Filipino Dishes tagged posts

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.

My husband would really eat anything I cook. I know this coz he tells me all the time and he does eat anything I serve him. When I’m thinking out loud what to make, or when I ask him what he wants to eat for lunch or dinner he’ll say, “make anything, you know I’ll eat it.” However, there’s one dish he’ll never eat. That’s fish head soup. Being a Filipino I’ve had my fair share of fish head soup growing up. The latter involves a fish head, sour broth, and veggies. It’s pretty much like any sour soup we love to call SINIGANG, either with chicken or pork.

With my husband’s frequent fishing trips you’d think I’m taking advantage of using the fish head all the time but that’s not the case at all. When he cleans the fish that means the head goes too. I don’t mind, really. I only ask him to save the head when I get the craving or the ambition to deal with cooking a fish head. When he caught the 5-pound bass last month it just didn’t feel right to throw away the head after I cut up the steaks for the sweet and sour dish so I saved it to make sinigang bass head soup. Since I was the only one in the family who would eat this it took me 4 days to finish it. I just warmed up a bowl in the microwave to eat for lunch.

This Ground Beef With Zucchini & Broccoli Stir-Fry dish is a simple and very easy stir-fry to whip up on busy days or around here, rainy days. After a terrible heat wave, we’ve been having much needed rain and sometimes accompanied by and angry roar of thunder. These are the times when I enjoy just putting stuff together with whatever I have in the fridge. This is also the time when I only have a few items on the fridge before I go grocery chopping again. On the day I made this, I had 1 zucchini left, 2 heads of broccoli florets, 1/2 of onion, and few cloves of garlic. I decided to use ground beef instead of the usual beef steak meat just for a change.

The “fancy” name of this dish is Sauteed Pork & Bitter Melon W/ Shrimp Paste but you can also call it, binagoongang pork and ampalaya. It’s basically just a variation of the spicy binagoongang pork with napa cabbage. Because I’m an Ilocana and I love Amapalaya aka Bitter Melon aka Bitter Gourd, I love this version so much better.

If Ampalaya isn’t sold so expensive in Filipino stores here in the US I’d probably eat it everyday for lunch. I saved the seeds hoping to plant them and maybe grow my own bitter melons in the backyard but I’m not sure how it will fare in the US weather so I’ve chickened out in doing so. But I have to try sometime to find out, no? I will and I’ll let you know how it goes. In the meantime……..

My husband is really into fishing so I’m guessing I’ll be posting catfish recipes here once or twice a month. Maybe even 3 times a month. I usually make the catfish nuggets for lunch which the family loves the day after his many fishing expeditions. Other catfish dishes that the family likes are Catfish Fillets In Creamy Coconut Milk Sauce, Catfish Spaghetti W/ Garlic-Tomato-Scallions Sauce, and catfish fillets pan-fried in butter. Sometimes my husband would save a fish for me to do whatever I want with it. These are the fishes where he leaves the skin and sometimes head, in tact. Earlier this month, he reserved one catfish (decent size), cut into steaks for me to cook however I want for my lunch.

I decided to cook it bistek style. Bistek is basically thin slices of beef marinated in soy sauce, lemon juice, and garlic sauce then cooked in oil with onions. You can do this with pork too. With the catfish steaks though, I eliminated the marinating process. Nevertheless, the fish absorbed the bistek flavors just fine.

I have different adobo recipes in this food blog such as PORK ADOBO W/ COCONUT MILK & SCALLIONS, then the HOW TO COOK PORK ADOBO TUTORIAL, Pork Hocks Adobo With Potatoes, Baked Chicken Wings Adobo, Baked Chicken Coconut Adobo, and the Pork & Chicken Wings White Adobo In Apple Cider Vinegar. It turns out, I don’t have a regular pork adobo with coconut milk recipe in the archives. Adding coconut milk is my favorite “twist” in cooking adobo these days so I have to put the recipe here  even though there’s already a version with scallions in the recipe. Chalk it up as another one of my OCD tendencies.

Just so you don’t think this is totally useless, let me add that I actually used whole peppercorn instead of ground black pepper so there, Hmmmph!

Pork Binagoongan is NOT one of the Filipino dishes that I make often. Truth be told, this is probably the 2nd time I’ve made it in my married life of 14 years. The first time I made it was years ago that I can’t even remember the exact year. I do remember though that I turned it into a filling for lettuce wraps. Yup, no rice. My husband would be surprised about this info too. This time around though, I ate the pork binagoongan with rice. Hey, why not, right?

After I cooked and consumed this Spicy Pork Bingoongan W/ Napa Cabbage dish for lunch the other day, I googled how other Filipinos cook it. Most of the recipes I’ve read call for big chunks of pork, simmered for a while, some in coconut milk, and some even cooked the pork chunks on the crispy side before adding the shrimp paste. I thought, well, that explains why I don’t cook this dish often. I know nothing of how to make it authentically, hah. I just sliced a pork steak in cubes, then sauteed them with garlic, ginger, tomatoes, green onions, and for a vegetable factor, I added slices of napa cabbage. VOILA!

Like I’ve said many times before, Tocino is one of my most favorite Filipino dishes. It comes after pork adobo. I will forever profess my love to JMOM for teaching me how to make homemade tocino. So anyhooo, while blog hopping the Link Friday entries the other week, I came upon Tara, Let’s Eat recipe of Tocinokatsu. I’ve never heard of Tocinokatsu before until that day.

Tocinokatsu is basically your regular tocino, then breaded in breadcrumbs then fried in oil. It makes sense right? I decided right then that I am definitely making some as soon as I get a hold of some pork. So I did, and my whole world made total sense even more.

Technically, we have oranges in the house(along with grapes, apples, bananas, and watermelon) because my husband needed the mesh bag that holds the oranges. While going through the pictures of custard cake the other day, I realized that the bowl of oranges is quite prominent in some of the pictures. I thought about how delicious it would be to make orange flavored custard cake too. But I know I probably need to take a break from making another dessert for at least a week. Cooking with oranges is still something I wanted to do though so I decided to use 1 orange for a chicken marinade.

A very simple marinade involving citrus, soy sauce, and fresh garlic. That combination is such a really good marinade that could go with either pork, chicken, or beef. And here comes Baked Orange-Lemon Garlic Chicken.