Dinner Quick-Fix: Store-bought Meatball Bowl and Mixed Veg

Meatballs on Rice + Mixed Veg = Quick Dinner!

The problem with pulling long hours at work is that sometimes (well, in my case, make that most of the time), one comes home too late to get a proper dinner with the family.  In such times, I will either just go to bed tired and hungry or take the precaution of buying something from a supermarket food stall to eat on the long bus ride home.

And there are times when I actually see something substantial on offer and willingly save it till I get home.

What you see above is an order of Maki-balls (pork meatballs flavored with soy sauce, onion, and a hint of ginger) on rice from the Maki Mi Sushi stall over at the SM Supermarket in Makati.  On its own, it can be rather stodgy and bland, though the sukiyaki-style sauce you can drizzle over it helps cut back on the blandness even for a bit.  (It’s still a better deal than just a sandwich and a soda, though)

When I got home, I was lucky enough to encounter some buttered vegetables – a mix of baby corn, diced carrots, and asparagus – left over from everyone else’s evening meal.  I tossed these into the bowl along with the meatballs, gave it a generous sprinkle of Knorr Liquid Seasoning, made a hot mug of soup from a Campbell’s sachet, and had myself a fine – if a tad lonely – dinner.

Brie: The King of Cheeses

Cheese.

Because the Philippines isn’t exactly dairy country like, say, Switzerland or even Japan (They make fabulous cheeses in Hokkaido, by the way.), most people look at it as something that comes in a rectangular blue box in the dairy section of their neighborhood supermarket, a gooey yellowish-orange concoction with pimentos in a jar. It is, to most people, something you stick or spread between two slices of bread for a sandwich, grate over spaghetti, or use to top a burger. That’s how most people in these parts look at cheese.

Then, they run into something like the Jindi Triple Cream Brie I bought at the Wine Depot last month.

Once they’ve sampled something like that, it changes the way they look at and feel about cheese forever.

Brie is a very soft cows’ milk cheese originally made in the French province of the same name. It is, like the Camembert, a wheel-shaped cheese characterized by an edible white mold and a soft, almost runny center. It was the favorite cheese of the Impressionist Master Pierre-Auguste Renoir who declared the Brie made just on the outskirts of Paris – the fabled Brie de Meaux – the veritable “King of Cheeses”.

You can’t blame Renoir for being moved to such praise as the cheese is truly delicious with a creamy, slightly nutty, highly savory flavor.

True French Brie, usually the mass produced ones, can be found in many supermarkets and is quite reasonably priced – which is why I wonder why many Filipinos haven’t gone and actually tried the stuff! Now, you can go ahead and call me a culinary heretic or Philistine, but the best Brie I have had so far happens to be Australian rather than French. This is the Triple Cream Brie from Jindi, an award-winning dairy farm that also produces top-quality Camembert and an amazingly fruity Morbier.

This particular Brie has a very rich flavor with a slightly garlicky tinge to the undertone. The aroma is also delicious with just the faintest hint of ammonia. While it is firm to the bite, it melts almost instantly in your mouth; it has an almost satiny texture in its molten state. While I seriously enjoy popping chunks of this into my mouth for a quick – yet elegant – snack, this also tastes gorgeous on hot toast, spread on sliced apples, or – most decadently – put atop slices of grilled beef tenderloin to make the most sophisticated cheese-steak sandwich ever.

Weekend Breakfast: Danggit and Longganizang Lucban

The thing about Sunday breakfasts is that they make for lovely memories on Monday morning and even lovelier things to look forward to throughout another week of drudgery.

Yesterday’s breakfast, in particular, was absolutely savory.  Fr. Jeff’s recent trip to Bacolod for the thanks giving Mass of the newest member of the Clergy of Paranaque (Congrats, Fr. Topher!) yielded numerous treats specific to that part of the Visayas.  Among the varied edible delights that came our way was a pack of a delicacy much missed on our dining table: danggit. 

Danggit (rabbitfish, spinefoot, or sleek unicornfish) are small saltwater fish from the Southern provinces that are butterflied, salted, dried, and usually served fried to a crisp.  You eat these crunchy little fishies whole – bones, heads, eyes, and all – dipped in sukang kinurat, rice or cane vinegar where chili peppers, garlic cloves, and peppercorns have been soaked for a long time.

At our house, the rare appearance of danggit does not call for the scrambled eggs or onion frittata that usually accompany such fried dried fish as dilis (anchovies) or espada (needlefish).  Instead, these salty fish go best with the highly spiced, incredibly savory little sausages known as longganizang Lucban.

As the name suggests, these sausages originally came from the town of Lucban in Quezon province, the same place that hosts the glorious Pahiyas Festival year after year.  Longganizang Lucban are classic examples of longganiza de recado or savory sausages, certainly worlds apart from the hamonado – ham-cured or sweet – sausages of either Pampanga or Bulacan in Central Luzon.  In these links, fatty pork is highly spiced with pepper and crushed garlic while a shot of vinegar is thrown into the mix for some extra bite.  Paprika is optional, but when it’s used, the oil exuded by the sausages during frying turns a vivid red.

Vinegar – preferably spiced vinegar – and garlic fried rice are the usual accoutrements for such a meal.  We, however, prefer to savory the dusky saltiness of danggit and the savory flavors of the longganiza against the blandness of plain boiled rice.  Our vinegar is sweet rather than spicy: all the better to temper the garlicky fire and the salt.  Lola Conching’s Vinegar with Wild Honey (available at such shops as Gourdo’s and some major supermarkets) does the trick quite beautifully.

Believe me: it’s the sort of breakfast that makes for weekend bliss.   

DIY: Oat Flour

Nutritionists insist that, with all the fat-laced foods served to us these days, we need to throw in more oats into our diets.

Well, that part’s easy enough. Oatmeal porridge is a common enough breakfast food; both granola and Bircher muesli have also been making themselves known on local tables. There are oatmeal cookies, revel bars – numerous confections where oats are used to add texture to the treat.

And, of course, some of the more upscale burger joints have been offering oatmeal buns rather than the usual wheat-only white rolls. However, I don’t know if these count as the only oatmeal I see on those are the flat little grains scattered on top. Meh…

All that said, the best way to add oats to one’s diet is to grind raw rolled oats in your blender or food processor into flour. I’ve done this numerous times already and the end results have always been good. For recipes that call for 500 grams of all-purpose flour, just substitute 150 grams of home-ground oat flour for the same amount of white. It gives the finished product a delectably nutty flavor and a nutritional top-up, as well.

Shoyu Ramen for Breakfast

Long-time readers of this blog know this: I’m the sort of person who will eat a bowl of ramen for breakfast.  I actually crave for the stuff in pretty much the same way other people yearn for a cholesterol-raising platter of tapa (fried smoked beef) and sinangag (garlic-infused fried rice) or a savory bowl of congee or even a full English.  There is just something so comforting about a bowl of noodles in broth that helps me face up to the challenges of the day.  (Actually, I also crave for Spam; but that’s a story for another day…)

So, I guess it was a lucky break when a recent supermarket jaunt put a pack of Nissin’s Shoyu Ramen in my larder.

Shoyu – soy sauce – is one of the four major broth bases used for cooking classic Japanese ramen.  The other three are shio (salt), miso (fermented soybean paste), and tonkotsu (pork bone – also known as “the rejuvenator” because of its high collagen content).  But I seriously prefer shoyu best as it is very flavorful and it isn’t so salty. 

However, making your ramen from scratch is a tedious process and going to an actual ramen shop at five-thirty in the morning isn’t exactly the most brilliant of ideas.  So, while it doesn’t exactly have the same oomph as a bowl of soup done by a professional cook, instant ramen isn’t so bad.  Indeed, all I need to do is toss in some diced leftover tonkatsu and poach an egg in the broth as it boils.  Top your bowl off with the shredded nori that comes in the packet and you’re all set. 

It’s a fine way to start your day.