December 2009 Daring Cooks' Challenge--SALMON EN CROUTE

The 2009 Daring Cooks' Challenge was hosted by Simone of Junglefrog Cooking. Simone chose Salmon En Croute (or alternative recipes for Beef Wellington or Vegetabe En Croute) from Good Food Online.

Oh wow, it's that time of the month again for the Daring Cooks' Challenge!! And this time, I finished mine early!! I chose to make Salmon En Croute even though we were given the option to make Beef Wellington or Vegetable En Croute. Things are a bit hectic here in my part of the world, Christmas starts early in the Philippines, as soon as the "ber" months hits the calendar, everyone is on holiday mode already. The supermarket was full when I arrived at 11 in the morning but thankfully, I still managed to get a slab of salmon fillet, which is not available in the supermarkets near my house. I also chose to use spinach and cream cheese for my sauce. I didn't want to deviate too much from the recipe because I wanted the salmon to be the center of the show. I also made my own shortcrust pastry and didnt have any problems with it. It was the right consistency and wasnt tough at all when baked. And the colors were wonderful...

Spinach and Creamcheese sauce

Salmon on the rolled out shortcrust pasty

Spinach sauce on top of the salmon on top of the shortcrust pastry :)

My Salmon En Croute egg-washed and ready for baking, notice I used the star cut-outs to hide the almost-open pastry :)

The finished product!!

I was happy with this challenge and I think I will be using this recipe for our Christmas dinner on the 24th. The most important thing I did was to choose the freshest salmon I could find because in the end, salmon was the star of this dish.

Thank you Simone for choosing this challenge. A very merry Christmas to everyone!!

Crab Stick Open-faced Sandwich

It's always a ritual for me to eat a "snack" in the afternoon, when I take a break from working. Light almost always means a grilled cheese sandwich. But there are days when I just feel like eating something different, like this. I was supposed to put this as siding to one of my Sushi Daring Cooks' Challenge but I never got around to doing it. So I made it into an open-faced sandwich instead.

CRAB STICK OPEN-FACED SANDWICH

6 sticks crabstick, shredded

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1 teaspoon refined sugar

1 stalk celery, peeled and diced small

Mix shredded crabstick,mayonnaise, sugar until well combined. Add celery bits. Top on toasted sliced french bread. Top with parmesan cheese...Enjoy!

Braised Tofu and Mushrooms

I could say tofu is one of my favorite protein sources, there are days, I crave for it especially when I have back-to-back meat days...and this is one of my no-fail tofu recipes, full of taste and texture, I forget there's no meat in it.
BRAISED TOFU and MUSHROOMS
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1 block tofu, firm
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 piece onion, minced
2 pieces dried wood ear mushroom, rehydrated in hot water and sliced
1/2 cup button mushrooms, sliced
1 piece chili, sliced
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon cornstarch dissolved in
3 tablespoons water

Drain tofu, dice, dredge with flour and pan-fry until golden brown in preheated pan with oil. Drain excess oil, saute onions, garlic and chili. Combine soy sauce, and cornstarch dissolved in water. Add to pan. Cook until fragrant. Pour in mushrooms. Add back the tofu, and cook adding more water as necessary until sauce coats the tofu pieces. You may want to season with salt and pepper. Serve over hot rice.

Simplicity

I have always been fascinated with making my own bread, but it's not often that I have the luxury of time to do it. Today, I had no choice, I had to make time for it even if I was very busy. I made french bread, and sliced them into thin discs. It's part of a Christmas basket that I'm doing with friends. I usually follow the recipe for this in my Professional Baking book but I found this super simple fool-proof recipe online.

FRENCH BREAD
1 cup WATER, warm
3 cups BREAD FLOUR
1 1/2 teaspoons SALT
3 teaspoons YEAST

In a bowl, mix bread flour and yeast together. Dissolve salt in water. Add water a little at a time until dough comes together. You may not need to use all of the water--it's plus or minus. Turn out the dough onto a floured surface. Knead for 8-10 minutes until dough is elastic. Round out the dough and place in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover with a damp kitchen towel and put in a warm place to rise until double in volume about 1 hour. Punch dough to release gas, turn out onto floured surface, knead a little. Divide dough into 3 and form into logs. Make diagonal gashes with a knife. Place on greased and floured pans. Cover with towel and proof for 15 minutes. Before baking brush with a mixture of cornstarch and water. Bake for 25 minutes. Cool, slice into discs, brush with oil and bake for another 15 minutes. This can be used as base for bruschetta. There's nothing like the smell of freshly baked bread filling the kitchen...yum...

Daring Bakers November 2009 Challenge--Cannoli

The November 2009 Daring Bakers's Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Mattichio Bastianich and the Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allan Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.

It's that time of the month again for the Daring Bakers' Challenge. We were given an option to make our cannolis stacked if we didn't have the Cannoli forms. I tried to make my own forms by wrapping barbcue sticks that were sawed-off in half with aluminum foil. They came out okay but when i filled them, I didn't like the finished product. It's a good thing I also made some shapes for the stacked cannoli. I filled them with whipped cream sweetened with muscovado sugar, sprinkled them with flaked almonds and drizzled with melted couverture chocolate.

My stacked cannolis which tasted really yummy

Thanks Lisa Michele for this wonderful challenge! I can't wait for the December Daring Bakers' Challenge :)

Romulo Cafe

I have been working non-stop lately and it has taken its toll on me, I needed a breath of fresh air to clear the cobwebs. I wanted to have a short escape from the realities of my world, but I didn't have time to go on a real vacation. After checking some blogs, I learned about Romulo Cafe which had just opened. The pictures intrigued me and I wanted to see for myself it the place was as photogenic as it looked. And it was a pleasant surprise to learn that it was a stone's throw away from where I lived!

So...last Friday, I called them to reserve a table. And Saturday lunchtime, my cousin and I were parking on the side. The real thing did not disappoint. The place was really nice, it was a white structure (I think it used to be a big white house on that corner). We asked for our table and we were led to the main dining area which was in black and white. It was very nice. The placemats were also in black and white as well as the paper napkins. The food was Filipino comfort food, there was none of the usual Pinoy "fusion" cuisine and instead it was all very simple and straightforward. We ordered the Chicharon (pork skin crackling) for starters, it was served with Pinakurat vinegar-spicy vinegar made from fermented coconut. It was all wiped out within minutes. I could have sipped the vinegar on its own :) We also ordered the Monggo soup which had chicharon bits and malunggay leaves (Moringa) and ampalaya (Bitter Gourd) leaves but I detected a hint of something else--dare I say it's wansuy (coriander)?

For the main dishes, we ordered Bangus Belly in Banana Leaves (Milkfish), which was served with a special sisig sauce (I didn't like the sauce because I was expecting something else) I shuld have saved some of the Pinakurat vinegar for this.

I wanted to try their version of Beef Caldereta which was served with shavings of Quezo de Bola (Edam Cheese). I liked how the quezo de bola added its own taste to the spicy sauce. Of course we ate all this with plain pandan rice, steamed.

For dessert, we shared the Chocolate Lava Cake with Ice Cream which was what the server recommended, washed down with hot cups of brewed coffee sweetened with muscovado sugar.

It was a very pleasant experience, and I would definitely go back soon maybe in the evening to see how it looks and try the other dishes. They also have private dining rooms which are color-themed, all of which are pretty.
And did I say that the prices are very affordable?

ROMULO CAFE
32 Scout Tuason Corner Scout Dr. Lazcano
Tomas Morato Quezon City
(+632)3327275

November 2009 Daring Cooks' Challenge--寿司

My Red Dragon, with tomato scales and green wasabi eyes

Spiral Rolls made with crab meat and mangoes, and the other one with hot dog, cucumber and mangoes

Nigiri made of Hot dog and Crab stick

The November 2009 Daring Cooks' Challenge was brought to you by Audax of Audax Artifex and Rose of The Bite Me Kitchen. They chose sushi as the challenge.

It's that time of the month again when all the Daring Cooks around the world gather (in cyberspace) and present their version of that month's challenge. This time, the challenge was sushi. I procrastinated until the last moment before I made this, and I'm sorry to say, I wasnt too happy with the end result: note to self--do not procrastinate! There was no avocado in the supermarket so I used tomatoes for the dragon's scales and made mine a Red Dragon :)

For the spiral rolls, I wasnt too imaginative and chose the safe and easy crabstick and paired it with mangoes on one version and mangoes with cucumber for the next one.

Same with the nigiri, I chose hot dog, and crabstick. I enjoyed making this but definitely next time, I'm going to start early!!