Shake for Summer

Summer heat in Cebu City now is intense, and heavy downpour is also regular in the evening. You could just imagine our climate here.

My children often prepare a variety of shake to combat the heat. Since it's summer, there are so many available fruits in the market.

Yesterday, they made watermelon shake; the other day, apple shake; and today, they merely opted for Nestea with kalamansi and sugar. It's really refreshing!!

Try mixing different fruits and you'll find it so deliciously refreshing. You can either use milk or cream with the fruits. We have even tried green mangoes and the taste is a cross between sweet and sour but nonetheless delectable.

3 Ways to Cook One Big Tuna

Have you ever bought a big fish and think you cannot simply fry it all? Well, I did, last week during the Holy Week. I thought of cooking it into three different dishes. This is what I did.

1. Tinolang Tuna (fish soup)




Ingredients:

5 stalks spring onion
2 large tomatoes
ginger, cut julienne style
pepper
salt to taste
head of tuna (cut in half, lengthwise)

Procedure:

Wash tuna and set aside.
Slice spring onions and tomatoes.
In a pot, boil water. When the water boils, add fish and spices. Continue to boil for 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.

2. Grilled Tuna Tail



Ingredients:

half of the tuna body (portion with the tail)
oil, chopped onions, pepper, lemon juice or kalamansi for marinade
salt

Procedure:

Rub salt on fish
Soak in marinade sauce for one hour
Grill tuna and brush with marinade sauce until done.
Serve hot.

3. Kinilaw na Tuna (Raw Tuna with Vinegar Sauce and Spices)



Ingredients:

middle half of tuna, deboned and cut into strips
1 cup coconut vinegar
kalamansi or lemon, sliced
4 onions (sliced)
4 large tomatoes (not very ripe, sliced)
ginger, thinly sliced
5 pcs fresh hot chili
salt to taste

Procedure:

Wash tuna then slice into strips, about 1 inch wide and half inch thick.
Put fish in a deep bowl, then add vinegar. Mix the rest of the ingredients and season with salt.

Note: If you like this to be creamy, you can also add half a glass of pure coconut milk. Reduce the vinegar to half a glass then mix all ingredients.

Fish Escabeche

I chose this recipe since it's Holy Week and for Catholics all over the world, it's time to make a little sacrifice and abstain from meat in all our meals, especially on Good Friday.





Ingredients

Fish - red snapper, either whole or fillet of mackerel (actually, any frying fish will do nicely)
Oil for frying
Salt
Calamansi juice (or lemon or lime juice)
Green and red bell peppers, cut julienne style
Ginger, cut julienne style
Extra ginger (pounded)
Onion - sliced
Garlic - sliced or pounded
Pineapple juice
Pineapple chunks
Sugar
Tomato Sauce or tomato catsup
Vinegar
Cornstarch to thicken the sauce



Instructions

Rub salt on fish (outside and inside after splitting the abdomen and taking the guts out). Fry in hot oil. Set aside.

Pound extra ginger, add a little bit of water and squeeze the juice out. Collect juice. Set aside.

To make the sweet and sour sauce:

In another frying pan, heat oil, then add sliced onions and pounded garlic, stir fry. When the onion has become transparent and the garlic pieces become brown, add the strips of ginger and the green and red bell peppers. Stir fry. Add pineapple juice and tomato sauce or catsup for coloring. If you desire a sweeter sauce, add sugar; for more sour taste, add vinegar. Add pineapple chunks. And don't forget the ginger juice. This is really the secret of a good sweet sour sauce. the zesty taste of ginger. Thicken with a little bit of cornstarch. Simmer for about 3-4 minutes.

You can now pour this over the fried fish and serve. However, I prefer the fish to be cooked a little bit in the sauce so it could absorb the flavor. To do this, put the fish into the simmering sauce and simmer for another 3-4 minutes.

Serve hot.

SAPIN-SAPIN

Here's another Filipino dessert made from a sticky kind of rice locally called "malagkit". Soak malagkit in water overnight before grinding. "Galapong" is ground malagkit rice.Rice galapong is soaked ground rice. "Ube" is purple yam.



* 1 1/2 cups malagkit dough (galapong)
* 1/2 cup rice galapong
* 2 1/2 cups white sugar
* 3 cups cooked ube (mashed)
* 4 cups thick coconut cream (from 2-3 coconuts)
* 2 cans (big) condensed milk
* food coloring; violet & egg-yellow

Blend all ingredients except mashed ubi and food coloring.

DIVIDE INTO 3 PARTS:

To one part - add mashed ubi. To heighten the color of the ubi, add a dash of violet food coloring. Mix well.

To 2nd part - add egg-yellow coloring. Mix well.

To 3rd part - just plain white, nothing to add.

Grease a round baking pan. Line with banana leaves and grease the leaves. Then, pour in ubi mixture. Spread evenly. Steam for 30 minutes or more, until firm. Note: cover the baking pan with cheese cloth before steaming.

Pour 2nd layer on top of the cooked ubi. Cover again and steam for 30 minutes.

Lastly, pour in 3rd layer or the plain mixture. Again, steam for 30 minutes or until firm.

Sprinkle top with "latik".

Cool before slicing.

Serve with "budbod" or toasted sweetened coconut.



"Latik" is sugar caramel.
"Budbod" is another Filipino dessert. It's steamed malagkit wrapped in banana leaves

Sugar Caramel

I am posting it here in relation to the leche flan recipe.


To every 450g of Sugar, add
150ml Water

In a sauce pan, boil the sugar and water together very quickly over high heat, skimming it very carefully as soon as it boils.
Keep it boiling until the sugar snaps when a little of it is dropped in a pan of cold water.
If it remains hard, the sugar has attained the right degree.
Add a squeeze of lemon juice and let it remain an instant on the heat.
Allow the pan to cool in a basin with cold water. The caramel is now ready to use for the next recipe.

LECHE FLAN

The recipe below is for one of the Filipinos' best loved dessert. Expect this to be served on Christmas Eve and New Year, even on birthday parties. Hope you like it.

Ingredients:

* 1 can condensed milk
* 1 can evaporated milk
* 6 egg yolks
* 2 whole eggs
* ¼ teaspoon of grated lemon peel


Procedure:
1. Caramelize sugar and pour in individual molds. Set aside.
2. In a bowl, whisk all ingredients together and strain into individual moulds.
3. Steam until well set.
4. Let cool, then chill.