Mais Con Hielo

When you add some shaved ice, sugar and milk to cream corn, it turns into a delicious frosty sweet. This is a quick to prepare snack that is easy to serve at casual summer get-togethers. A dessert to satisfy every sweet tooth.

This recipe serves 4.

Ingredients:

15 oz cream corn
4 Tbsp sugar
2 cups evaporated milk or fresh cream
40 ice cubes
Preparation:

Spoon ½ cup cream corn and I Tbsp of sugar into each of the four dessert bowls. Adjust sweetness to taste.
Pour ½ cup milk or cream into each bowl. Note that the evaporated already contains some sugar, so if you use cream, you need to add ½ Tbsp more sugar.
Put ten ice cubes into the blender and whiz into shaved ice. Spoon the ice into the dessert.
Shortcut tip: Prepare all 4 bowls with the corn, sugar and milk before shaving enough ice for all the bowls.

Bistek Tagalog

Bistek is considered one of the Philippines' “national” foods. This is a nice, hearty dish for beef lovers that goes very well with boiled or steamed white rice. Great for a sit-down meal with friends and family. Leftovers will make delicious sandwich filling the next day.

You may serve this with a green salad.

This recipe serves 2 people.

Ingredients:

1 lb sliced beef, sirloin or rib-eye
3 medium potatoes, cut into thin wedges
1 medium onion, sliced into rings
½ cup calamansi lime or lemon juice
4 Tbsp oil
3 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp ground pepper
Salt to taste

Preparation:

Marinate the beef in ¼ cup of the lemon or lime juice for at least an hour. Leave the other half of the juice for cooking.
Heat the oil in a saucepan or wok on low heat. It is not necessary to wash the sauce pan or wok in between cooking the following three items. You may use the same cooking oil for all three ingredients. If the bottom of the sauce pan or wok becomes sticky, use a spatula and gently scrape the stickiness off.
Fry the potatoes until golden brown. Put aside.
Fry the sliced onions until golden brown. Put aside.
Remove the beef from the marinade fry until cooked. The trick is to use a fork and poke through the meat. If blood does not ooze out, it’s done.
Put the potatoes and onions back into the saucepan with the beef, and toss in the rest of the ingredients, adding also the leftover lemon or lime juice.
Give it all a quick stir-fry for about a minute and it’s ready to eat.

Ensaladang Pinoy

This is the Filipino variation of the popular garden salad. In place of olive oil, the Filipinos use fish sauce, which gives the salad a distinctly Southeast Asian flavor.

This dish is super easy to prepare and pairs well with any meat or pasta dish, or you can eat it by itself as a starter. Try this with the popular Filipino Fried Steak, Bistek Tagalog.

This recipe serves 2.

Ingredients:

6 large iceberg lettuce leaves
2 medium tomatoes
1 thinly sliced cucumber
1 thinly sliced small onion

Dressing:
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup vinegar
1 tsp fish sauce
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp ground black pepper

Preparation:

Use your hands to tear the lettuce leaves into medium sized pieces.
Cut each tomato into 12 wedges.
Put all the vegetables into a large salad bowl and give it a quick toss.
Combine all ingredients for the dressing and mix well so that the sugar and salt dissolve. An easy way to do this is to put all the ingredients for the dressing into a small bottle. Close the cap tightly and shake well.
Pour the dressing over the salad and toss just before serving.
Preparation tip: You can optimize preparation time by making the dressing ahead of time and storing it in an air tight container in the fridge.

Tinolang Manok

This dish was featured in Jose Rizal’s novel Noli Me Tangere. Rizal is the founding father of the Philippines and a national hero.

However, that is not only the reason why Tinolang Manok is popular. It is a healthy and hearty soup that is boiled with chicken, green papaya and spinach or water cress leaves. You may substitute the papaya with chayote or zucchini and the soup will taste just as good.

Ingredients:

1lb skinless chicken, cut into large pieces
8 oz papaya, peeled and cut into chunks
6 oz spinach or water cress leaves
4 cloves thickly sliced garlic
2 inches ginger, thickly sliced
1 small sliced onion
4 cups of water
2 Tbsp fish sauce
1 Tbsp salt
1½ Tbsp cooking oil

Preparation:

Heat the oil in a soup pot. Fry the ginger and garlic until they are both slightly brown and fragrant. Add the chicken pieces and fry until they too turn slightly brown. Add the water, cover the pot and simmer for an hour.

Add the papaya, spinach and fish sauce. Allow the soup to simmer for another 45 minutes. Add the salt and stir well. Serve with rice and other main course dishes. Enjoy this famous and yet easy to make soup!

Halayang Ube

Estimated preparation and cooking time: 2 hours

Halayang Ube Ingredients:
1 kilo ube yam root
1 can (14 ounces) evaporated milk
2 cans (12 ounces) condensed milk
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla (optional)

Halayang Ube Cooking Instructions:
On a pot, boil the unpeeled ube yam in water and simmer for 30 minutes. Drain and let cool.
Peel and finely grate the ube yam.
Heat a big wok in medium heat.
Melt butter or margarine, add the condensed milk and vanilla flavoring. Mix well.
Add the 1 kilo grated ube yam,
Adjust the heat to low
Keep on mixing the ingredients for about 30 minutes or until sticky and a bit dry (but still moist).
Add the evaporated milk and continue to mix for another 15 minutes.
Let cool and place on a large platter.
Refrigerate before serving the halayang ube.

Cooking Tips:
You may spread additional butter or margarine on top of the jam before serving.
For the sweet toothed, sprinkle a little sugar on top of the jam after placing on the large platter.
Instead of manually grating the ube, you may cut it in cubes and use a blender to powderize the ube.

Leche Flan

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Estimated cooking time: 1 hour

Leche Flan Ingredients:
1 can (390g) evaporated milk
1 can (390g) condensed milk
10 egg yolks
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract or lemon essence
For the caramel:
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup water

Leche Flan Cooking Instructions:
In a saucepan, mix the sugar & water. Bring to a boil for a few minutes until the sugar caramelize.
Pour the caramelized sugar into aluminum moulds - you can use any shape: oval, round or square. Spread the caramel on the bottom of the moulds.
Mix well the evaporated milk, condensed milk, egg yolks and vanilla by hand or blender.
Gently pour the mixture on top of the caramel on the aluminum moulds. Fill the moulds to about 1 to  1 1/4 inch thick.
Cover moulds individually with aluminum foil.
Steam for about 20 minutes (the traditional way to make Leche Flan is by open-air steaming on either an open cooking fire or stove top) OR
Bake for about 45 minutes. Before baking the Leche Flan, place the moulds on a larger baking pan half filled with very hot water. Pre-heat oven to about 370 degrees before baking.
Let cool then refrigerate.
To serve: run a thin knife around the edges of the mould to loosen the Leche Flan. Place a platter on top of the mould and quickly turn upside down to position the golden brown caramel on top.

Cooking Tips:
You can tell when the Leche Flan is cooked by inserting a knife -if it comes out clean, it is cooked.

Pancit Palabok

Estimated preparation for toppings: 1 1/2 hours
Estimated cooking time for sauce & noodles: 40 minutes

Pansit Palabok Ingredients:
Palabok Noodles / Sauce
1/2 kilo miki noodles
1/2 kilo small crabs
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 onion, chopped
2 tablespoons of atchuete seeds or oil
2 tablespoons of patis (fish sauce)
4 tablespoons of cornstarch, dissolved in water
1 teaspoon of monosodium glutamate (MSG)
1 1/2 cups of water
Palabok Toppings
Tinapa flakes (smoked fish)
Cooked shrimps, shelled
Squid adobo, sliced into rings
Pork chicharon, grounded
Spring onions, chopped
Hard boiled eggs, shelled, sliced
Fried garlic, minced
Fresh calamansi (lemon), sliced

Pansit Palabok Cooking Instructions:
Extract fat and meat from clean crabs, set aside.
Pound crab and extract juice on 1 1/2 cups of water
On a pan, sauté garlic and onions until golden brown then add crab fat, crab meat, 1 1/2 cups of crab wash, patis and MSG. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes.
Add corn starch and continue to simmer while constantly stirring until thick.
Put miki noodles in a strainer and dip in boiling water for 5 minutes or until cooked.
Lay drained noodles on a platter and pour the palabok sauce. Garnish with toppings and serve.