The Ultimate Chopper

Apologies for the looooong absence. I stopped cooking in the latter part of my pregnancy and left all the cooking to Mike. Mike on the other hand started cooking everyday, but since he never writes anything down and just makes things up as he goes along, it wasn't easy to record his recipes for posting here.

I'll start of the year, however, by raving about Mike's second favorite kitchen gadget (next to the 9-Minute Marinator), the Ultimate Chopper. (Yes, we have become TV shopping fans!) I ought to mention that the product was actually recalled in the US because when the locking mechanism ceases to work, the product is no longer safe. But we figured that as long as the locking mechanism is still working, there ought not to be any reason to worry.

Just like the infomercial suggests, we've used the Ultimate Chopper for various things. We tried making ice cream once, and it was cool to eat our own ice cream! But our regular uses for the Ultimate Chopper are: grinding coffee beans, chopping onions (no more tears!), and making cream cheese-based spreads. As the infomercial says, because the device is small enough to sit on your counter, you actually use it (unlike a complex food processor which you need to take out of its storage cabinet). Our only complaint is that the chopper bowl really is on the small side, so you can only put in a little bit of food at a time.

How often do we use the Ultimate Chopper? At least twice a week. I guess that's proof enough of how happy we are with this kitchen gadget.

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Teriyaki Chicken Rice

Mike made a really yummy chicken dish yesterday. He never takes measurements, so I'll just describe what he did.

Ingredients:

teriyaki sauce
honey
1 onion
4 chicken breasts, deboned and deskinned
steamed rice (cooled)
1 egg, beaten
cooking oil

Methodology:

Marinde the chicken breasts in the teriyaki sauce and honey. In a wok, sautee the onions until translucent. Add the chicken and fry until cooked through. Add the rice and egg, mix well, and continue to fry.

Serves 2.
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Saving money in the kitchen.

Saving money in the kitchen.

In this age of high prices, I'm always on the lookout for ways to save money in the kitchen.

One thing I'm thrilled about is the rise in the number of home-based businesses that either sell or manufacture dishwashing and detergent chemicals. The prices are often amazingly cheap.

I usually buy from Speedy Clean which sells dishwashing liquid a P50.50 per liter, fabric softener at P68 per liter or P149.50 per gallon, 2-ply bathroom tissue at P340 for 48 rolls, and detergent powder at P30 per kilo. All of this is less than half the price of what you would spend on Unilever or P&G products in the supermarket. They deliver to certain parts of the metropolis. (Tel. 6355719 to 23).

Sabon Express sells detergent powder at P21 to P50 per kilo, depending on the amount of lather (i.e., how bubbly it is: the more lather, the more expensive), whether you intend to use it for washing machine or handwash, and whether the detergent incldes bleach and antibacterial formula. They also sell fabric softener at P160/gallon, bleach at P80 per gallon, multipurpose liquid cleaner at P160/gallon, glass cleaner at P120/gallon, liquid handsoap at P160/gallon, and mild liquid laundry detergent at P160/gallon. They deliver too, and you can contact them at tel. 994-8853.

Soap on Whells sells detergent powder at P27/kilo, dishwashing liquid at P33.75/liter or P135/gallon, and fabric conditioner at P35/liter or P140/gallon. They deliver for a minimum order of P300. Telephone numbers: 4225308 and 9125645.

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Learning to cook

An friend of mine sent me a flyer for something which I think is a really cool idea: home cooking lessons.

A group of Metro Manila-based chefs is now offering professional culinary lessons right in your home. They've taught cooking to individuals, couples, entire families, children, et cetera, et cetera.

For more details, email Chef Jonas Ng at jonasng[at]gmail[dot]com

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Meat thermometer madness.

A couple of weeks ago, my husband bought a meat thermometer.

Not just any thermometer, but a deluxe kind, with a metal probe that you insert into the meat, attached by wire to a digital read-out that you can keep outside the oven.

With our brand new meat thermometer, we experimented on some steaks that we cooked on our electric grill. The meat came out perfectly done: perfectly medium rare for Mike, and well-done (the only meat--sniff! sniff!--I can eat until I give birth, sigh!).

The following day, we brought the meat thermometer to our friend's house and made a beef roast.

Again, perfect.

The center was an exquisite medium rare, and the ends just hit well-done.

Since then, we've become meat thermometer addicts.

Mike and I eat a lot of steak, and we used to always just rely on the second hand of our kitchen clock and guesswork. We had gotten good at estimating cooking time for medium rare (which, when I'm not pregnant, is the kind of meat I eat), but when we'd have friends over who would want their steaks medium or well-done, or when we cut the steaks slightly thicker or slightly thinner than usual, we'd often get it wrong, having to throw back the slab of beef onto the grill or into the pan to cook out more of the blood.

But having a thermometer takes all the guesswork out of making roasts and steak. Pop the meat in, check the chart for the correct temperature, and a few degrees before the thermometer reads that temperature, take the meat out and let it rest. (It continues to cook while resting, so you want to take it out slightly before it hits target temperature.)

Result? Perfectly cooked roasts/steak every single time.

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American Goulash, attempt #1

The following is recipe based on one from FoodNetwork.com.


Sorry for the blurred photo. This is just 1 serving, by the way. The recipe is double this.

250 g lean ground beef
1 native onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup water
1 (15-ounce) can tomatoes, diced, together with the tomato juice
1/2 cup tomato sauce
dried basil
dried oregano
dried parsley
garlic powder
dried thyme
dried rosemary
garlic powder
salt
pepper
Tabasco
1 tsp soy sauce
1-1/2 cups elbow macaroni, uncooked
parmesan cheese

In a deep pot, saute the ground beef over medium-high heat, breaking up the meat, until no pink remains. (We sauteed ours in olive oil because our ground beef was very very lean.) Add the onions and garlic to the pot and saute until they are tender (about 3 minutes). Add water, along with the tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato juice, soy sauce. Season with dried herbs, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and Tabasco. Stir well. Place a lid on the pot and allow this to cook for 15 to 20 minutes.

Add the elbow macaroni, stir well, return the lid to the pot, and simmer for about 30 minutes. Top with parmesan cheese when serving.

Serves 2.

Not bad, but it needed more kick. Next time we'll try to put more spiciness--more Tabasco, or chilli flakes perhaps. And maybe more garlic. Before I poured in the elbow macaroni, the dish looked a little watery to me, and I made the mistake of leaving the lid slightly ajar. Twenty-five minutes later, the water was all gone and the macaroni almost burned, so I realize I should've followed the recipe and left the lid on, as instructed. The resulting dish was also a little "bitin" -- I think I'll add more macaroni next time.

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Korean chicken rice

There's actually no such dish, but I didn't know what to call our latest concoction. We found some Korean bean paste in Shopwise but when we opened it, it wasn't the black bean paste we'd been expecting, but the red kind (ssamjang). It looks like the red chili paste kind you find in bibimbap, and apparently, the red chili paste is one of the main ingredients of ssamjang (I looked this all up on the Internet.

It's actually a dipping paste, but Mike and I decided to throw something a little different together and here's what we came up with.

Ingredients:

sesame oil
5 chicken thighs, deboned and deskinned
2 tbsp rice wine
1 tsp minced ginger
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp pepper
1/2 onion, finely chopped
Korean red bean paste (ssamjang)
kim (Korean nori), cut into sheets measuring approximately 4" x 5"
steamed rice (one bowl per person)

Method:

Slice the chicken into strips. Marinate in rice wine, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, sugar, pepper and onion for about half an hour.

Stir-fry chicken in sesame oil until brown. Add 1 heaping tbsp of red bean paste (or to taste, depending on desired level of spiciness). When chicken is cooked through, add rice and 1 additional heaping tbsp of red bean paste. Fry, mixing well until flavors blend.

Transfer to serving bowl. Shred some kim on top. Serve with additional kim on the side.

Serves 2.

Verdict: Yummy, and super-easy.

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