Lamb Stew

Mike's parents have a lamb recipe that is so good, Mike has dubbed it "Lamb of God." Unfortunately, I can't seem to find the sheet of paper where I copied that recipe, so instead I did some experimenting in the kitchen today, and tried to make a lamb stew from scratch.

Here's the recipe I used.

500 g lamb for stewing (shoulder, shank, neck or leg), chopped into cubes and excess fat trimmed
salt and pepper to taste
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 garlic, finely chopped
2 medium native onions, finely chopped
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp dried thyme
1-1/2 cup water
1 tsp sugar
4 native tomatoes, diced
1 large carrot, peeled and thickly sliced

1. Sprinkle the lamb with salt and pepper.

2. Heat olive oil in large pot over medium-high heat. Brown the lamb in batches, about 4 to 5 minutes per batch. Return all the lamb into the pot.

3. Add garlic and stir until fragrant.

4. Add onions, dried rosemary and dried thyme. Saute for a few minutes until onions have begun to caramelize (about 5 minutes).

5. Stir the sugar into the water until the sugar has dissolved. Add the water to the pot. Bring to a boil, then add the tomatoes and carrot. Wait until the stew boils again.

6. Reduce heat to medium-low, then cover with lid slightly ajar. Allow to simmer until lamb is tender (about 45 minutes to 1 hour). If stew dries out, add more water, 1/4 cup at a time. Season with salt to taste.

7. Serve stew with steamed rice.

Serves 4.
Calorie count: approx. 420 calories per serving.

Verdict: I'm proud of this dish. It's very flavorful. Mike liked it too.

As an afterthought, I threw in a chopped up chorizo sausage in the last few minutes of simmering, to make the dish taste a little more Spanish, although I added it too late to alter the flavor of the stew much. Maybe next time I'll try putting in the chorizo from the beginning, or replacing the carrot with chorizo and bacon to see how that'll taste. I'll try it next time and I'll let you know.

Just a quick note about the teaspoon of sugar. When Mike and I went to England on honeymoon we found out that English tomatoes are very sweet, unlike Filipino tomatoes which are rather sour! Since then, whenever I've encountered a Western recipe calling for tomatoes, I've continued to use native tomatoes but have added a little sugar, to bring the overall taste of the dish close to what was originally intended.

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Beef a L'orange

Hey everyone! Sorry for the long absence. M and I were away for work, then I was away on holiday. But we're back and raring to get back into the kitchen.

It's difficult to find real orange juice in small quantities in the supermarket; the brand I buy only comes in 1-liter bottles. Once you open a bottle, it has to be consumed in a week, and I don't really drink the stuff for breakfast, so I thought it would be a good idea to look for additional orange juice recipes to make it easier to finish a bottle.

I found this recipe online and adapted it a little, and here's the version we finally tried.

2 beef steaks (suggested: tenderloin), cut 1 inch thick
1/4 tsp. garlic salt
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. ground pepper
2 tsp. dark sesame oil, divided
1/8 c. Soy sauce
1 tsp. cornstarch
1/4 c. fresh orange juice
1/8 c. balsamic vinegar
1/8 tsp. chili garlic sauce

Pound beef steaks, flattening to 3/4-inch thickness. Sprinkle both sides of steaks with garlic salt, ginger and pepper; brush with 1 teaspoon of the oil. Mix soy sauce and cornstarch in small saucepan until smooth. Add orange juice, vinegar, and hot pepper sauce. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Reduce heat; simmer just until sauce becomes thickened, stirring constantly. Cover; remove from heat and set aside.

Heat remaining 1 teaspoon oil in large skillet over high heat. Add steaks; pan broil 3 minutes on each side (for medium rare). Add sauce to pan. Bring to a boil, turning steaks once or twice to glaze. Spoon half the sauce in equal amounts onto 4 individual plates. Place steaks on top of sauce; spoon remaining sauce in equal amounts over steaks.

Serves 2.
Total preparation and cooking time: 30 minutes.
Calorie count: approx. 264 calories per serving.

Verdict: It's all right but not fantastic. A "B" perhaps. The sauce is interesting; a little like teriyaki sauce, but less sweet, with a sour, tangy taste.

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Restaurant review: Banapple

Mike and I discovered a new cafe/restaurant today. When I say "new" I mean this quite literally; today was its soft opening.



The place is called Banapple and it's along Katipunan Avenue, on the southbound side after the flyover, right across the street from Kopi Roti. (For those of you familiar with the area, it's where City Jam used to be.) The owners--a friendly 30-something couple--had run a home-based cake business for years, and when the orders became too much for their house to handle, they decided to rent space not just for a commissary but for their own restaurant!



The interior is painted cheery shades of yellow and orange. On a refrigerated shelf, some ten to twelve cakes and pies--all looking quite scrumptious--are on display. Mike and I split an herbed chicken roll with basil cream sauce for dinner, and an apple caramel crumble for dessert.



The entree was very good and very filling for its price (P145). The apple pie slice (P75) was huge. The owner very kindly offered to warm it up for us, and we were very happy with the taste.



While its cakes and pies seem to be Banapple's centerpiece items, it also serves pancakes, sandwiches, pasta, and other rice entrees. I definitely recommend this place to anyone looking for a good meal in the P100-P200 price range.

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Baguio vegetables

Mike and I spent the weekend in Baguio with our friends Anj and Jan and boy, what a food trip! Among the food highlights:

• An accidental trip to the Strawberry Farms. From Tam-awan village, we decided to look for the vegetable trading post in La Trinidad. We couldn't find it; instead we chanced upon a sign directing us to the La Trinidad strawberry farms! We happily walked among the strawberries in the field, taking pictures. We sampled strawberry taho, strawberry wine, and strawberry ice cream, and ended our visit by buying seven kilos of strawberries among the four of us, and a few jars of strawberry jam. Yum!
  
• Dessert at the Manor. We discovered that the Manor has excellent cakes and pastries! Sinfully delicious!
  
• Chocolate baterol at John Hay. Mmmm!
  
• Mongolian food at Oh May Kahn. Owned by the family of a batchmate of ours, Oh May Kahn has scrumptious Mongolian barbecue and a delicious a la carte menu as well.
  
• Soy coffee at Ben-hur Villanueva's gallery, Arko ni Apo. Sculptor Ben-hur Villanueva was Mike and Jan's art teacher in grade school! We introduced ourselves and ended up spending about an hour with Ben-hur and his gracious family. They served us interesting soy coffee made even more interesting with the wonderful company.
  
• Lunch at a Korean restaurant on Legarda road (I think). We enjoyed a scrumptious spicy chicken dish.


• Fresh vegetables from the Baguio market. Baguio vegetables!!! Oh, if only Metro Manila had vegetables as fresh and as cheap as Baguio does, we'd all be a much healthier city. I found watercress--a rarity in Manila (and made myself some Vietnamese Shaking Beef salad today). Fresh parsley was P20 per kilo and for five pesos I now have enough fresh parsley to serve it on every single dish for the next two weeks.
  

Happy happy joy joy.

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Mesquite chicken

Mike made a yummy fried chicken dish the other day. He rarely doesn't measure ingredients when he cooks, but here, in general, is what went in the dish.

Ingredients:

5 chicken thighs, bones and skin removed
tomato catsup
mustard
vinegar
mesquite powder

Mix catsup, mustard, vinegar, and mesquite powder together. Marinade chicken in the mixture.

Fry covered until chicken is cooked through.

Extremely delicious dish.

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Lamb Masala

Mike and I did our grocery at the supermarket at Market Market for the first time this week, and we were thrilled to find an amazingly large Asian spices section, and a very good meat section as well.

One of our many finds was a meat masala mix from Pakistan.



We bought some lamb from the butcher section and today we tried a lamb masala.

The recipe was on the back of the box was easy enough to follow. We made only a few changes. The first was using minced garlic and minced ginger instead of garlic/ginger paste (I don't have a blender yet, that's why). Secondly, the original recipe called for 1 cup oil or ghee (ghee is clarified butter, made by evaporating the water from butter). You'll see the change I made in the recipe. Third, we used less masala powder, just to be sure that it wouldn't be too spicy for our tastebuds.

Ingredients

500 g lamb (or other kinds of meat), cubed and excess fat trimmed
3 medium onions, finely sliced
1 meduim tomato, finely diced
1 tbsp garlic, minced
1 to 2 tbsp ginger, minced
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1-1/4 tbsp masala powder
water

1. In a frying pan, heat butter on high-medium heat until it bubbles. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook uncovered until butter turns golden and foam has risen to the top.
2. Add vegetable oil. Then add lamb, garlic, ginger and masala mix. Stir-fry for a few minutes.
3. Add onions and stir-fry for 5 minutes. Then add tomatoes and 2 glasses of water.
4. Cover and cook on low heat until the lamb is tender (at least 45 minutes).
5. Uncover, increase heat and stir until oil/ghee has separated from the masala. Keep frying for a few minutes. Add 1/2 cup water for desired thickness of the gravy.

Serves 4 (based on recommended portion size).
Calorie count: 795 per serving (assuming you pour all the sauce over your rice).

The verdict: The resulting lamb masala was super- yummy!!! We will definitely buy this mix again.



Some adjustments we will make in the future:

• The recipe didn't need quite so much water. The final 1/2 cup at the end wasn't really necessary. (The original recipe had actually asked for 1 to 1-1/2 cups water.)


• The sauce was fine as it was, but for health reasons, we could've reduced the butter and it would have still turned out all right. Next time I will try it with just 1/4 cup butter and 1/2 cup vegetable oil.


• We served some yogurt on the side to see if the dish would taste better with or without yogurt. Next time we will try it with maybe 1/2 cup of yogurt.

Ah, delicious. I love South Asian food!

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Lettuce-growing

Believe it or not, I'm still ill! (It's been six weeks now, and I've been to the doctor thrice.) My taste buds are still affected so I still can't do any kitchen experiments and the only cooking I've done has been following recipes.

But in the meatime, the lettuce-growing project is underway. Last Saturday, I bought a small planter and had it filled with soil, but I hadn't read up on lettuce-growing yet. After doing some research I learned that the best way to grow lettuce is to plant seeds first (excuse my ignorance, the last time I did any gardening other than weeding was in 4th grade for, well, gardening class) and then transplant them. I also learned that the planter I chose might be a little too small and might only be able to hold two heads of lettuce at a time. So I used the planter I bought for the seeds and then this weekend I'll get a larger planter for the lettuce heads.



So far, so good. I kept the planter in our indoor garden to prevent the birds or cats from disturbing them. Today is Day 5 and some shoots are peeking out of the soil already. I looked at them with delight this morning and Mike himself had a moment of wonder when he said, "Cool! It's like you're participating in God's creative act."

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