Homemade Skinless Longganisa

Longganisa is one of my classic comfort food.   Although we have chorizo here in Spain, it's really nothing like longganisa from my beloved Philippines. 

 

I have been wanting to be able to make one but haven't really found an easy recipe so thank goodness to my pretty preggy friend Dianne as she was able to find one.  The plus side is that she has already tried this and approved of the result.  Being a great foodie that she is, I have no doubts the recipe is really going to give good results.

 

It took me a while before I was able to finally make this on my own as life happens and this mama gets burried with so much work and mama duties.

 

I did some modifications on the recipe to suit my liking... for one, I love my longganisa just a  tad bit on the sweeter side so, I used a bit more sugar.  You can refer to Dianne's recipe for the original recipe.

My recipe below is probably just good for 2-3 people so double it if you want a big batch.  Dianne's recipe calls for 1.5lbs ground pork and that's about 680 grams.

 

Ingredients:

 

250grams ground pork (I used the mix kind - mixed beef and pork)
1 carrot, grated (my special ingredient)

1.5 Tbs brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp freshly cracked black pepper (I may have used a bit more)

5 cloves garlic (yes, I used 5 times the original recipe.  we love garlic in the house so, need I say more?)

1/2 tsp anato/atsuete powder (I don't have anato seeds here)

1 Tbsp vinegar

1 or 2 tbsp of red wine
a little butter

Let's get down to the business.

Mix all ingredients in a bowl except for the wine and the butter.  Mix it good until all ingredients are well incorporated.  You can use a spoon or your clean hand. Hand is better.

I like sneaking in veggies in my dishes so I thought I'd sneak in some grated carrots in this. It wasn't a bad idea at all!

 

Roll a part of the mixture to a cling wrap.  The amount depends on how big or long you would want the longganisa to be.  I did about an inch thick.

Now, here's a trick I did.  I closed the sides of the cling wrap (after the longganisa is rolled inside) and made a knot on each side.  This made the longgaisa more compact and sort of tube-like round.

does this remind you of the classic ice candy?

excuse the blurry photo. I was just using my phone camera on my left hand.

 

You gotta let it cure overnight inside the fridge.  But if you are impatient like me, 1 or 2 hours may already be good... but not as good as overnight, so remember that ;-)

I also have a slightly different way of cooking longganisa.  I've used my mom's classic way of cooking longganisa and also added some Spanish touch to it.

 

In a skillet, I put the longganisa (cling wrap removed) with a little bit of water.  Let the water boil.  This way, I am more confident that the longganisa would be well cooked until the core part.  I love meat and I love it well done.  I may have also sprinkled the longganisa a dash of brown sugar while it's cooking (yes more)... but that really depends on your liking.

 

When the water is about to get dry, pour in your red wine. This gives tanginess to the longganisa and that nice dark color.  I am thinking that with the wine, you can totally ommit the anato powder.

Oh, just imagine how the mixture of different tastes would explode in your mouth with every bite!

Let it simmer until it caramelizes a bit.  Then put a little butter or if you prefer to be healthier, use vegetable or olive oil.  I used butter!

Then just let it fry until golden brown and the caramel becomes sticky.

 

You wanna be more sinful?  Cleanup that caramel in the frying pan with rice!

Yes, I committed more sin by frying the rice on the longganisa caramelized drippings!   And I must say, it is all worth it! Every.single.calorie.
 

BOW!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday Fun Food: Baked Donuts

So, Mommy Maggie has tempted me with her baked donuts.  I tell you, I couldn't get it off my mind.  I was waiting till she shares to us her recipe I am able to find a donut molder  (Just teasing, mommy Maggie! :-D ) but hoo hah, one time while Pinteresting, I found this recipe and I just couldn't wait anymore.  I still don't have a donut molder but I thought, what the heck.

 

I said,  I will turn them into a full-fledged donuts, holes included... by hook or crook!

 

I used my good ol' cupcake silicon molder and just poked a hole in the middle of each "donut" using apple core remover (is that how it is called?)

 

The secret weapon

 

When I was all done, making my improvised donut holes, I was blowing the smoke from my apple core remover Lara Croft style.

 



 And there they are!  They look poorly but hey, wait till they get all dressed up!

 

Patience is not one of my strength.  Consider this a warning... let the donuts cool off before trying to remove them from the molder. Or they will end up like this!

 

Peanut butter glaze, baby!

 

So there.  The recipe yielded about a dozen donuts in a mini size... (think of the diameter of a normal cupcake).   There is definitely going to be a repeat of this recipe! Ñom!

 

Friday Fun Food: Scones

Might I invite you for a tea and some scones? (imagine a very strong english accent)

Some weeks ago, bloggy fried Kristeta twitted about her having some coffee and scones.  I thought scones! very english :)  I may have not mentioned this before but I love many things about UK.  I love their tea, I love their accent. I love many of their city structures and most of all, I love the accent (although I do love australian accent more than english heh). Don't you love the way they say something like "noi" whenever they say no or know? .. anyways.... I wanted to talk about scones and not the english accent... so moving on...

Could there be anything more english than scones?  As I was saying, bloggy friend Kristeta twitted about coffee and scones... and then on the same day while browsing a Thermomix magazine, I saw a recipe for scones.  I doin't knoi about you-i but for mey, It's definitley a soign that I muhst maike myself sum skohns! (Excuse me for trying hard on my english accent).

I got super busy these days but finally, I got the chance of making sum skohns! (and this is like a couple of weeks ago and only got the time to blog about it.. uhm now)  An I haf just got to shaire it with youi! ;-) 

I did this using Thermomix.  I am pretty sure that this can be done with something like Kitchen Aid or a hand mixer. 

The ingredients are the following:


flour

sugar

cold milk

cold butter cut into cubes

chemical yeast

salt

 

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 200ºC

2. Put in the flour, yeast, salt, sugar and butter in the mixing bowl

3. Mix for 5 seconds/speed 5 on thermomix.  If using Kitchen Aid or hand mixer, use medium-high speed but do not over mix.  The consistency we are looking for is like a sticky breadcrumbs.

4. Add milk and mix for 20 seconds/speed 6 on thermomix.  For Kitchen or hand mixer, use medium speed until the dough comes together.

5. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl. Do not knead.  Using a rolling pin, carefully and slowly flatten it out up to 3cm thick.  Tip: I put baking sheet on the table to lessen the mess and then lightly floured the baking sheet.

6. Using  a round cutter, gently press it on the dough to cut out the scones.  Tip:  Dip the cutter on the flour each time to prevent the scones from sticking to the cutter.



7.  The left over dough can be pressed together again and make another batch.  The result will not be the same though but still good enough.  Every time the left over dough is pressed together, the sponginess of the dough lessens.

8. Place the cut out scones on a baking pan covered with baking sheet.  Bake for about 12-15minutes at 200ºC

9.  Be patient and wait.  Prepare some nice tea to accompany your about to be ready scones.

10.  Scones should be done when it's light golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped on top (in Tagalog, kapag pinitik sa ibabaw :-D )

11. Serve with your favorite jam and/or cream cheese or whatever suits your fancy!







Friday Fun Food: Lumpia Wrapper

ok, not so fun.... as every try is a fail!

I really NEED to be able to learn how to do this lumpia wrapper because one, ready-made lumpia wrapper (also known as spring roll wrapper) and two, 'd love to prepare cheese-sticks on the up coming second birthday celebration we are planning for Little Spanish Pinay.

So far, I've tried two different recipes:  from Panlasang Pinoy and the other one is from Casa Veneracion.  Both turned out to be quite thick and it breaks open while the cheese sticks are being fried.  The one from Panlasang Pinoy is actually used for making fresh lumpia we normally used the same for making cheese sticks.

This is the kind of dough I need to be able to do to make the right spring roll wrapper.  But I am not buying the book just for this.  I tried to research for the recipe but no avail :(

So far, this is the best I got:

 

It seems a good candidate but the wrapper is thicker than it should be and when I fried them, the inside is not crispy even though the outside is already golden brown.  A little bit more time on the frying pan will already burn it.... so this last attempt is also a fail.  HELP.

Friday Fun Food: Creamy Broccoli and Cauliflower Crumble

Vegetarians, this is for you! Meat lovers who also love veggies, this one is also for you!  I swear, with this recipe, you wouldn't miss not having meat to accompany these veggies!

I love veggies but I normally would want it accompanied by even just a little meat. But when I tried this recipe, it didn't matter that it has zero meat in it. It was DELISH! It's all veggies but doesn't mean low in calories though... It has bechamel sooooo I need not say more.

Since I was really surprised of how it turned and hubby and I reaaally loved it, I decided to do it again and this time, I'd like to share it.  The recipe I used is for Thermomix but I believe it can be done perfectly without it.  A food processor or grinder can help though.

So, here we go.

Ingredients:
     For the crumble:
          30g Cashew
          Fresh parsley
          50g grated cheddar cheese  (I used matured cheddar cheese but any type should be ok)
          50g oatmeal (I used quick cooking but I believe it doesn't matter)

     Veggies:

          Water
          350g cauliflower
          350g Broccoli
          Salt

     For the bechamel
          30g olive oil extra virgin
          50g butter
          60g flour
          500g milk
         100g grated cheddar cheese
         1 tsp of Dijon mustard
         1/2 tsp of salt
         Pinch of freshly ground pepper
         Pinch of nutmeg

Instructions:

1. Prepare the crumble. Using food processor or grinder, process/grind the cashew until it becomes into small tidbits. You'd want to have nice little chunks and not a fine powdered cashew. No food processor? nor grinder?  Do it tradditional way. Use mortar and pestle or put the cashew inside a bag and pound it using rolling pin or even a strong glass bottle.

2. Chop the parsley and mix it with ground cashew. Mix in the oatmeal and the grated cheddar cheese. Mix well then set aside.

The crumble

3. Wash and cut the broccoli and cauliflower and steam for about 20mins.  You can also boil it if preferred but steaming is a healthier option.

4. Make the bechamel: Pour the olive oil in a heated sauce pan and add the butter. Stir until the butter is all melted. Put in the flour little by little and stir continuously until the mixture becomes homogenous. 

5. Slowly pour in milk while stirring (Bechamel is a lot of stirring so have patience. But it's all worth it I promise). You might need to try and press the lumps of flour to help blend it in well. Then pour in the rest of the ingredients: cheese, nutmeg, dijon mustard, ground black pepper and salt. Keep stirring until the whole mixture becomes thick and perfectly homogenous.   This is nice workout for your arm ;-)   See, this ingredient is really healhty.

Thermomix can really come in handy on this part as it will do the stirring for me. You get a perfect bechamel.

6. Put the broccoli and cauliflower in a glass baking pan, season it with salt according to your taste.

7.  Pour in bechamel on top of the brocolli and cauliflower

8.  Sprinkle the crumble on top.

9. Put the whole thing inside a pre-heated oven to 180 degrees celsius and bake for 20mins

Beautiful!

The result is this! And did I say it's delish?

It is good as appetizer if you will be serving more than 4 people but it can also be served perfectly as main dish.  The recipe says this is good for 6 servings - I say it can be galped down by 4 people easily :-D

Ok wait, I gotta tell a secret. The pictures of the recipe here is from the second time I did the recipe and I was out of cashew... the other choices I have in my kitchen were peanuts, pistachios, walnuts, macadamia nut and in the end, I chose pistachios but left out the parsley. I thought pistachios already have a distinct taste so parsley might not be a good match for it. The result? Superb!

So you can even change what the crumble contains but I must say the oatmeal is a must and a very healthy option :) 

Enjoy and happy almost-weekend!!

Homemade Fiber-packed Yummy Crackers - what else can you ask for?

This is what I love about blogging.  One can get inspired in so many ways and learn about so many things.  It's like travelling the world!

A long time friend has started blogging, yay! as I visited her blog, I came across one Mia who posted a recipe inspired by another blogger, Faith.  The wonderful recipe is for making a homemade rosemary crackers.  Ah, I love crackers.  In the Philippines, we have a lot of different crackers with different flavors and I love of them.  As I stumble upon this post I immediately said I must do this.

For one, it is healthy, easy to make and the ingredients are all available in my kitchen.  Plus, I was hoping the little one who needs a lot of fiber would love this.  Then I know I can play with the ingredients using different flavor, etc.  But for the first time trying this, I followed the original recipe.  I was too excited, I did this the following day after I read the blog :-D

So, below is how I followed Faith's recipe :)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of oats

1/2 cup of almond meal*

~tablespoon of rosemary (dried or fresh)

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 ounces grated sharp cheddar cheese

1-2 tablespoons water (I ended up using 3 tablespooons water)

I used toasted almonds because it's what I have in my kitcchen.  The recipe calls for 1/2 cup almonds meal so I just put the peeled almonds in my measuring cup.. I let it overflow and then processed it.

Until it looks like this.  Maybe a few more seconds of processing wouldn't hurt.

Then the oatmeal. I used the traditional one.  Processed it until there's no more whole grain.

I used matured cheese. If you live in a country like I do that uses grams instead of ounces, 3 ounces is about 85 grams. I used about 95 grams of cheese. I love cheese! I grated these babies and mixed put together with the rest of the ingredients.

Then I just mixed all the other ingredients minus the water.

I slowly added the water while the blades are spinning.  I ended up using 3 tablespoon of water.  I think the consistency was just right.

Sorry I didn't have a photo of the dough after it was processed but it's very similar to what Faith has:

Only that mine looks finer. I think I processed the oats and the almonds too finely.

Then I put it on a baking sheet ocvered with parchment paper.  I flattened it a little bit with my palm and then covered it with another parchment paper then proceeded to flatten it even more with a rolling pin. My rolling was too big though for my baking sheet and it's just couldn't roll on all sides so I ditched the rolling pin and took a round glass and used it instead.  After working on it for some minutes, I think it turned out fine.

It is important to make sure that dough is evened out well otherwise, it will not get cooked evenly. Like what happened to mine.  Part of it got burned more than the other parts.  See, I was to in a hurry to get it done... patience is a virtue I must remind myself a little more often.

Put it in the oven preheated to 350ºF or 180ºC and cook for about 15-20 mins.  15mins is too short for me.  The dough was still soft to touch so, I added 2mins then added another 4 minutes which I think is too much.  It does seem like my crackers were cooked more than it should but they're still good anyways.  Next time I do this,  I'll probably let it sit in the oven for 18mins tops.  Then let it cool and see if it will harden more.

The output!!

Sorry I don't have a nice presentation like Faith and Mia does as I am kind of multitasking when I was doing this yummy crackers.  But I swear on my long beautiful legs (I kid!) that they are really good!

They also taste really nice with cream cheese, marmalade, peanut butter!

Experiment with them! Experiment with the ingredients!  You can use other herbs, lemon zest, maybe other dried fruit similar to almonds?  Use your favorite cheese! Doesn't have to be only cheddar.  Next time I will try to use local cured or semi-cured local cheese here.  Spain has a lot of yummy type of cheese :)

 Go ahead, try this - there'll be no regrets. 

Friday Fun Food: Sneaky Veggie Part 2

Yesterday is another one of those many days where I couldn't think of anything to prepare for hubby's pack lunch for today.  I'd like to share this recipe I did that unexpectedly, was commended by both hubby and the little rascal in the house.

I also took the chance to sneak in carrots in the recipe.  Little Spanish Pinay eats some leafy vegetables but carrots is not one of her faves.  So, for picky eaters, this can be a good trick to get them eat some healthy veggies.

Without further ado, here's my winner recipe for yesterday.  The pictures from below is from a repeat performance I did today for lunch... you know what they say about one good turn deserving another one?

Fresh parsley chopped, garlic chopped and grated carrots.  The carrots is our secondary star ingredient.  It gives nice orangey color to the rice plus it's packed with vitamins and all other goodness like giving you that skin glow because carrots is rich in melanin!

Be careful not to grate your fingers... if your carrot is this small already, stop grating and just eat it, it's good for you! ;-)

Of course we need some rice.  It's our star ingredient.  This is a left over rice.  I sprinkle is with a little water and then mash it a bit with my hands (that's the secret!) so it's kinda loose.  I also added a little bit of iodized salt just to give it a little more taste.

We proceed on heating the olive oil in the pan... I used a little butter together with the olive oil to give it some more yummy taste but the butter can be omitted for the health conscious :)  Then sautee the garlic until you can already smell its goodness or until it starts to brown.

Then sautee the grated carrots and the green peas.  I forgot to mention the grean peas at the beginning but it's actually optional. 

After a few minutes, add the rice and mix until everything is beautifully even.



When you feel like the veggies are almost done, sprinkle the parsely in the most artistic way you can.

Let's see all that goodness up close and personal.  Yum? YUM!

We got some left over fish from last night so I placed it on top of the rice to heat it up.



The rice can be eaten as is or accompanied by your other favorite comfort food.

Try it it's good! :)