cut into small square 1 cup fried ham, cut into small square 1 cup finely diced onion 1 small size carrots,

Puto Pao . Puto is another popular Pinoy native delicacy. The original recipe of our grandparents call for cooked rice for the batter and using yeast for the leavening process which take several hours. Using all purpose flour and baking powder the long process is now eliminated. Puto can now be made instantly. The puto has evolved to countless versions they now come in various sizes, colors, flavors, toppings and are even made with filling. Puto pao is a cross of the Chinese steamed bun called siopao and puto. Here is my version of puto pao filled with ground pork and quail egg cooked asado style. See other Kakanin Merienda recipes:  Turon na Saging Turon, Fried Banana Roll   Turon Tikoy and Fried Tikoy   Cheesy Maruya, Fried Banana with Cheese   Special Vigan Royal Bibingka   Vigan Royal Bibingka Recipe   Baked Biko Sapin Sapin Style   Biko na Pirurutong   Pirurutong na Biko with Coco Jam, Suman na Pirurutong   Champorado with Pinipig and Pandan Milk   Siopao Asado   Puto Bumbong

Pinoy Arroz Paella . The main dish of our Noche Buena is paella and it has become a family tradition. I would like to share to every one my version of paella, thru the years I have tried to improve the recipe. I have used only ingredients that are available locally, locally means available even in your local wet market. Cooking procedure is fairly easy an average housewife can easily cook the dish. There are no special cooking procedures. I am now posting the dish in advance and in time for every one to prepare it should you choose to have a paella in your Noche Buena. Here is the recipe. Enjoy. At this point I want to greet every one a; MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Ingredients: 1 cup fragrant rice, washed 2 cups  malagkit rice, washed 1 cup pork, sliced 1 cup chicken thighs, sliced 1/2 kilo tahong , parboiled 1/2 kilo prawn, parboiled 3 pcs. crabs, cut, parboiled 1 cup squid, sliced crosswise 1 bell pepper, chopped 2 cups tomato sauce 3 pcs. boiled

Special Beef Kaldereta . Kaldereta is the most popular celebration dish. I have to include it on my celebration dish list for this holiday season for the reason that it is one of the most numbers of queries at this time. I have already posted kaldereta recipe . Click here to see all. But all those recipe uses commercial kaldereta mixes . To my overseas readers who cannot find those kaldereta mixes and those that wanted to cook kaldereta from the scratch here is how I cooked it. Ingredients: 1 kilo beef spareribs 1/2 cup chicken liver, fried, massed in to paste 2 medium size red bell pepper, cut into 1” square 2 pcs. whole sweet pickle, sliced crosswise 1 small can button mushroom 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese 1/2 tsp. ground peppercorns 2 medium size onion, chopped 1/2 head garlic, chopped 1/4 cup vinegar 1 cup green olives 1 cup tomato sauce 1/2 tsp hot sauce 3 bay leaf salt Cooking procedure: Marinate beef meat with vine

Fresh Fruit Salad . Holiday celebration is not complete with out the Pinoy sweet salad. There are countless versions using various ingredients and flavors, from flavored gelatins to fruit gels, from potatoes to pastas from young coconut strips to canned fruits. For my holiday celebration recipe, I will make a fruit salad different from the usual. Fresh fruits in season are always available at supermarket, they also come in pre-cut packages. Instead of using the usual canned fruit cocktail, I used a cocktail of fruits that are in season for my fruit salad. There are no rules in what type of fruit to be used, any fruits available can be use the more variety the better. I needed about two kilos of cut fresh fruit, a small can of condensed milk, all propose creamer and grated cheese toss them all together and chill until ready to serve. Ingredients: 1 big bowl of assorted cube fresh fruit, about 2 kilos  1 cup thick all purpose cream  1 cup condensed milk Method:   Combine and mix

Royal Bibingka is a associated with Christmas in Vigan. In my childhood every Christmas eve, we used to bake bibingka right in our backyard using clay bibingka stove , it was a family group effort. Every process is done homemade even the milling of glutinous rice using the old traditional hand stone miller . Vigan Royal Bibingka Original Recipe by Overseas Pinoy Cooking The Vigan royal bibingka is one of the food attractions of this old city. I have made a post about the commercial bibingka of Vigan earlier, click here to see that post. Here is a tweaked home baked version using coconut powder. Ingredients are available wherever part of the globe you might be. This version can be bake using your latest baking moulds. Good luck. Ingredients: 2 cups galapong , glutinous rice flour 1 1/2 cups powdered coconut milk 1/2 cup evaporated milk 3 pcs. egg, beaten 1 cup sugar 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese 1/4 cup margarine 1 cup water Cooking procedure:

Pinoy Pineapple Ham . Ham is a must in a Pinoy Christmas Noche Buena no matter what stature a family has, there will always be some ham on the table on this important day for all Christians it may be few slices bought from the market or an imported ham for the affluent families. For most Pinoys there are pre-cooked hams in most supermarket that comes packed from 1/2 kilo to a kilo or more. Here is a way to spice up you ham, my version of pineapple ham. Enjoy. Ingredients: 1 kilo smoked ham 2 slice pineapple 1/2 cup chopped pineapple 1 can 350 ml pineapple juice 3/4 cup brown sugar 2 tbsp cornstarch Cooking procedure: Place the ham in a saucepan including the brine. Add in pineapple juice, sugar, chopped pineapple and place pineapple slice on top of the ham. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 to 45 minutes or until the syrup is reduced to about half. Turn over ham occasionally to avoid being burn. Thicken syrup with cornstarch diluted in 1/4 cup of water, stir cook

Morcon is another special Pinoy dish usually served only on special occasion and during this holiday season. Ideally the beef slice should be from the eye round cut of the beef, but other parts of the beef could be used as long as you could manage to have a sufficient sheet to form a beef roll. On this post I used 2 whole eggs for my filling, should you find it difficult to manage a big roll the egg could be cut into wedges to form a smaller roll. Another feature of my version is the way I stewed the morcon roll. I use a lot of tomatoes and onions and stew it mechado style. I then filter out the solid residue on the remaining broth after stewing and finally thickening it to form a more consistent tangy sauce. Enjoy. Ingredients: 1 kilo beef, eye round cut 2 pcs. whole sweet pickles, cut into long strips 100 g. cheddar cheese, cut into long strips 1 medium size carrots, cut into long strips 4 medium size tomato, de-seeded, diced 4 medium size onion, chopped 4 pcs.

Biko na Pirurutong . Rice cakes cooked in coconut milk are the most popular native dishes prepared during the holiday season. Biko is one of the rice cake delicacies that are cooked during the Christmas season. The usual biko is made up of plain glutinous rice the color depends on the sugar used, when cooked with refined sugar the tone is lighter compared to the golden brown color when using the un-refined brown sugar. The yellowish colored biko get the yellow tone from the additional ingredient of squash. Cooking biko is not actually that easy, be ready for a lot of stirring. Today I want to cook a biko with a lavender color using the dark colored glutinous rice called pirurutong. The resultant sweet rice cake was not bad at all. Here is the recipe. Ingredients: 1/2 kilo  malagkit , glutinous rice 1/4 kilo  pirurutong , purple glutinous rice 4 cups coconut milk from 4 pcs. coconut 2 cups brown sugar 1 tbsp. grated  kalamansi  rind 1 tbsp. grated orange rind 2 tbsp. g

Special Embutido . Embutido is one of the popular dishes that are prepared specially for the holiday season. I have made a post on embutido recipe a few months back but that version was influenced by the commercial versions that uses hotdog core fillings and aluminum foil wrapper . For my holiday celebration version, I am making an embutido as close, as authentic and comparable to the versions our grandparents used to make the original method of making embutido . Special Sinsal Wrapped Embutido Recipe For the wrapper I used sinsal or pork  leaf  lard as wrapper instead of aluminum foil . Sinsal is the original wrapper for embutido . For the sausage core filling, I used Vienna sausage it is the original core filling before the coming of hotdogs . For the steaming water, I have added little vinegar, lots of crushed garlic and bay leaf that resulted an adobo aroma that was infused in the steaming embutido . Embutido is supposed to be serve with banana ketchup , I p

Max’s Style Fried Chicken . Here is the first of my holiday celebration's recipe series. Max’s fried chicken is an example of a truly Pinoy style of fried chicken. It represents a very simple Pinoy way of crispy frying the chicken. This fried chicken is so popular it is Max’s best seller for those family special occasions and celebrations, like birthday and wedding parties or just a simple family dinner and of course for the Christmas season. This is my version of the fried chicken popularized by Max’s Restaurant. There are no fancy ingredients and aromatic seasonings. The chicken is just seasoned with salt and or  patis  (fish sauce) and optional powdered pepper. To keep the fried chicken outer skin really crispy and very succulent inside, the chicken is first rub with salt and let stand for at least 15 minutes then steamed for at least half an hour with patis flavored water. Then let it cool down and lightly rub with patis the skin using the fingers. Now chill in a refri

Inihaw na Alumahan . I love any inihaw na isda what ever kind as long that it is fresh. I found this fresh alumahan at the wet market and it is fresh and ideal for inihaw. Alumahan is a type of mackerel there are many varieties the most common in the Philippines are the long jawed mackerel. Inihaw na isda for Pinoys are simple there are no special seasoning just rub the fish with salt or straight to the charcoal for grilling and serve with equally simple soy sauce with kalamansi. Enjoy. Ingredients: 1 kilo medium sise alumahan, long jawed makarel salt Cooking procedure: Remove gills and innards of alumahan. Wash fish thoroughly drain and slit cut along the length of each fish on both sides. Rub with salt. Grill in charcoal for 8 to 10 minutes on each side. Do not overcook, inside to be just cooked. Serve with a dipping sauce. See other Fish Inihaw recipes;  Grilled Tanguige Steaks with Star Margarine Garlic Sauce   Hotplate Grilled Tulingan   Inihaw na Talakitok

Sinigang na Ulo ng Salmon . Salmon in Metro Manila is pricey the average Pinoy wont bother buying this fish for an everyday meal. But overseas the price of a salmon is comparable with other premium fish and in fact it is even cheaper compared to tanguinge or even malasugi. Pinoys overseas have been cooking salmon head Pinoy style sinigang, yes salmon is perfect for any type of sinigang and because the meat color is pink it is visually appealing as well. The meat of salmon is full of fish fats that render on the sinigang broth. I would recommend rubbing the skin with salt and thoroughly rinsing the fish, and use slices of ginger in cooking to rid of the unfamiliar fishiness of the fish. Ingredients:   1 kilo medium size salmon head 1 medium size onion, quartered 2 medium size tomato, quartered 1/2 thumb size ginger, sliced 1 bundle kangkong leaves or any leafy vegetables 1 big bundle leeks or spring onion, cut into 2” length 2 tbsp. sampalok sinigang mix 4 pcs. siling haba salt Cookin