The Mishaps In The Christmas Kitchen

A rather late post, because I was in the island for the holiday. There, it's a struggle to connect to the internet. I couldn't walk around the house with  my phone. It has to be strategically placed near windows on strategic parts of the house to get a better signal. Every blog entry I wanted to post was "patiently" on hold, because I could only connect - with limits - from my phone. In short, I could only read the stuff here and of the other sites, but quite a frustration to post an entry.

Anyway, one of the things I look forward on Christmas season is the getting together and doing things together part. From putting up the Christmas decors to cooking in the kitchen, then of course the best part of all, eating together. Lol.

This year, I was not able to help put up the Christmas decors at home in the province because I was in the city. The apartment in the city is also home, but we do not decorate it like we do in the family home and the only thing that represents the season are two Santa Claus figurines standing near the TV monitor on the cabinet. On special holidays like Christmas and New Year, we always go home to be with our parents, if the circumstances (e.g. weather and proximity [well, if we're in the country]) allow us.

Except for my brother who stayed in Cebu City because he had to work on Christmas day, all of us at home were doing our part in the kitchen the day before Christmas (that is when the magic in the kitchen happens). When you put people in a small area, on a fine busy day, with lots of things to do, temper could flare up. However, we have rule on times like this. To just “chill”, whatever happens. It is actually a rule initiated to keep my mother’s short temper under control (everyone who's aging, no matter how gracefully, are ultra sensitive to things, so...). As we were preparing the food for the Christmas feast, the rule came in handy to rein emotions (lol) when the following mishaps took place in the kitchen:

1.)    I managed to break the fiberglass chopping board while I cut the chicken bone with the force I exerted. The huge knife was somewhat heavy and the chicken bone was a little willful and did not want to be severed (lol). The chopping board were shattered into hundred shards, but thankfully they were not as fine and as scattered like the ordinary glass do when it breaks. However, I got so paranoid of the sting in my right eye after I broke it that I rushed upstairs to check in the mirror for any shard poking my eyeball. While climbing the staircase I was thinking, “If a broken glass flew in my eye, surely, it’s already bleeding by now, right?” That usually happens in movies, you know. You cannot fault me for thinking that. Lol.

2.)    I got too excited to cut the chicken parts that I also did the other chicken that was supposed to be grilled in the turbo broiler. There were two whole chickens. My sister, Moonyeen, cut the breast of the first one to be poached for the chicken macaroni salad and I cut the rest of the parts of the first one (thinking we will have breaded chickens) and did the other chicken. My mom was aghast with what I did. Well, she did not say in advance what the chickens were for! 

3.) Uh, the chicken macaroni salad...the pasta sort of looked inferior from too much mixing. The ingredients were put on installment instead of putting it one time, thus the pasta were torn by the grinding of the ladles. 

4.)    My sister, Kim, forgot to peel the skin of the peanuts before crushing them with mortar and pestle. The peanuts were used as garnish for my mom’s recipe, the Fresh Lumpia, to be served for the priests’ (who officiated the Christmas eve’s) dinner. I am not sure if the priests, and whoever ate the lumpias, noticed the unwanted peanut skin. I swear we tried straining it to save my sister’s skin (pun intended!) – a futile effort. My mom’s face crumpled, when my sister confessed her crime with a guilty grin. The crushed peanuts (let us not forget the skin) became one of those do-with-what-becomes-of-what-you-have stuffs.

5.) Because my mom hadn't made Fresh Lumpia for a long time and she's one cook who estimates measurement, she kind of messed up the wrapper and wasted a portion of the mixture from doing trial-and-error. I also have to blame the pan she used, it did not have a flat bottom. But, you make do of what you have, right?

6.)    My sister, Rikka, prematurely took the baked cake out from the oven. Wondering why it did not come out from the pan as she tried to turn it over the baking sheet, she poked the center with a knife and found it runny and uncooked. Like a lightning bolt, she quickly returned the cake in the oven before my mom could return to the kitchen. Our oven has no timer, so we keep track of the baking time and peek the look of whatever is baking through the glass door of the oven. Rikka was mesmerized with the beautiful brown cake with the top rising that she forgot something: looks can be deceiving!

7.)    My father flooded the tiled kitchen counter with oil. He accidentally swung his hand at the jar that contained the oil.

8.)    Because Rikka was so into frosting the cake ( a spur-of-the-moment thing supported by my other siblings and I because we like the fancy sound of it), but we had no whipping cream at home, so she whipped two tetra packs of frozen all purpose cream with lots of icing sugar. The mixture never hardened even until we set up the table for the midnight feast. BUT, as ingenious as always, she and Moonyeen thought of ways to have the Christmas color we wanted with the help of icing sugar and jelly candies (see the above picture!) What happened to the cream mixture? It hardened on time for Christmas day, looked and tasted like ice cream, that the slices of chiffon cake were topped off with it! But with the icing sugar in the mixture...too sweet for me. 

No flying pans. No angry words. Although we encountered some concerns in the kitchen, they did not ruin our Christmas. On the other hand, they made the Christmas 2015 more unforgettable, because we could look back at it with amusement. Also, we're grown-ups, but doing stuff in the kitchen on Christmas eve, we're all like kids again, bursting with excitement and prone to committing mistakes (lol). So, nope, the mishaps did not sound bad, they added color to the holiday, and they become part of the stories that will be served on the table for the years to come. 

All in all, though incomplete without my brother, it was a merry Christmas indeed! AND, I wish you had a lovely holiday from your side of the world. :)

Tricky Treat O' Lemony Sneak It

I am a HUGE fan of Claire Robinson and her 5-ingredient fix. She said this line: You can be your own chef. That, plus Julia Child’s encouragement: The only real stumbling block is fear of failure; in cooking you've got to have a "what-the-hell" attitude. As far as embarking on culinary adventure is concern, they echo my sentiment. Yes, they echo my sentiment and not the other way around. LOL.

If you had seen Any Given Sunday (one of my favorite movies, mainly because of Al Pacino’s punchy lines…tmi), the character of Dennis Quaid said this famous line to Willie Beamen: See it before you do it. That line seemed to have been integrated into my preparation before I dive into something for the first time. A conditioning of some kind. It seems very applicable when it comes to cooking, because you know, who wants to waste ingredients. That being said, I thought of making a sweet treat from combining lemon, lemon grass and coconut cream. The idea came from Dove’s body wash, the one with lemongrass and lemon scent. I love it so much that I thought of translating it into dessert. Lol. But I was not able to fully imagine the taste in my head, yet.

Nevertheless, minus the lemon grass, I cooked up a jellied dessert of lemon and coconut cream. I try to make it with five ingredients (call me a copycat, lol):

1 cup of Coconut Cream

1 cup of Evaporated Milk

½ cup Refined Sugar

1 pc of Lemon

1 ½ tbsp of yellow gelatin

¼ cup Evaporated Milk (to dissolve the gelatin)

1 tsp Lemon zest

Coconut is abundant in my country. But for the purpose of measurement and availability (in consideration of foreigners or another Filipino residing abroad who will fearlessly dare to try this) of Coconut Cream, I used the canned.

Whisk together the coconut cream and evaporated milk in a pan. Add sugar until dissolved. You can adjust the amount of sugar according to your preferred sweetness. Squeeze the juice of first half of the lemon. Taste and adjust to your preferred acidity. The acidity should balance the sweetness of the sugar. Add the lemon zest. Pour in the dissolved gelatin to the mixture and whisk to combine. When ready, put in the fire and slowly stir for about 5-10 minutes. Do not let it boil too much. The coconut cream reacts to heat and heat may tamper the properties of the cream, making the natural oil separates from it and changes the taste. When done, transfer to a molder or set it in glasses (like I did). Let it cool for few minutes before you put it in the refrigerator to chill.

This recipe is still in development. I have yet to incorporate the lemon grass, to try using cream (maybe the all purpose, because it is widely available in my country), to scrap out the gelatin and to use the fresh coconut cream. I will update when I can.

For now, it is called Coconut Lemon Gulaman. Hope you guys are having a Happy Halloween!!! J

It's Penne And Me Tonight

I was never fond of dishes with white sauce. Well, maybe except pizza. Perhaps because I can drip ketchup or hot sauce over it. I grew up having pasta with tomato sauce. Fondness for white sauce is an acquired taste. White sauce is kind of French-y; fancy, refine and a bit of "haute". It's thick and rich... and it's too fancy for this thin and poor girl right here. Hahaha, bad joke. 

Wait, did I just use the word "fancy" twice?

This was in my head for days I needed to cook it to get over with it. I knew exactly how it tasted in my head. How I should cut the bacon and cook the chicken, how to mix the cream, milk and cheese, the chopped parsley as garnish...gosh, they were so on point in my thought. I just had to try to execute it if it's going to be perfect as it should be. Guess what, except for the overcooked penne, I got the taste perfectly as I thought it to be and my sisters liked it. One even brought some to school. I'm a happy girl! :) 

But I was wondering if the chicken bits were grilled, the flavor would have been more distinguished? Maybe next time.

Cheers to Penne With Chicken and Bacon In Creamy White Sauce!

The sauce settled at the bottom. 

I tried cooking dumplings, and I failed.

The first time I had tasty dumplings was in Tainan, Taiwan. It was so good, the taste left an impression in my mind forever. I still remember the heat, the goodness of the sauce, and how it was fried perfectly, that it felt like I had a soulful connection with the cook. Lol. (Dumplings are abundant in Taiwan. If you want to visit the country and like the food, then you have no problem with unfulfilled craving.)

Anyway, that was seven or eight years ago. I never had the chance to cook them and never had the desire to cook them, until, I saw the recipe from one of my mother's food magazines. I felt the jolt. I felt the kick in the gut for something awesome to happen and it's calling me to make it happen. Hah!

Enough of the drama. So here's the recipe, in case you want to try it in your kitchen:

Please don't mind the penmanship. I swear I work hard to make it better.

It was supposed to be a Japanese gyoza or dumplings. But when I was in the supermarket, the cost of buying the mirin (glutinous rice wine for cooking) and sake was a suicide to the wallet. Since it was an experiment, I had to forgo the two ingredients. My dumplings seemed to taste just fine according to my siblings. But I can't help but wonder how it would have tasted with the mirin and sake in it. One day, when I can afford it... Oh, a small bottle of mirin was less than Php 200, but the sake that I found was over Php 500! I had been to different stores looking for the sake alone, but only from that store I found what I needed. Walking away from the shelf was heart wrenching. Lol.

For the record, I followed the instruction. Don't be overwhelmed, just combine everything.

The tricky part was the folding of the dumpling wrapper with the filling. Some of the wrappers' edges were torn when I tried to peel them off from the stack. Because of that, I had shorter space to work on with the folding on some of the wrappers. Anyway, to summarize the process (if you can't read my handwriting, lol):

1. Place a heaping teaspoon of the mixture in the center of the wrapper.

2. Moisten half of the wrapper's edge with water.

3. Fold wrapper over to enclose filling, and pinch the edges together to seal.

4. Chill for 30 minutes. But if you're hungry, forget chilling.

Dumplings can be fried or steamed. But I suggest to fry them first for few minutes for the nice brown color on both sides, and then steam them to fully cook the meat (if you have meat dumplings like this one). But whatever works for you and whichever saves time, it's fine. 

What are dumplings without the sauce? So:

For the dipping sauce:

Just combine: 3 tbsp dark soy sauce

                       1 1/2 tbsp vinegar

                       2 1/2 tbsp brown sugar

                       1 tbsp sesame oil

                       1 tbsp chopped green onions

                       2 tsp chopped garlic                   ----- Mix well.

Happy cooking!

This is how my dumplings looked like. Lol. Looking forward to my second attempt and save my pride!

You can browse the internet for the recipe for a better and clearer version.