What makes Vietnamese food special? Is it, as Vietnamese cooks claim, the perfect balance of flavors? Is it the use of copious amounts of fresh herbs? Is it the bright and fresh appearance of the cooked dishes? For Vietnamese food lovers, I’m sure we all have different reasons for being smitten. For me, it is…
What Speedy wanted was a dish that goes like this: A deboned and stuffed chicken is stuffed into a deboned duck and the duck is stuffed into a deboned turkey. Even granting that I can debone a turkey and a duck, something I’ve never done before, I don’t know how we can finish all that….
So the new school year begins. And it’s back to solo lunches for me. I was debating whether to have a chicken sandwich with the usual lettuce cucumber and tomato slices but I decided I could be more creative. If my little experiment was successful, I could even have the kids take something similar to…
I know that in the U.S. cooking turkey is both a ritual and a tradition. As a non-American, turkey elicits no feelings for me except as food. I wasn’t even a turkey eater, having a preference for duck over the years until I discovered that turkey can be just as great if prepared properly. By…
My kids were home all day today. And yesterday. Stormy weather. Classes were suspended. According to the latest news, they will resume tomorrow. Anyway, this dish made with fried breaded strips of chicken thigh fillets, romaine lettuce, and cherry tomatoes was today’s lunch. The idea was to make a salad a la KFC. Although my…
This isn’t my recipe. I don’t even know where the recipe came from exactly. This was a school project for my daughter. The recipe was given to them in school and the project was to create meals and sell them in school as part of an entrepreneur skills training. According to my daughter, she was…
Almost everyone I know cooks pinatisang manok with sili leaves. I did, too, but my kids are not fans of sili leaves. Cooking sili leaves can be tricky overcook it a minute longer than necessary and the bitterness will become very pronounced. That’s why sili leaves are never boiled; they are added to a dish…
I have a friend who can’t appreciate any food that is not cooked in his hometown way and I think it’s sad. He’s missing his chance to try new things and it also makes him no-so-exciting company when eating out. Many years ago, there was a TV ad for baby cereals that said to teach…
Chicharo, those sweet crunchy peas in a pod, happens to be my 14-year-old daughter’s favorite non-leafy vegetable the top favorite leafy vegetables among my kids are cabbage and kangkong (water or swamp spinach). The legume chicharo is known as snow peas in some countries, and snap peas in others. Some say that snow peas and…
Entertaining at home need not be a daunting task. The trick is to divide the cooking over several days as much as possible. And it is never a good idea to cook too much. Making allowances for second helpings is a good rule but anything beyond that would be excessive. Jay and Jet David were…
