Pure Honey from Sariaya Quezon

Local andBest Honey bee in town
One of the best goodies from Quezon is Pure honey with a piece of genuine Beehive in it. It only cost   roughly $US 5.00 per bottle (600ml) you'll get the natural flavour of the wild real honey. it is best with desserts and dessert sauces, alternative for sugar, sweeteners for coffee and almost everything you wanna savour this stuff.

Sweet Potato souffle'

Sweet potato souffle'

My Chef told me if you want pretty dessert that would delight our guest, it should be soufflé. Because it puffed nice, straight and with elegance. Some people think souffle is too complicated to make which  for me is not. Its just merengue, pastry cream and flavouring folded together and bake in the oven for several minutes. I don't think that's difficult.

 Here is my own recipe of Souffle.
Serves 4 ramekin

Ingredients are:
2 large  Yam potato, Boiled until tender
4 large eggs, separated
1 cup milk, warmed
5 Tblsp Caster sugar
1 Tblsp  Plain flour

*When yam is soft, sieve it to get 170 grams of pureed' yam. set aside and cool to room temperature
*In a medium saucepan over medium heat, whisk 4 egg yolks and sugar  together until thick and pale yellow colour and sprinkle flour, whisk again to avoid lump. Now add half cup of warmed milk. Whisk vigorously to prevent lump and scorching from the bottom of the pan. Add the remaining milk bit by bit , whisk until the mixture becomes thick. Fold the yam puree'. Cool to room temperature.

For Mirengue

2 egg whites
4 Tblp white sugar
2 pinch cream of tartar (optional)

*Whisk egg whites until bubbly,Add cream of tartar, add sugar 1 tablespoon one at a time. make sure sugar is dissolve before you make an addition. whisk until mirengue is hard peak.

 Assemble:
 Preheat oven to 180C

Butter 4 ramekins cover each with caster sugar- Set this aside

Carefully fold 1/3 of the mirengue mixture to yam pastry cream. Blend well. Now work quickly as meringue is easy to deplete, add the remaining meringue and fold gently until just blended. do not over mix. Spoon mixture into prepared ramekins. Smooth the top with spatula, run your thumb tip around the edge of ramekins Set them in prepared tray. Give each enough space so they won't stick together when they are cooking. Bake in Pre-heated oven for 12-15 minutes until it puffed nicely and has a golden crust on top.  Take them out of the oven,sprinkle with icing sugar. Serve immediately

Lunch at Chili's East Regina

I just had Lunch at Chili's on ordinary weekend and look what i got.

Chili's Quesadilla explosion salad

Its a crunchy romaine and iceberg lettuce with diced tomato.cooked chicken (Grilled), Shredded tortilla chips,Black olives topped with Marble cheese with House dressing(Balsamico) Served with 6 pieces cheese quesadilla. Not so good and not so bad for thirteen bucks for lunch on hungry tummy.

Canada Day 2013

As we celebrate Canada day, me and my friend Dhan decided to cook special Barbeque lunch at the picnc area.The day before celebration we headed to supermarket to buy the stuff that we will going to use. I have a plan to make Pork BBQ skewer "Filipino style" and sweet and spicy Spaghetti meat sauce while Dhan was assigned to make Fish dishes and sandwiches and some nibbles for the kids. So, here are some picture of what we had.

The Pinoy style Pork BBQ

In order for Pork to achieved its Golden colour and awesome flavour, I had to marinate them in Banana Catsup, little soy sauce, sugar,lime juice, white pop such as 7up or sprite ( if you don't like too sweet from the pop, you may substitute soda water or any kind of clear stock or consommé will do) salt and pepper, minced garlic and chop red onion. Marinating overnight would be recommended and the marination would be great basting as well.

Spaghetti Meat sauce

The Filipino all time Favourite pasta. Loved by the filipinos especially kids. The sauce is sweet and spicy but i made this sweeter.

Dhan's steamed tilapia with spices

Fish was seasoned very well, moist and sweet. It was seasoned with garlic, thyme, salt and dash of black pepper wrapped in tin foil and then steam. The Perfect pair of rice and stir fry vegetables

Lechon Kawali or  Deep fried pork belly

This was just awesome. whoever brought this, they are amazing. Pork belly was just perfectly cooked. Soft, tender and very moist meat and super crunchy skin. Unfortunately Liver sauce was missing.

Store bought fruit Platter

Fruit Plate for a refreshing dessert

Beef Burger with Sunflower essence.

Canadian Beef Burger with tomato slices and lettuce courtesy of Mr. Cesar Vergara. Storebought  Burger patties with a hint of sunflower with slice tomato and shredded romaine lettuce, mayo and catsup. Taste so good though.

Canada day is definitely a enjoyable time for every canadian and other people/nation who stayed here in canada.We spent more than half day in the park and yet a day is not enough for us. Indeed, we enjoy the foods so much and we had so much fun as well. Until next canada day folks!

HAPPY CANADA DAY EVERYONE!!!!

MONTANA'S Cookhouse Saloon

Last Sunday, We were surprised by our unexpected visitor. Christian dropped by to our pad and invited us to attend sunday mass then have lunch right after. So after mass everyone has no idea where to go until i suggest Montana. Well if they want something heavy and full meal meats, this is the place to be.

Montana specializes in Ribs, Salads, Burgers and steaks the Canadian way

The Menu

I got 12 ounces Beef Ribs with Texas bold sauce, a cornbread muffin, cornslaw and a side of mixed green salad with lemon vinaigrette
The servings for ribs was exceptionally huge and  actually didn't finish it and took some of my left over,The cornslaw was just literally okay. But the corn muffin was a little dry but it is very tasty
They have more than 3 flavours for ribs to choose from. They have Apple Butter,Texas Bold,Chipotle BBQ, Hickory, etc..

Bones dumped into bucket

MONTANA Cookhouse also serves different types of burgers, roasted chicken, TEXMEX dishes like quesadilla, tacos  and nachos, some wings ,soups,sandwiches and salads.
What is your favourite dish of Montana? Please share your experience

MONTANA COOKHOUSE is at:
2655 Gordon rd, Regina Saskatchewan
Tel no:306-5691557

Scary Pork blood stew (Dinuguan)

Helloooooooo! How's everything in here? its been a year and a half since my last post and I'm quite excited to be back. Well i'll try to have post at least one in a month or so from now on. and that is a promise. I just can't get enough time to write because of my busy schedule to my job and to my friends asking for help doing about their cooking, buying stuff for the pantry, sharing my recipes for their occasions particularly the last summer season ( Picnics and birthdays occasion mostly)  Anyway I'm back and I'm so excited

And YES i was so excited these past few days as i heard from a couple of friends here in Regina that there's a FILIPINO restaurant and lounge will be opening soon. oh that would be awesome.

And YES finally after a long wait, I'm gonna taste the authentic favorite food of mine and i hope they will put this on the menu- The Dinuguan, dinardaranan (Ilokanos), Bagesen(pangasenense), Chocolate stew as the Canadian would like to call it, Pork blood stew or what so ever you wanna call it. I know it look so scary and unappetizing when you hear what is all about and where it came from you will freak out. Pork blood stew or dinuguan is made from concoction of pork meat including Butt, shoulder, loin, intestines, bladder, Heart, belly and fresh Pork blood, gently simmered in vinegar, stock and some spices like ginger and shallots.
I've cooked this in my house and brought some of it to my Canadian friends to taste and to know how they gonna react. Here their verdict:

Thomas Yates, 19 years old from Calgary says:Meat was cooked perfectly, all of the spices complimented the natural meat flavors and nothing was overpowering, Amazing taste and texture

Wes escalleta, 27 years old from Whistler B.C says: Great texture and full of flavors, simple but perfectly balanced and interesting. But a freaky idea

Andrea Aube, 23 years old from Calgary says.  The texture is a quite grainy. a little salty and sour but it taste amazing. But after she finish a whole bowl she asked me what the dish made from--- oh shit gross. LOL
 Hahahahahaha. Whatever they've said, This is the best stew for me and i'm gonna wait to eat this again

Shanghai rolls a.k.a Filipino spring rolls

It feels awesome when someone praises your job, give good compliments and asking you to have more specially when making food like this very fantastic filipino food springrolls. Yes its the pinoy's ultimate soul food and totally cocktail food.Its been a long time since i made this dish for a big party here in Canada until one day i have my cravings for it again. But this time i had share it to my canadian friends and turned out they very much like it. Maybe because i added some twist on and set the authenticity of this food aside. My objective why i had to share it because i'd like to introduce Filipino foods in a western territory and to make food in the form of fusion.  Normally, when making this food you have to get the very fine and fresh ingredients in the supermarket in order for your dish would come out perfectly or otherwise it will turn into crap. Filipino spring roll or lumpia  in filipino words is traditionally made of sauteed ground pork with some veggies then wrap in paper thin flour wrapper and then submerge in hot frying oil until crispy. It comes with the dipping sauce like spiced vinegar or the Thai chili.

 

 First, you will need a good mirepoix,small dice of carrots,celery,and sweet onion and at least a cup of dried cranberry but in the authentic springroll we usually put raisins instead of cranberry. I intended to do that to give this dish a sweet and tarty flavor.

Next is saute' mirepoix together with fresh ground pork in thick bottom skillet (cast iron skillet is good one if you have)at high heat. Saute them until the meats are no longer pink and the vegetables are barely tender. Season with some salt, fresh cracked pepper and a little sugar.

 

As i've said, i put some foreign ingredients in my springroll. I stirred a dollop of cottage cheese, sounds insane but it really did so good. Cottage cheese gives perfect salty and moist texture and tasted very nice with the pork. The cheese also plays as the finisher for the dish.  Well, in my opinion, I would like to accommodate western concept in my dish.  A fusion of western and Southeast Asian cuisine. I put this on top right after turning the heat off and they were done. I let the cheese melt and spread through the entire dish and then give a little stir.

 

Let it cool for at least 15 minutes. I let them sit for awhile to absorb all the flavor and let the excess juice absorb by the meat. The most important is when you are about to wrap the meat mixture into wrapper it will not ripped up. Cool completely is the best before wrapping.That's important and must not forget.

 

Place a wrapper sheet in a plate and put one and half scoop of mixture. Arrange in the center,fold the two sides and the bottom side, carefully roll tightly away from you.

( You can get nice wrapper at the Asian store or at the TNT supermarket close to Marlborough station North east.)

Wrap very tight! Ensure no holes on it otherwise it will burst when fry. Fry them in a shallow pan filled with canola oil or any neutral oils you have. A quarter of pan at least. Please do not fry springrolls in a very hot oil as the wrapper is easy to burn up. Take a 300F of heat will do make the rolls crispy and brown nicely. Fry them in a batch and do not over crowd in a pan.Too much in  a frying pan will tend oil to get cold and the spring rolls will get soggy or they might burst in a pan while frying it. So, please make enough room for each rolls.  

Serve with any dipping sauce you want but i would suggest to make your own sweet chili sauce. Its very easy to make. Just boil  a cup of red wine vinegar, 1/2 cup deep brown sugar or more just to taste and at least 2 tablespoon finely chopped red hot chilies. Boil and reduce to 3/4 cup or until the sauce thicken. Cool to room temperature and there you have it. Home made thai chili sauce. Quite easy!!!