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When I decided to take pictures of the process of making Bistek, I thought I was just going to upgrade an old post here at Feistycook with much “better” pictures. Well, it turns out, I actually don’t have one in the archives. I do however have the catfish and pork variations. I could’ve sworn I’ve written about Bistek in the past though. It might have been in the previous foodblogs I’ve written for years ago and didn’t bother importing it here. In any case, here’s one now so I’m gonna stop babbling now and just get to it.

I like to use salad dressings as marinades for meat. Search the archives here and you’ll find meat dishes with Italian dressing, raspberry vinaigrette, spicy ranch, ranch, and French dressing. I guess it’s the convenience of all the tangy ingredients in one bottle that you could just easily pour over the meat to marinate for a few hours. The result is always fast and delicious protein dish to serve the family for dinner. Like this Broiled Pork Chops Marinated In Balsamic Vinaigrette.

While the videos for the bacon-wrapped stuffed pork are uploading, let me share with you the side dish that accompanied that main entree, this potato au gratin with cheese and panko bread crumbs toppings. There is another potato au gratin recipe in the archives which is pretty basic. This one is cheesier and it has the Japanese Panko bread crumbs on top which I love and prefer over the regular bread crumbs.

I’m quite fond of pairing up pork chops with fresh fruits sauteed in a little bit of butter. The natural sweetness from the fruits, like apples and peaches, gives that caramelized flavor enhanced with a bit of salt and pepper as seasonings. The traditional way of serving pork chops with apple is the pork chops & apple sauce combo. Well, I much prefer being able to actually bite into the fruit so I use sliced fruit instead.

For a different variation on the fruit as a sauteed side dish, I sometimes add sliced onions too. In this apple side dish, I added sliced green pepper too.

Before Christmas, I made sweet potato bread. I used the basic recipe for making bread  and just added peeled boiled sweet potatoes into the dough. Because of the watery texture of sweet potatoes, I added more flour than usual. The result was a nice and yummy supply of sweet potato bread with 2 round ones and a loaf.

I like my mangoes in 2 ways. 1st is green and unripened, dipped in a fermented shrimp paste with lots of red pepper flakes. 2nd, as a margarita flavor. If I don’t have a jar of fermented shrimp paste, I usually dip my mangoes in a salt-vinegar-red pepper flakes combo. But when I do this I’d prefer the mangoes a bit softer and pickled. So that’s what I did with the other mango I had a week ago. I made a jar of pickled mango Dexie style.

This process brought me back to my grandmother’s kitchen when I was such a cute and adorable little girl. Yup, I was so cute and adorable I couldn’t stand myself therefore I remember it so vividly. Hahahaha. But I digress…

Anyhooo, I remember my Lola(grandmother) making pickled mango the sweet way. I think she boiled some water first, then sugar, then the mango. Please, don’t send me hate mails for not getting this process right. I can’t recall exactly how she did it but I know sugar was involved. And I remember how I absolutely hated sweet pickled mangoes. Now that I think about it, that’s probably why I abhor sweet relish or sweet pickles. I prefer sauerkraut and mustard with my hot dogs, please. If you put sweet relish in your potato salad, please don’t ever talk to me ever again. KIDDING. I’ll just graciously say, Thanks but NO Thanks. The word “pickled” in my gastronomical standards means salty and sour, and if applicalble, spicy. That’s exactly how I made this pickled mango.

Summer means a lot of things. One of them is making cold pasta salads. I suppose it’s ok to make them during winter too but it is usually during the Summer that I get to indulge in whipping up different kinds of cold pasta salads. They’d go with any grilled meat entrees, including kebabs, satays, burgers, just to name a couple. Pasta salads prefect to serve as side dishes during the summer parties in the backyard or as lunch for the family on regular days. This Mini Rotelle Cold Pasta Salad W/ Cheese & Sunflower Seeds is basically another version of Pasta & Broccoli Salad W/ Golden Raisins and Sunflower Seeds but without the golden raisins and chopped fresh broccoli. I added chopped eggs instead.