So without further ado, let’s do the batchoy dance.

How to cook your La Paz Batchoy broth

Step 1

Get your pork bones and beef bones ready. If you can’t get any pork bones, like what happened to me, request for a huge cut of pork’s leg (hocks not included). Clean that foul beast with running water. The water should be cold and running because if it is walking, there will be no more drugs for you. What I mean by clean too is that you have to get that thing that you use for your underarms and hide it. You only use that for trimming your chicken skin, not your pork. Pluck the pork hairs with your dedicated kitchen plucking device. If you can’t get any beef bones, you are in Mars.

Step 1 a

If what happened to me happened to you, get a very sharp knife and start taking the skin off the pork leg, in one piece. That would be very useful later so don’t go wearing that on your head or dressing your menace-of-a-nephew with it. If you don’t know how to take it off, you can ask me in the comments later.

Step 2

Do this 5 hours before you eat your batchoy. Place your bones in a deep pot. The ratio of the beef bones should be a fourth of the pork bones. Dump your onions in. This should be a fourth of all your bone mix. Don’t worry if your pork legs has meat on it, we will use that later, it is actually essential to your Batchoy recipe. Add a handful of salt and a handful of pepper and a handful of sugar. If your hand is as big as Lebron James’ (he is with the Miami Heat now by the way) do a pinch of salt, sugar and pepper. Don’t worry about it ending up salty or peppery, you can adjust it later. Now put water in your pot. The water level should just be a little above your bones. Put it on the stove in low heat. DO NOT LET IT BOIL. Promise yourself that if it will boil, as a penalty, you have to put your hand in. Let it simmer with small bubbles. Let it simmer for 5 hours. If it boils, put your hand in, lower the heat and take your hands off. Children below 18 years of age are exempted from the penalty. Check your broth from time to time for scum. Scoop it out. Do not eat it. Webster says, scum is extraneous matter or impurities risen to or formed on the surface of a liquid often as a foul filmy covering… which is also a similar description to people who get to the top, like celebrities.

Step 3

Get a head of garlic and chop it all up. Put a shallow pan in the stove in low heat and add a reasonable amount of oil. Your chopped garlic goes in that pan. Sautee your garlic until golden brown. Set it aside. If you burned your garlic or if they look like black peppercorns already, you know the penalty… and this time hold your mobile phone in your hand while you do it.

Step 4

Chop your spring onions. Take your time. You still have 4 and a half hours. And set it aside.

How to cook your La Paz Batchoy toppings

Step X

Do you still have that pork skin? If you bought your Chicharon, you don’t need to do Step X. If you don’t have them yet, crank the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Score the skin and apply a handful of coarse salt. The water in the salt will give you the crunchy-bubbles that you want with your pork skin. If your oven has turned into a fiery furnace already, slide the pork skin in. Make sure that your oven is 200 degrees Celcius hot or your Chicharon will be impotent. After 30-40 minutes or when your Chicharon looks crunchy, take it off the heat and put it on a wire rack. Do not put it on a plate or a flat surface. As old people say in the Philippines, “baka hindi makahinga”, meaning, you will choke the poor thing. I would like to explain more on this but that would be for another post.

Step X2

If you don’t have an oven. Go around the neighborhood and ask for used oil. If you have enough, take a bath with it. If you don’t want to, put it in a deep wok, and crank the heat up like the sun. While you are waiting for the heat to engulf the oil, cut your pork skin into bite size pieces. If your oil is scalding hot, dunk your pork skin in. Once the skin floats up and it looks like Chicharon, it’s done. Take it off, save it from hell.

WARNING: BE CAREFUL. HOT BOILING OIL CAN KILL. A HUNGRY FAMILY CAN KILL TOO. So don’t do this recipe if you don’t have 6 hours of free time.

Step-out

We still have 3 hours yes? Let’s talk about, what else, Batchoy.

There are 3 major La Paz Batchoy masters in the city of Iloilo, where La Paz is.

The top of the food chain is the Deco’s La Paz Batchoy recipe. It seems that these guys are the ones who really made the original La Paz Batchoy Recipe. They do their batchoy with bagoong or shrimp paste. I have tasted their batchoy and the spunk of shrimp paste doesn’t work with me. Don’t get me wrong, I love shrimp paste but not on my batchoy. But still, Ilonggos (people of Iloilo) give them the credit for apparently making the La Paz Batchoy (with shrimp paste) as we know it.

Next on the list is Ted’s Old Timer La Paz Batchoy recipe. I don’t know why they included old timer in their name but they cook a pretty good batchoy. I don’t need to tell you the branches because they are everywhere. They will be in your bathroom later.

The last and my most favorite is Nat’s La Paz Batchoy recipe. Just thinking about their batchoy makes me want to dive in the soup’s broth. The one branch that I can remember is, in front of the side entrance of SM Delgado. Nat’s La Paz Batchoy is my personal favorite. Don’t ask me why because that will only lead to an argument. Besides, the handsome owner is my godfather. So that explains everything.

Alright, like what you see on TV, I will forward it to the last hour before our broth sips the whole 5 hours.

Step 5

Put the pork intestines and liver in a separate pot. Put onions in the pot equivalent to half of the pork intestines and liver combined. Dunk in an additional 5 cloves of garlic. Add a lot of peppercorns and a teaspoon of salt. I am assuming that both of your intestines and liver do not exceed 2 kilograms. Let it sit on medium heat for an hour, covered. If it boils like a stubborn juvenile, just take the lid off and let it rip.

Step 6

Go back to your broth pot and dunk your golden brown garlic in.

Step 7, 8, 9

Take your pork leg out of the pot, remove the meat and start slicing them as big as your pinky finger. If you have Lebron James’ fingers, you know what to do. After an hour, do this with your intestines and liver.

Step 10

Where is your chicharron? Pound it. Break it. Smash it. Blow it to smithereens.

Step 11

Put your Miki or batchoy noodles in a strainer. A basket strainer will do but if you have a noodle strainer, do it. Like what you see in your instant-noodle packaging, simmer the noodles for a couple of minutes. Do not exceed 5 minutes (even if you are doing dried noodles) because you never want to eat soggy noodles.

Step 12

The last and the funnest part. Get a bowl, put a handful of noodles, put a few of pork meat, pork liver and pork intestines, scoop your broth and let it flow in the bowl, and top it with spring onions and chicharon. Pause for a few seconds, close your eyes, thank God that you now know how to cook La Paz Batchoy and see your creation in its gleaming glory. Serve it baby.

Go ahead, click on the picture for a bigger view.

Fortunately, this wouldn’t end up with you spending 6 hours of hard labor and enjoying 10 minutes of heaven. Freeze everything in batches so you can go and serve it in the next 3 days.

Any questions?

Click here for a story about a guy who got really confused about Batchoy

Sam Antonio is an award winning travel photographer from Southern California. His wanderlust has taken him from Elvis Presley’s Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee to the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain. His photos have been published in The New American Magazine, Worldhotel-link.com, and Publications International, LTD, Smithsonian Magazine and of course here at myfilipinokitchen.com. Know more about Sam in Facebook, Twitter, Flicker and in his Blog

The main ingredient that made the La Paz Batchoy recipe is the town (although it is now urbanized, and called a district) of La Paz itself. If you’ve had batchoy before, you will know of the pandemonium in a bowl that I am talking about. If you don’t, then picture this:

La Paz is one of the six districts of the city of Iloilo in the Philippines. La Paz is the first district going towards north, away from the city proper and is connected via two bridges. The other bridge is currently disappointed because it’s not being used that much although it is the newer and the neater one, like that appliance that you never used that you bought from a recent sale. Right after you cross the old, shivering, patronized bridge, you will arrive at your destination – La Paz Public Market – the cradle of the famous pork-crackling, innard-infested, man-drowning-broth La Paz Batchoy.

Say hello.

It would usually greet back with a loud, noisy, looped to eternity disco music remixes of songs you heard once in your life and never wanted to hear again. I should mention again that it is looped until after cockroaches go extinct. They are only matched by hawkers in the sidewalk shouting names of vegetables, meat, wonder oils, anti-menstruation root-extracts, tooth-growing artifacts, chants that cast out demons, etc. Noisy to meet you indeed.

Coconuts and their vendors are rolling around the street like stray cats. Sweaty public jeepney drivers are turning into stone because of the traffic. Five to ten year-old kids are going crazy running the streets playing tag. Topless men are leaning on air having a smoke, talking in the line of “what are we going to do if we see a sack of one-thousand peso bills”. University students and their books bouncing towards the nearest mall looking for someplace to cool off after spending the whole afternoon in a classroom that can beat any natural hot spring spa. Geeks push each other to get the first seat in an internet cafe to play the latest online game. A cop dancing in the middle of the street telling everyone how to sway with all these death-metal daily grunge. After all that, everything is simmered in a 37 degree centigrade heat, ready for Armageddon.

Can you now imagine the ingredients in your La Paz Batchoy recipe? If you can’t, let’s play more.

The following are ingredients for a La Paz Batchoy Recipe.

Miki (Meke) Noodles

As far as I know a regular human being cannot get this noodle. La Paz Batchoy noodles or Miki as everybody pronounces it (but spells as Meke) can only be ordered by people who sell La Paz batchoy. If you want to get scraps of these coveted strings of life, you have to get inside La Paz public market and find some friends that sell it black-market style. If you are in Manila, the noodles are actually sold in any wet market by any fat woman with faded red nail polish. If you are not in the Philippines, go to your Asian market, look for a store that sells thin egg noodles or choose a crooked-looking, malnourished dried egg noodles. Or any fat woman with faded red nail polish. They can manually wash your clothes too.

Pork and Beef Bones

It’s up to you how much you want to use. It is actually obvious what they are for. If you don’t know what are they for, Ask Mr Kitchenero.

Pork Meat, Intestines, Liver

You can always get these in a nearest Asian market. If you find them disgusting, well madame, you are getting offensive. These are edible, delicious, nutritious and are always heartily prepared by our Nanis. Alberto Rios will kill you. We always thank God if we have them on the table. If you want an argument, just go directly to commenting on this article and you’ll get some.

Pork Crackle

The skin of the slothful beast fried to a thunderous crunch. It is called Chicharon. Chi means the man, Cha means the woman, and I don’t know what Ron means. The spanish spell it Chicharron.

Srping Onions

In wrong spelling.

Monosodium Glutamate

I’d like to think they don’t use this. You would like to think so too.

Shrimp paste

Do they really use this? I cannot reconcile with the fact that they actually use shrimp paste. Really.

Onions and Garlic

You better know how, where and when to use these.

Those are so far the basic ingredients for a La Paz Batchoy recipe. If you don’t see eggs there, it’s because there are no eggs there. You can destroy yourself by disillusion just as effectively by a bomb. I do not know where that came from. Now, feel free to make your own recipe, you can post it in the comments, it’ll be good to figure it out yourself and tell others about it. As for me, a person who has spent topless cold nights in La Paz in my formative years, I’ll see you on Saturday and tell you how to go around these ingredients for a La Paz Batchoy Recipe.

Click here for How to cook La Paz Batchoy with these ingredients.

Globally, Tilapia is fast becoming huge and I am only waiting for a matter of mere moments until it is used as a weapon of mass destruction. It’s kicking salmon out of the aquaculture throne because those orange-fleshed bear-huggers demand too much royalties and tilapia laughs on carp because plainly, they don’t have taste. The question is, when was the last time you had Tilapia? If you haven’t had Tilapia before, blame your mother or blame yourself if you don’t want to go through all the trouble in finding out it’s actually not your mom’s but your fault anyway. If you are not from the Philippines, you may be asking, where do I get Tilapia? Find a Taiwanese as Taiwan is one of the biggest exporters of Tilapia. Or as usual, your friendly, dodgy Asian market.

This Fish, Coco Milk, Shrimp paste article is this article’s article. I suggest you read it. The reason for using tilapia as our protein is because it is THE fish… It is the cornerstone to use coco milk and shrimp paste.

Now let’s go to acquiring our first secret ingredient – coco cream. The Filipino definition of coco cream is the first juice extract from grated coco meat. I was thinking of putting up a show on how to squeeze it from the source but since everyone is buying it from a can or from the cocoman (yes he exists, he is the guy that likes to squeeze), I will just be wasting all of our precious time.  Now for the rest of the world, they make coco cream like how you make cream from your usual dairy milk – let your coco milk sit overnight and that thing that rises to the top is the cream. I am baffled and delighted why when there’s something that rises to the top it is definitely the cream..whatever cream it is. I am more baffled with the term cream of the crop. One time I was driving and wanted to overtake to the right when I found out, with a loud whoa, I don’t have a right side-mirror. Cream of the crop. On this recipe we’ll go with the Filipino first blood coco cream.

Shall we go through the seven stations of the cross of making shrimp paste? Or should I just tell you bottles of it can be bought in a Filipino store? It is called by many names – Bagoong, Alamang, Ginamos, Di-nalabhang medyas, etc. The unadulterated shrimp paste tastes like… I actually don’t want to describe it, because it’s like… it’s like, “one time, at band camp…” and you know what goes after that. So get some bottled shrimp paste because they are spiced up, lovely, ready and can be used as a lip gloss.

Let’s get on to our recipe:

You will need a Tilapia (of course) of more than 500 grams. Anything under 500 grams, consider yourself deceived. You can either slice it if it’s too huge or leave it unscathed.

I can think of 3 ways on how to wage war on vegetarians in this recipe.

1. Steam your Tilapia. You decide on how much chopped ginger, onions, red chillies and garlic you put on top of it. According to Freud, you would likely to follow these steps if you have an obsessive-compulsive behavior. You do to your food as what you do to your toilet – you want to believe that anything you touch turns neat and clean. Look, bacteria in your blood! Here’s a bottle of handwash! Chug! Chug! Chug!

2. Fry your Tilapia to crunch-heaven (go here if you have no idea how) along with 3 cloves of crushed garlic. Do not peel the garlic. According to Freud, you are likely to follow these steps if you have an anal-retentive behavior. Just as you are sealing and keeping the flavors of the fish enclosed in a crunchy shell, the same goes with your social skills.

So in a separate paragraph, if you choose either of the steps above, you are actually a psycho.

Now before we detour on to the usual, normal option which is road number 3, we also need another and I mean a different batch of sauteed chopped ginger, onions, red chillies and garlic. After you have done either number 1 or 2, bring your sauteed veggies back in the pan, scroll down to the last paragraph of this article, choose a destiny for your Ginataang Tilapia, put your cooked Tilapia in the wok, pour at least a cup of coco cream, cover and let it simmer on low heat for 10 minutes. Done!

3. Now on this step we don’t do a separate batch of sauteed stuff because you will cook the Tilapia with it. Sautee your chopped ginger, onions, red chillies and garlic, add half a cup of water, slide in your tilapia, lower the heat, put the lid on and leave for 20 minutes or until the stock is reduced to a saucy consistency. Add your cup of coco cream, cover and let it simmer on low heat for 10 minutes. Done!

Now where did our shrimp paste go? Well you can either add them while you are sauteeing your separate batch of stuffs or if the shrimp paste has already been sauteed with stuff as what bottled shrimp paste is, drizzle them (or just put them on the side if you own people that don’t like shrimp paste) on your finished, plated Ginataang Tilapia. Now, Here’s a bottle of shrimp paste! Chug! Chug! Chug!

Linagpang or Nilagpang is basically, barbecued meat soup. It’s weird isn’t it? I cannot describe it any other way.  Barbecue any meat, well in our case it’s mostly fish but i’m using chicken this time so we can all be friends, when it’s cooked, put it in a bowl, put tomato, onions, salt, a little bit of ginger, a pinch of sugar and boiling water, let it sit for 5 minutes and then you have yourself a hearty bowl of Linagpang… or Nilagpang . Funny name too. How else should I describe it? So yes, here it is.

What else do you need to know? It’s that simple and straightforward. Barbecue it, put it all in a bowl with spices and put hot water in it, done.

Let me be like your mom and waste your time by telling you more stuff when I should’ve shut up:

I decided to put the title Linagpang Nilagpang because in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines where this dish originally came from, everyone calls it Linagpang, but to every other tongue it is Nilagpang. A simple prefix issue until somebody lost an eye. I don’t want to go into the gory details, after all this is a foodblog.

Linagpang (or Nilagpang, yes) is a versatile dish. This is a good winter soup. Just dunk chillies in the bowl and you have yourself a potent elixir against colds. You can have this as a summer soup as well, considering it’s summer all year round in the Philippines, because it is a light soup. Filipinos tend to pour soup on rice for orificial lubrication. You can’t expect us to just shove something in our orifices without lubricating it. So if you see someone putting soup on his rice you might want to say kamusta. And you have to eat your soup-ed up rice with a spoon. Traditionally, we eat with our hands, a technique that requires mastery, but in cases where you pour soup all over your rice, using your fingers is an impending disaster thus, a spoon with a fork, is a savior. A spoon on the right hand for scooping rice and soup and a fork on the left hand to push the food into the spoon and of course, to fork meat. That  is how Filipinos eat. Those are our basic table utensils. Here’s something more to read about using spoon and fork - the Montreal-Philippines Cutlery Controversy. That happened 4 years ago and was covered internationally and mostly by Filipino bloggers.

And now let us dissect our Linagpang Nilagpang recipe:

Marinade Ingredients for 1 1/2 kilo of Chicken:

Onion, 1 large Onion chopped

Garlic, 3 cloves

Ginger, a thumb, finely chopped

Lime, 1

Salt and Pepper

1. Three Words. Clean your chicken. Strip the nasty fat bits out, pluck out those stubborn extra feathers, and wash with running water. If the skin is wrinkled, apply Ponds or Clean and Clear. (I think you need to save the fat… I think.)

2. Marinate your chicken for 1 hour or more than that.

3. Barbecue in low-medium heat for 20 minutes on each side. If it’s not still well seared, do not take it off the flame. Aim for streaks of red and charred stripes. You also want to avoid having it dry inside, that’s why you don’t want the heat to be very low because you need those juices, brother. Did we save the fat? Plant them on top of those barbecue slices to slither and melt. Nom!

In the Bowl Ingredients:

Spring Onions, 1 stalk, chopped

Onion, 1 large, quartered

Tomato, 2 large, quartered

Ginger, 1 teaspoon, finely chopped

Salt

Sugar, a fairy dust

1. It’s up to you actually… after chopping those chickens, you can distribute them on small bowls or do it all in one big witch’s pot. You can smother your mistress with it, let your baby ride on it, or put it in your grandma’s jewelry box, it’s up to you really.

2. Again, if you did distribute it, do the same for your spices. It’s up to you actually… you can sprinkle it on your head, wear some gypsy dress and twirl forever, or squeeze it in between your armpits, or mix it with your eye cream, it’s up to you really.

3. Pour boiling, scalding, glass melting water from hell (do I need to add more adjectives to let you know it should be very hot) until it is on the same level with your chicken mix. Get a plate and put a lid on it and leave it for 5 minutes. LEAVE IT! Do everything and anything except for opening the lid. Play scrabble or the didgeridoo or something.

You are done! With an ! Exclamation!

I did a really wrong thing with my Linagpang Nilagpang recipe. The soup there is brown because I used chicken stock which really didn’t work well with it. Just use plain tap water. The clear Linagpang broth will do your dinner or lunch or breakfast – magic… and power – read here on how to get it.

I hope you got clawed by the Therizinosaurus video. I dodged that one. You can also search youtube for “fat kid almost dies on rollercoaster”.

So we have just finished unpacking… well not really

And it is 6 hours before Christmas here in Australia. The wife is just packing gifts for the family.

And the tree is still in the box.

And I’ll start cooking right after I go to Nick and start up his car because he got stranded somewhere.

I will fill up this post as we go along on our marathon to Noche Buena. This Christmas is kinda weird.

18:53 5 hours and 3 minutes more:

Just picked up Nick and look what he brought along

20:43 3 more hours and 12 minutes?

We just finished making the tree while our 14 month old baby has just discovered she can actually shout. So go figure.

So I head on to cooking. This is Crispy Pata in it’s first stages. I don’t know if I can pull this off later. I might blast-freeze this before deep frying later.

And of course, Christmas ham. I now dub thee Express Hamonado. This well packed pickled-pork  is a gift from the pork supplier of Tasty Bites.

I think I need to take a bath.

22:34 1 hour and 26 min

Ice cream pudding courtesy of the wife

Cadbury Dairy Milk Chip, Pistachios, Raspberries and Cherries

The rest of the cherries go in here. She ate nearly a kilo. She only weighs 7 kilos.

I am being ambitious thinking that we can pull off at least 5 dishes? We are pretty tired with all the moving but hey Christmas only happens once a year. I just heard the wife said Lilly threw up blood. Hmmmm… I am pretty sure those are cherries.

00:00 Christmas!

This was supposed to be posted 2 hours ago but my hungry orphans would not allow me, so here

That’s the Ham finally.

Crispy Pata. I had those cut by the butcher so it would be easier to deal with on the wok.

We’re suckers for seafood. Oysters in the middle of the night sounds like oysters in the middle of the night.

And finally, our White Christmas pasta.

I would love to talk more but it’s Christmas in the house so this will be continued tomorrow. Thank you God for the move and for Christmas.

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Marinate your chicken skin with our basic barbecue jus (and as usual, each 100 grams is to):

1 lime or 3 calamansi or if you don’t have either 1/2 a cup of vinegar for every 500 grams

1 tablespoon of banana ketchup or tomato sauce

1 long chili pepper, any color will do including carnation pink

1 tablespoon of brown sugar

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of pepper

1 teaspoon of finely chopped ginger and garlic (did I say for each 100 grams?)

1 small red onion for every 500 grams

2 bay leaves for every 500 grams again

The basic thing to do with your marinade is to mix it all separately first before you dunk Angelina Jolie in to make sure it won’t go brad.  Chicken skin is not a sponge; so you need to marinate it for 4 hours first before you poke them with your tiny spears.

Choose bamboo skewers for spears. While you’re marinating your beauties, drown those skewers in water. I don’t know what the reason for it is but I just do it. I suggest you should too because I heard that before they sell those bamboo skewers they put curses in them and the only way to cleanse it from evil incantations is to drop it in water and let it swim. If it stays down it has been cleansed. If it floats you can put a sail on it and maybe take a picture. Too much mucking around 4 hours has passed and your chicken skin is ready for poking!

Now let’s be careful while we do the skewering:

Rule Number 1

Skewer the chicken skins, not your own.

Rule Number 2

Do not play with your food. Do not be silly and spear anyone with your bamboo skewers.  Seriously. My auntie-grandma lost her eye when my uncle-grandpa darted in jest a fish bone to her eye.

Rule Number 3

Are your bamboo spears wet? It should be. Because if they are dry as your marriage you can and will plant splinters in your finger. I told you, these bamboo skewers have curses.

Rule Number 4

Don’t be lonely. Skewering your chicken skins require two pairs of hands and up. If you do this alone, I pity you. Grab anyone on the back of their neck to join the poking and spearing  spree. If you’re skewering with someone under 18 you might be charged with statutory rape… you fornicator.

Rule Number 5

When skewering, make sure that your chicken skins are not too thick or too thin on the stick. If it’s too thick or too heavy it won’t cook well so you can say hello salmonella. If it’s too thin, you will make coals out of your chicken skin barbecue.

Happy happy joy joy let’s start doing our chicken skin barbecue!

If you are using coal make sure that the gap between your chicken skin barbecue and fire is not less than 2 inches. Because these suckers are made of fat, there will be flames, there will be fire so watch out with a glass of water on hand to extinguish the inferno. It’s cool if you have some burnt areas on the skin but it’s way cooler if it’s not burnt from the tip of the stick to the handle. Watch it carefully like Dracula.

If you are using an oven griller, that’s 225 degrees Celsius or 391 degrees Fahrenheit, again not less than 2 inches gap.

If you are using a barbecue monster machine, choose medium heat.

Before the cooking side gets burnt or displays a few burnt skins, flip it to the other side. To know if it’s cooked or not, get a part of the tip and give it a taste test. Do not taste test yet if you’ve only cooked one side of it, we are not idiots here. And spit it out if it’s still raw, do not force yourself to swallow raw chicken skin. It ain’t cool.

Discard your marinade. For your finishing touches:

2 tablespoons of nut oil

2 tablespoons of ketchup

1 lime

Mix them all together and dab the dressing on your chicken skin barbecues.

DISCLAIMER

If you hate your partner in life, do no kill him/her/it with this chicken skin barbecue recipe. There are many ways to skin a chicken. I suggest you talk about it and rekindle the lost flame. If you get a sudden surge in your blood pressure, there is this thing called Neobloc for 50 milligrams but do not take it yet. See your doctor instead, he might need money these days as everyone seems to be going the healthy road. This recipe is not for the frail of heart.

Go to your local butcher and ask if they have any freshly ground pork with a lot of fat with it. They will definitely give back a smile because no one asks them this except you, you crazy person. Nobody wants a lot of fat in their pork, give yourself a tap in the back. The common longanisa in the Philippines is a byproduct of pork. Any unwanted meat, fat, gut, and machine residue is stuffed in a pigs intestine and sold as longanisa in the Shady section of the market. Do not fret. It is tasty, delicious and is worth every chew. But if you want to stay hypocritically healthy, you can always ask for lean ground pork meat.

Here is your sausage mix for every 100 grams of ground pork:

1 tablespoon of sugar (this recipe has only started, by the time you take your first longanisa bite, your eyes will pop out)

1 teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon of pepper

1 tablespoon of sweet ketchup. Do not use tomato sauce that is more sour than your ex or you will ruin hours of work

1 tablespoon of soy sauce

1 teaspoon of garlic, again, to fend off Edward Cullen

Mix all of the above with your ground pork and with your hands for a fat moment of time. Let them meld. The whole mixture should hold together. While you’re at it, make shapes – a poodle, a giraffe, the titanic, your mother in-law’s face, your husband’s fat boob, your neighbor’s cat – and with all your might and magic, punch it. Leave the mixture to share the flavors for the next 4 hours.

Now here’s the hard part – Making sausages. Let’s put numbers in to get you confused… or otherwise.

1. Get a good roll of cling wrap or any thin, flexible, plastic film. Lay it all across your workplace.

2.Scoop a tablespoon of your sausage mix and place it on top of your wrap. Do this again and on the remaining space of your wrap, accordingly of course.

3. Go back to your first tablespoon, roll the wrap just to cover your longanisa portion, shape it into a small sausage. And roll again like what you did when you were still on drugs.

4. Get a pair of scissors. Cut the space in between your portions and roll again. You’re still rolling longanisas are you? Do this for the rest of the portions.

5. Tie both ends of the wrap and apply approximate force to squeeze them all in middle. If you have been going to the gym, expect your longanisa rolls to explode. Yes, you were just appreciated so remember this site.

6. Are you confused? Alone? No one to talk to?

To add more conflict to your happy hour of reading, I have a quiz for you. Arrange the following pictures chronologically.  One of the pictures below wants to have a friend, tell it to go away.

I hope you enjoyed arranging the pictures in your head and I hope you felt bad for having that power to alienate something.

Now that you have your longanisa bouncing on your workplace, it’s time to keep them in the freezer. As what I have mentioned again and again in this Tapsilog, Tocilog, Longsilog series; Keep it in the freezer for 2-3 days and cook them thawed in that time frame as well because I don’t want to be fingered. I will not take the blame if you ate the longanisa you have prepared after 12 months of storing it. You might blame your mother for telling you you are a good singer that’s why you have applied in American Idol but I do not want to take the blame for you poisoning your family with expired sausages.

I have a secret on how to cook your longanisas with water and sugar but it won’t be a secret if I tell you about it. In the meantime, just fry them with glee.

P.S.

Giant longanisa sizes when fried will be burnt from the outside and raw in the inside. So be happy if your sausage is Filipino size.

How to make Tapa for Tapsilog

How to make Tocino for Tosilog

This is what the Filipino Tapa looks like:

Of course that is not yet cooked. I’ll give you a full-on Tapsilog picture later on but if you happen to be not normal (a reason why you are following this website) you can actually scroll-down your life away and take a sneak peek  but bear with me as we all get along with drooling enthusiasm.

Whether you like it or not, the best tasting tapa are the ones that are made commercially. Close your eyes, breathe deep and wink tight like Hiro Nakamura… let’s start our field trip, play the music.

Making our Tapa for Tapsilog begins with dumping a mountain of strips, stripes and other still-edible beef particles into the mouth of a conveyor belt to be sorted like army applicants. For the chosen ones, mutation starts with a shower of blissful Phosphate – an additive actively used by the corporations that created Frankenstein, your friendly fastfood chains. Phosphate is also used as a degreaser, stain remover and  as an active blue-and-white system that deeply penetrates your soiled underpants. Think about it as an intestine scrubber. Your insides will be squeaky clean, until you reach your mortality… that’s why it’s banned in other countries. After the bath, our handsome beef parts will roll in a powder of Isolates, mostly, a byproduct of soy oil production, an extender. Ever had the feeling that the beef that you are eating in a shady Chinese restaurant doesn’t feel like beef but something not beef? You have just been had by isolates baby. You eat more than what your body can take and you will have foie gras for a liver. But hey, look at our beef, they changed their names to Buff! Look Ma, Instant muscles! Look at them oiling up for a show! Look at our Tapa troop doing back flips and  trampolines into that gooey pool of Carrageenan. This stuff will make them hold their integrity and firm their muscles, as some of them will grow into Mr. Universes and become Terminators. Seriously though, Carrageenan is a powerful ingredient…. powerful to be a topical microbicide that is incorporated into lubricants to kill harmful sexual fluids. Not only our beef is buffed up and bouncy, it can fight STD! Look at them karate-chopping the sides of our conveyor belt.  They will then be splashed with Vitamin C. Sweet redemption. Vitamin C is added because of the word Nitrosamines. Ugly compounds that when undisciplined turn into carcinogens… and Vitamin C is there for the leash. It delays the spelling of the word Nitrosamines or C-A-N-C-E-R. So our beef can sneak into plastic bags handsome, STD and Cancer free, and ready to wed. Soy sauce and all the ingredients that are not listed in the Food Scientist’s list are then added to make Tapa.

You can now stop reading, look away from the screen and think about your life. Take a moment. Seriously… you don’t really care where your Tapa comes from do you? Don’t worry, I’ll patronize you, I don’t as well.

Scroll up and stop the conveyor belt music. Breathe in, breathe out. You will not die.

For a happy face, here’s some 70′s music for you and your mother while you both read the paragraphs below:

Although Tapa has been in the Filipino history for quite a while, talking about the origin of and where Tapsilog was first served is an invitation to a fist fight so I won’t even dare to go there. Every Filipino has his own opinion on what the best Tapsilog is and where to get it. Even the name Tapsilog is claimed by this restaurant and that eatery. There are a few common similarities to these claims though – that Tapsilog was first served during the 1970′s, thus the disco music, and that Tapsilog was oftenly mentioned and popularized by the three guys who are in the video above, Tito,Vic and Joey, in their 80′s Comedy Show Isku Bukol, thus again, the clip.

The following sentence is an obligation of this website and its authors are in  no possible, unimaginable way related to the vivid explanation or sylabreviation of the word Tapsilog:

• Tap is for Tapa, which is your preserved beef.
• Si is for Sinangag, which is your fried rice.
• Log is for Itlog, which is your egg.

Which in plain English language, Befriegg. Or in Filipino, Tapsilog. Genius. And let met tell you, Filipinos do not only limit these sylabreviations to food. Ever had a Filipino friend named Joselin? It’s because her father’s name is Jose and her mother’s name is Linda. And there goes Joselin flying out of the fallopian tube. I promise I do not intend to offend my Tita Joselin.

Let’s start the recipe on How to make Tapa for Tapsilog before I summon any other soul from the grave.

Thin strips of beef or any cut you like as long as they are sexy enough to absorb the marinade.

For the Marinade:

Soy sauce, 1/3 cup for each 500 grams of beef, preferably Silver Swan (this company should pay me) or any dark soy sauce.

A teaspoon of sugar for each 250 grams of beef.

And a lot of garlic, depending on how much you hate Edward Cullen.

A lot of freshly cracked Black Peppers. And I hope you know how “a lot” is a lot.

Add Salt by batches so you can adjust how salty you want the marinade.

Some people add vinegar or pineapple juice to their liking.

Do your marinade on a separate bowl first so you can taste it before you dunk your beef in. One purpose of the recipes in this website is to show you the way to do it your way so you can add more of this and that to your liking. Did I tell you to taste your marinade? Or did I? Now dunk your beef in. You may be asking, where are all the preservatives and extenders for a mighty tapa? The dog ate it. Let your beef marry your marinade for the next 2 hours before you lodge it in the not so very freezing part of your freezer. I am telling you the freezer because I don’t want you to blame me for being food-poisoned. I am also telling you to consume it in 2 days so I can still write about food without the pain of guilt if ever someone smashed the roof of their house and rocketed straight to space from the toilet. I myself consumed the Tapa I made without preservatives 5 days after it was sitting in my fridge. But it’s just me… I eat nails and thumbtacks too.

Do I need to tell you how to fry the tapa, an egg and make fried rice? Here’s the team:

How to make Tocino for Tosilog

How to make Longanisa for Longsilog

]]> http://www.myfilipinokitchen.com/how-to-make-tapa-for-tapsilog/feed/ 6 http://www.myfilipinokitchen.com/whole-fried-fish-with-vegetables/ http://www.myfilipinokitchen.com/whole-fried-fish-with-vegetables/#comments Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:12:32 +0000 seigfredtristan http://www.myfilipinokitchen.com/?p=330 Congratulations. Now you know how to fry a whole fish. You can now have a crunchy-on-the-outside-moist-in-the-inside-fishy-fishy anytime you want to. But I tell you, you will get tired of it like reruns of Seinfeld or Friends or Sex and the City (which commercial TV has an endless fetish with, they can’t stop airing it) so on we jump to the next pedestal of enlightenment in our journey to exploiting fried fish.

27th Sun of the 4th Moon, 1521 Anno Domini:

Ferdinand Magellan was the name of the conquistador espesyal that decided to lord over Filipinos (or people from an unknown group of islands) in the race to find Spice Routes, by guess what, befriending a Filipino traitor Chief Humabon aka Judas Blingbling. Armed with powerful artillery and a warfare technology that surpasses island folk blacksmithing, he decided to ask loyalty from Filipinos and let them bow under the Spanish flag. What an idiot. He died. He got killed. Nobody knew the guy wanted to inject spears on his arm and wear a Filipino Deathblade for trousers. You can’t just go to the Philippines and alarm death bells my friend, you will get some. The ninja who smacked him had a funny name – Lapu-lapu. If you want a blow by blow account read here.

That small snapshot of Philippine history tells us that even before Larousse Gastronomique was published humans are crazy about flavor. It has been recorded in the annals of our existence that we have sought and fought for the sole purpose of having a good meal. What sort of animal would want to kill other living creatures just to get pepper on his tongue and get punished for having it anyway? That would be you, your father, your great grandfather and his father and great grandfather. If you think about it, every food that you have on your table had a bloody history to it, meat or not meat. What would vegans eat next if they knew of the fact that human blood was shed just for them to enjoy every specie of vegetables and fruits in their backyard? Snow?

If that made you feel sad why don’t we just go on with our recipe. Here are pictures to cool your eyeballs.

Market list as seen on the montage above:

A green bell pepper as big as your fist

An orange carrot as fat as your index, middle and ring fingers combined

A yellow ginger as nimble as your texting thumb

A violet onion that would fit your palm

A red hot chili pepper, preferably the spastic bass player that looks like he’s always on drugs.

A couple of  weird looking potatoes, says the spastic bass player that looks like he’s always on drugs.

All the ingredients should be cut into strips except for the potatoes that we are going to peel, cut into wedges, and fry until golden brown. Be careful not to overcook or undercook the potatoes because that would be the ruin of your life. You are not doing french fries so don’t make french fries. Frying potatoes does not always equate to making french fries. Your fire should be in medium, shift their positions from time to time and watch those potatoes like you’re a pervert. Do not leave the cooking to the heat. But do not get carried away, we are not after perfection because we know you screw up from time to time, you are only human, you are not Optimus Prime. This is how imperfect it should look like:

Now that your potatoes are done, run to your music box and play some cool music to celebrate your coolness and then run back to the kitchen and toss the rest of the ingredients in the wok. Turn, stir, toss and mix for only 3 minutes because you want those strips crunchy and then toss in your whole fried fish, put 1/4 cup of water, salt and pepper and then crank the heat up to high for the next 2 minutes. You want the sauce there boiling like it is screaming to be taken off the furnace.

Turn the fish after 2 minutes to punish the other side. After that, you are done amigo. You have just speared Magellan on the shoulder blade. Viva Lapu-lapu.

]]> http://www.myfilipinokitchen.com/whole-fried-fish-with-vegetables/feed/ 7 http://www.myfilipinokitchen.com/pan-grilled-steak/ http://www.myfilipinokitchen.com/pan-grilled-steak/#comments Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:05:13 +0000 seigfredtristan http://www.myfilipinokitchen.com/?p=139 And so you go to your mom’s house furiously hungry  for a lot of reasons, either you don’t want to spend your own money to eat, you  are too lazy to do anything, or you just want to let your mom see that it’s her fault that you are famished. You kick the door open because it is still your house. Nobody is home. You rustle towards the kitchen and rip everything in sight. You try overturning the kitchen table but suddenly your eyes light up like halogen when you see a piece of meat dying. You claw it with your untrimmed nails and immediately recognize it as a steak-able meat. You don’t exactly care what kind of meat it is as you jump on to the stove, grab a pan, turn on the fire to high heat and your memories of reading this article, yes this exact article, produce a film of light from the back of your head as if  you were given an aura by the Iron Chefs, so you start cooking. Like your first kiss that you want to erase from your memory, the instructions from this article on how to cook a pan grilled steak is as clear as crystal. You rub salt and pepper on your pet meat with your left hand while your right hand scoops a tablespoon of butter from the fridge and tosses it on the pan. How did that happen? You don’t know. When the foam on the butter disappeared like a good idea forgotten, you lay the meat with criminality on the pan. It sizzles, it burns, it cries for help but you tell it, “Shhhh, I will eat you… so keep quiet.” After a couple of minutes you turn it over. You don’t hear anything anymore. You wait for another two minutes, and then you take the pan off the heat and transfer the meat inside the oven in a roasting pan. You can’t remember who turned the oven on but it’s been heating at 190 degrees for quite a while now. You look around. No one’s there… except for a can of mushrooms. You hate your mom for buying canned stuff but you use it to your advantage. You open the can, drain the water and shoot all the mushrooms in the pan where you cooked your meat. You put the pan back on the fiery stove, toss it for a bit, right hand scooping and dunking a spoonful of butter on the pan again, left hand reaching for a bowl, turning on the faucet for half a cup of water, drowning 2 teaspoons of  cornstarch in it and doodling your finger while pouring the mixture on the pan. You remember your ex so you scrape the pan until your veins pop out of your forehead.  You take the pan off the fire and within 5 minutes you’ve made your first gravy. You look at your meat inside the oven it’s been there for 8 minutes. It’s done. You fork it out, place it on the plate, pour your gravy on it and you realize there are no potatoes. Only steamed rice in a gleaming pot. You are baffled why you have steamed rice. You aren’t even Asian. You think, you wouldn’t die if you eat steamed rice and steak. And so you do… with your bare hands…