Entries tagged with 'Filipino'
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[Photographs: Burnt Lumpia] The alternative name for tortang talong as "tortured eggplant" (real translation: "eggplant omelet") intrigued me. How is it tortured? Marvin of Burnt Lumpia outlines its creation: It starts with a full-body charring, then the skin is peeled off, the flesh is "mooshed and flattened," and then it's dunked into a egg bath, topped with ground meat, and pan fried to a crisp. Sounds delicious—the eggplant gives itself up for a good cause. Related Blogwatch: Duck Adobo Confit Dinner Tonight: Adobong Na Manok Dinner Tonight: Chicken Adobo Grilling: Filipino Barbecue...
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Reading Marvin's post on Burnt Lumpia about different types of Filipino vinegars (or "suka") makes me wish I knew more about Filipino cuisine and ate it more often. Marvin may not be able to feed me through the Internet, but at least he can teach me more about Filipino food: The prevalent use of Suka (sooh-kah) is due in large part to the extended shelf life bestowed upon goodies cooked in vinegar—a necessary culinary 'voodoo' needed for tropical climes during the days of pre-refrigeration. But aside from its preservative powers, we Filipinos also just happen to like the elevated flavor punch that vinegar provides—that certain Asim (sourness) that we love oh so much in our food. He describes palm vinegar,...
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First it's pig parts, then it's sisig! Photographs from Burnt Lumpia. How could you not want to read a blog post titled "Five Point Pork Exploding Heart Technique"? In this latest post from Marvin of Southern California-based food blog Burnt Lumpia, he unboxes a special package he received last week: a cooler filled with heritage breed Ossabaw pig parts, specifically belly, jowls, and ears. To celebrate the joyous bounty of pork, he will turn the parts into five delicious, pork-centric Filipino dishes to be enjoyed by his wife and him as the rest of us on the Internet simple stare and drool. The first dish he makes is the porkalicious spicy sizzling sisig: Sisig is a spicy and sourish...
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The Grocery Ninja leaves no aisle unexplored, no jar unopened, no produce untasted. Creep along with her below, and read her past market missions here. I know it’s only April, but this may be my food find of the year. Tiny, freshwater crabs—each barely two inches across—are soused with water, sprinkled with Kosher salt, and stuck live in the fridge. Hours later, they’re skillfully pressed and prodded to extract a grainy, coral paste that Pinoys like to mix with freshly steamed white rice, its richness cut through with a generous squirt of calamansi juice—a poor (or busy) man’s paella, if you will. The thing is, I’m not positive what the gorgeously creamy, salty, slightly tangy stuff is. My bottle says...
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For those of us without backyards, it’s tough to sate a hankering for moist roast pork with shiny laquered cracklins. As much as I’d like to park a Caja China in my Chicago condo and vent the porky smoke out to the street, I’m afraid the hundred year old timber trusses, which happen to be as dry as an AA convention, would somehow spontaneously combust. So it’s with great relief that I can at least head up to the north side and drop maybe the best $6 of my week for some tosilog at Tapsilog at Iba Pa....
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For a city/metro area with 9,000,000+ people, Chicago has a dearth of good egg rolls. You can find great Szechuan braised tendon, head-on salt and pepper shrimp, and a celebration of the diverse fungal bounty of Yunnan province down in Chinatown, but a personal dynasty's length search for sublime crisp deep-fried won ton skin pockets in this same 'hood have turned up nothing. Instead, I have to turn to the Filipino Uni-Mart grocery on the northside for my fix. Ford the stainless steel shelves filled with salty and sweet shrimp and squid chips and you'll be rewarded with a take-out counter filled with pork glazed in thick syrupy adobo; orange laquered barbecue chicken; beefy, brothy oxtail-studded kare-kare, and a host...
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October is Filipino American History Month, and on that note, Filipino food blogger Marvin over at Burnt Lumpia (tagline: "Finding identity through food") posits a theory that his peeps may have had a hand in helping create gumbo: So what’s all this have to do with Gumbo you ask? Well, given these facts, one can conclude that like the French Acadians (roux), Africans (okra), and Choctaw Indians (File powder), perhaps Filipinos (shrimp) can be included in the melting pot that is Gumbo. I won’t go so far as to say that Filipinos are responsible for shrimp being an ingredient in some Gumbos, but I will venture to say that Filipinos at least contributed to this fact. We were, after all,...
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I don't know much about Filipino food, but after seeing Grace's radiant photo of roast pork from NYC's Krystal's Cafe, I suddenly crave crispy skin-encased chunks of lechon along with any other Filipino specialty with a 1:1 ratio of meat to fat ....
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Mick Vann on Filipino food, in the Austin Chronicle: "But imagine a cuisine that uses fish sauce and shrimp paste; olives and chiles; olive oil and tomatoes; bread; noodles and rice; sweet, baked tropical desserts; chorizo and longaniza; escabeche made with coconut or sugarcane vinegar; skewered barbecue; fresh spring rolls made with crepes; dishes with lemongrass and bay leaves; lots of seafood and pork; and tamales made with sticky rice. It's like someone combined a lot of my favorite things from different cuisines and mixed them all together into one huge, wonderful menu." There are 10,000 Filipinos in the Austin area now and currently only four Filipino restaurants, but from his descriptions they all sound pretty good....
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Manila’s Tsokolate Shop: Great post from dessert comes first on Tsoko.Nut, a Starbucks-inspired cafe chain in the Philippines focused on tsokolate, "true Filipino chocolate made from 100% cacao. Grown, roasted, and ground locally, it’s unlike any other hot chocolate drink in the world: caressed by the sun, kissed by the earth, and tasting of smoke, chocolate, and nuts." Tsokolate is delicious enough on its own, but oh, the desserts that go with it!...
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