Eetsmakelijk

Posts Tagged ‘seafood’

PuTuSiLog is my acronym for this typical Filipino breakfast. Pusit is for fried crunchy dried squid, Tuyo is for fried dried sardine, Sinangag is for fried rice with load of garlic and ItLog for fried egg. Thus you have PuTuSiLog.

This breakfast reminds me of my childhood. My grandma or sometimes aunts, depending who were babysitting us kids (mom was working)  would make this whenever possible. Typical dip could be sliced of fresh tomatoes or vinegar , both to balance the salt(i)ness of sardine and squid. Glugged down with coffee or hot cocoa, then it’s perfect!

This was my plate few weeks back when I had my breakfast right here in Holland. Finding dried sardine and squid is almost impossible around here that’s why I was so happy that my uncle packed for me these fried beauties to take back to Holland…you see I was in Manila for 2 weeks in July.

This could be a strange breakfast combination to some, but for a true-blooded Filipino like me, this is heaven

Read the rest of this entry »

I had to think of my maternal grandmother whenever I see mussels. I guess because when I was young, I found mussels or tahong as how we call it in Tagalog, a bit ‘scary’ because of its almost black shells. Scary and yet I always found my grandma’s simple mussels soup (Tinolang Tahong, key soup ingredient is ginger) really good. Well, everything that my grandma made was good

Anyhow, ginger is overpowering in taste, according to my husband…so I am careful when using the root, and would never offer it in his soup. Thanks to those English cooking programs that I always watch, for giving me ideas, learning me not to be afraid to use ingredients & be more adventurous…I came up with an easy mussels soup.

Onion, garlic, chopped vegetables such as carrots, prei, celery, cauliflower, creme fraiche, smoked bacon, fish bouillon, pepper, salt and white wine.

Shells were thoroughly scrubbed and cleaned

so that soup is good enough to fill the stomach…a complete meal in itself.

I was at the local market many weeks ago to buy my supply. When I reached the seafood section, I saw a small commotion where 3 children and their father was involved. The youngest of the 3, perhaps she was about 5 years old was crying while the slightly older brothers were teasing her for crying. She was pretty scared. Daddy’s trying to calm her down.

Well no wonder she was crying. Because in front of her were live crabs which she probably thought were aliens from another planet! Even adult passing by were surprised to see the crabs which isn’t really popular among Dutch people. Usually it’s the Chinese who buy them. And me. I can totally understand why whole crabs aren’t popular among the Dutch since they’re seldom sold in the market because they can be pretty expensive. Normally crabs are offered only in restaurants. Pricey.

still smokin’ ..Crab Curry

Well I came home with 2 live crabs that day. To which my husband was against me buying them because according to him: ‘ ik vind het zielig voor de beestjes! ‘ (I pity the animals) and even refused to see how I will cook them. Even told me once to release them in nearby ponds!

Well, he totally made an 180 degree turn when the smell of curry (one of his favorite spices) starts to fill my kitchen! Ah, there’s truth to the saying that ‘ the way to the man’s heart is through his tummy’.

If you wish to have this simple curry recipe, just leave a message!

Back in October when my husband and I were in Thailand, we went to this one particular seafood restaurant in Hua-Hin where I know some of the waiters since back in the 90′s. That was one reason why we liked eating in that restaurant but the other reason , most important reason, was their giant Phuket prawns and lobsters! They serve it charcoal grilled, , baked, or fried. In this particular night we ordered them steamed with loads of garlic

The taste was just unbelievable! I used to think that large prawns taste less than the smaller ones..but I was so wrong.

to show how gigantic they were, I asked my husband to put out his hands like he was measuring the prawns. My husband who is +6ft. tall has large and long hands. So do you have any idea of the size now.

These prawns can never be found in markets in Holland (unless in those expensive restaurants that order them straight from Thailand) but in Thailand, they are sold rather cheap. About Baht 1,500 a kilo, raw.

Now I’m missing Thailand, gheez!

This year’s Christmas dinner was I think the simplest I have ever made. During the past years, I have stayed quite late in the kitchen preparing from the first up to the last course. This year I didn’t had to. And my father-in-law and husband enjoyed eating the four easy – course dinner as much as I had fun preparing them. I will post them per course, and I’d start with our first course. I prepared two first courses and this was the first.

Langoustine Cocktail

I did not exactly followed Ramsay’s recipe in SECRETS (page 20) that’s why I used the word “INSPIRED” .. you’ll read along the way which ingredients I took out. I did not prepared the langoustine but bought a pre-cooked pack. If ever you plan on having people for dinner, I can really suggest this recipe. Not only that it was really simple to make, but the sauce was really nice. I also love the idea of using langoustine than shrimps.

• Required:
• Vegetable Nage (Gordon’s vegetable stock) I DID NOT USE THIS  because the Nage requires separate cooking. I kept it simple and even without it, the cocktail was nice.
• What I used:
• pre-cooked langoustines, good for 3 persons
• For Marie-rose sauce:
• 100ml Mayonnaise ( I did not make the mayonnaise but used a real good commercial bottle of mayo)
• 2 tsp tomato ketchup
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp Cognac
• few drops of tobasco
• For the salad:
• 1 Little Gem lettuce
• 1 tbsp finely chopped onions
• 1 tbsp diced, sharp crisp apple (Granny Smith)
• fresh chopped basil leaves ( I did not use)
• 1-2 tbsp Vinaigrette (page 218 in the book)
• sea salt and freshly ground pepper
• and chopped avocado (this was my idea..hubby and DIL liked the avocado combined)

Simply mix the sauce ingredients set aside. Sliced the lettuce leaves and leave some for decoration. Mix the rest of the salad in a bowl then place on a cocktail glass. Just spoon sauce on top, sprinkle with curry powder or paprika powder before serving. If you have some cherry tomatoes, slice in half and use as garnish.

The mood to experiment struck me when I saw this ad of Cendrillon’s Black Paella
(Cendrillon is located at 45 Mercer St. in the SoHo section of Manhattan,NY) I think the black rice looked nice and something new to try, especially for my husband. I have also been craving for seafoods lately and since I still have about a lb. of black rice (pirurutong) stashed amongst my ‘filipino ingredients collection’ (hard to find them here so I collect them, yes) I gave it a go last night, did not made a paella though. A lot of work since I’ve used 3 separate pans for this experiment but my critique loved it and have eaten 2 servings. Mr. dutch guy had never seen black rice before so he thought it was burned (!) when he came to the kitchen to investigate what was in the pan.

Red Sea Bass w/ Black Rice

Ingredients (2 persons)
For the rice
- 1 1/2 cup of black rice
- 1/2 cup of pandan rice
- cubed red paprika (bell pepper)
- 1 chopped med. shallots
- 2 cloves finely chopped garlic
- chopped a stalk of spring onion
- 20 g butter
- about a liter of water
- salt /pepper

Read the rest of this entry »