Buchi/Sesame Balls

The Filipino diet is rice-centric. From entrees to desserts, rice in one form or another can be found. Did I say desserts? Especially in desserts… One classic Asian sweet is the sticky rice ball. The Japanese have their mochi. We Filipinos have our buchi.

Growing up I’ve enjoyed this in its purest form. No sesame seeds. No flavours to choose from. The buchi sold in our barrio was simply deep fried sticky rice with a sweet mung bean filling. The buchi might have started as a ball straight out of the pan. But by the time the vendor gets to our place it’s more like a flattened disc. I did not mind. It was still scrummy.

Buchi’s popularity in the Philippines reached new heights when it formed part of Chowking’s (a well-known Chinese fast-food chain in the Philippines) menu. They serve the more traditional Chinese version of sesame coated balls filled with lotus cream/paste. If memory serves me right I think they also have ube (purple yam) flavoured buchi.

I find making buchi almost effortless. The most difficult part is making perfectly round balls hence my buchis are more rustic looking.

The filling is almost optional. My kids prefer them sans the filling. The recipe below is for sweet mung bean. But if you prefer a quicker version use canned lotus seed paste found in most Asian stores.

This is best eaten hot served with your favourite tea.

Buchi/Sesame Seed Puffs

Sweet Mung Bean Paste Filling

1/2 cup softened mung bean

1/2 cup caster sugar

Dough

3 cups glutinous rice powder

2/3 cup caster sugar

1 cup water

Sesame seeds

Oil for deep frying

Filling:

1. Mix the softened mung bean and the sugar together.

Dough:

1. Mix all the ingredients together to make the dough.

2. Divide dough into 20 equal pieces. You can go smaller or larger if you prefer.

3. Flatten each piece of dough into a circle.

4. Place a portion of the filling in the centre. Gather the edges of the dough to enclose the filling.

5. Roll into a ball and coat the outside with sesame seeds.

6. Heat oil for deep frying (medium heat). Deep fry the balls for approximately 5 minutes or until golden brown.

7. Serve hot with your favourite tea.

Sopas ala Beancounter (Filipino Chicken Soup with Pasta)

Sopas literally means soup. But for the Filipino it is so much more. Sopas is chicken soup with pasta which makes it a lot heartier. On top of that milk/cream is usually added which makes it far richer than ordinary chicken soup.

I've had my share of 'bad Sopas' as a youngster if you like. It has therefore failed to endear itself to me. I did not begin to like it again until much later when I started cooking it myself (at the prompting of my dear wife). 'Bad Sopas' for me means soggy pasta and extremely milky broth. Both of which are not that difficult to correct.

I substitute 'broken spaghetti' for the more commonly used shell pasta. I find that it keeps its shape and texture better than all the others (much like Royco Chicken Noodle Soup for anyone of you old enough to remember).




And instead of adding milk/cream at the end of the cooking process I leave it out altogether. It's available on the side after the soup has been served (again, an inspiration brought on by my lovely wife who prefers hers without cream).


Sopas ala Beancounter

3 cloves garlic chopped
1 large onion chopped
12 cups chicken stock
Half a poached chicken shredded
250g spaghetti broken into approximately 1 inch sticks
1 large carrot diced finely
1/4 cabbage shredded
Fish sauce/salt to taste
Black pepper to taste
A bit of oil of sauteing

1. Heat up a bit of oil in a large pot.
2. Saute the garlic until golden brown.
3. Add the onion and saute until soft and translucent.
4. Add the chicken and stir fry for about a minute.
5. Pour in all the stock and bring to a boil.
6. Adjust the taste by adding fish sauce/salt and black pepper.
7. Add the pasta and cook until al dente.
8. Add the vegetables and cook to your liking.
9. Dress with some hard boiled eggs (totally optional) and serve hot with freshly baked pan de sal.

SPAM Fried Rice

There is no middle ground with SPAM. You either love it or loathe it with passion. I’m in the love it camp and not afraid to show it.

And one of the best uses of SPAM is to put it on fried rice.

The cooking process is deceptively simple but the pre-cooking prep is anything but.

The foundation of any good fried rice is the rice. All the other ingredients (yes, including the SPAM) are merely sideshows to the main event. So, if you’re rice is no good to start with do not expect your fried rice will be any better. You can have the most luxurious ingredients imaginable but without a good rice foundation it’ll just be a wasteful exercise. Good fried rice can be as simple as the traditional Filipino sinangag with nothing but rice, garlic and salt.

There are lots of rice varieties available. Each one has a place in the culinary world. My choice for making fried rice is nothing but Jasmine (Milagrosa). You’ll be able to get away with ordinary long grain rice but it would lack the fragrance unique to Jasmine.

Your rice must also be at least a day old. Freshly cooked rice is sticky and will just turn to paste when fried. Characteristic of good fried rice is that the grains are separate and distinguishable from each other. Leaving your cooked rice in the fridge overnight helps a lot.

You don’t have to have egg in your fried rice. But if you do, remember there are two schools of thought on this. First is the “pre-cooked omelette” version and the other is the “add the raw egg before taking off the heat” variety. I personally like the pre-cooked omelette style. And that’s what I’ll show you here.

SPAM Fried Rice ala Beancounter

The Omelette
2-3 eggs beaten
A pinch of salt
A pinch of white pepper
A few drops of sesame oil
Oil for frying

1. Heat up a large pan. Add a bit of oil.
2. Add the salt, white pepper and sesame oil to the eggs and beat a little bit more.
3. Pour the mixture onto the pan and coat it as thinly as possible.
4. Cook on each side for a couple of minutes.
5. Take off the heat, roll and cut into ribbons.
6. Set aside.


The Fried Rice
3-4 cups of cooked rice (left overnight in the fridge)
Half a can of SPAM diced
2 spring onions chopped
1 clove garlic chopped (optional)
1 carrot diced (into very tiny cubes)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
A pinch of salt
Omelette
A few drops of sesame oil

(Do not limit your vegetable and meat choices to what’s listed. Celery, peas, etc. work really well. BBQ Pork/Roast Pork/Roast Duck from your neighbourhood Chinese BBQ are also excellent options.)

1. To begin with, take your day old rice out of the fridge. Separate the grains of rice by rubbing/crushing with your hands. You might need to moisten your hands with water from time to time to avoid the rice sticking to them.
2. Heat up a pan and add a bit of oil.
3. Stir fry the SPAM for a couple of minutes. Set aside.
4. Sauté the garlic and spring onion, followed soon after by the diced carrot. Add back the SPAM.
5. Add the rice. Stir and make sure everything is mixed well.
6. Add the salt, soy sauce and the oyster sauce. Stir well and make sure they evenly coat the rice. This will take a few minutes.
7. After 10 minutes or so of stirring your fried rice should be almost ready. Add the omelette and a few drops of sesame oil.
8. Serve hot.

Simple Wonton Noodle Soup ala Beancounter

I haven’t been feeling great lately. This was brought about by the change in season (it is winter down under) plus over indulging during the last long weekend we had. As a consequence I haven’t ventured into our kitchen for a while. It was only tonight that I had enough energy and inspiration to start cooking again.

Wonton noodle soup definitely ticks all the boxes during times like this when I’m craving something hearty and comforting (now that my appetite has returned from a few days of absence).

My version of this dish is quite simple. By that I mean I use fewer ingredients than some other recipes. When I have more time and I have them available in my pantry I might add a few more ingredients like dried mushrooms, water chestnuts, prawns etc. But I am time poor and I haven’t been to the shops lately. Also, I think, the simplicity of my recipe makes it a lot more versatile. You can have it in a soup or fried like a spring roll (I did both tonight). Putting a few fried wontons to your noodle soup adds a bit more character to the dish with its crunchy texture.


Simple Wontons ala Beancounter

500g pork mince
1 carrot finely chopped
1 large onion finely chopped
1 stick of celery finely chopped
2-3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 egg
Wonton wrappers

Noodle Soup
Chicken stock seasoned to your liking
Your preferred noodle
Your choice of vegetables

1. Combine all the wonton ingredients (except for the wrappers, of course).
2. Wrap the mixture using the wonton wrappers and chill for about half an hour before cooking. I’ve done three types of wrapping (please refer to one of the photos). All of them seem to keep their shape well when fried, steamed or boiled.
3. Boil some water and cook the wontons a few at a time. They’ll start rising to the top when they are ready. I prefer pre-cooking them in water rather than cooking them in the soup stock. The soup comes out much clearer.
4. You can use bought chicken stock. Just “asianise” it by adding ginger, soy sauce, pepper and a bit of oyster sauce (or whatever you fancy).
5. As for the noodles, follow what the packet says.
6. Put together the noodles, cooked wonton and some vegetables in a bowl and pour the hot soup over it.

Of Fried Noodles and Flat Peaches

Fresh egg noodles and I don’t get along well. I mean, I love eating it but cooking with it is another matter. All my past attempts to work with thin fresh egg noodles were failures. That’s why I am so delighted when a friend of mine introduced me to Kwan Wo Fried Noodles. This is not a product placement hiding behind a blog. I am just genuinely pleased about this noodle!

Fried Noodles are not new I’ve been told. They’ve been around for a while I just wasn’t aware of them. Probably because after so many disastrous endeavours I have steered clear of the fresh egg noodle section. I don’t know why it is called “fried” in the first place when it looks quite fresh to me. But regardless, I’m just so happy that this noodle retains its texture and shape even when subjected to high heat or boiling hot soup.

Ever the advocate for uncomplicated food I made a simple beef stir-fry noodles using this product with some baby bok choy (pechay to us Pinoys). The resulting meal was satisfyingly good (Refer to the recipe at the end of this blow).

Another new discovery in the past week was Donut Peach. I thought I’ve seen every kind of peach that is available. Apparently not! Looking at this peach variety at first you can be forgiven for thinking someone just stepped on it. It looks flat a little bit deformed. Apart from its unusual appearance it tastes exactly like a “normal” white fleshed peach. The other benefit of this strain is that it is easier to eat as it has got a much smaller stone.

Beef Stir Fry Noodles ala Beancounter

200g Fried Noodles
Some slices of beef
Some bok choy
1 clove garlic chopped finely
Oyster sauce
Soy Sauce
Chicken stock
A bit of oil

1. Heat up a bit of oil in a wok.
2. Brown the meat pieces then set aside. You might have to do this in batches to avoid steaming the meat.
3. Add a bit more oil if necessary. Stir fry the chopped garlic for a few seconds.
4. Add the meat back in.
5. Add the bok choy.
6. Add some oyster sauce and soy sauce to your taste.
7. Add about a cup of stock. Let it boil.
8. Add the noodles and cook for about 2 minutes. Serve hot.

At home – Pancit Sotanghon (Stir fried Bean-Thread Noodles) revisited

As mentioned in the previous post it was my wife’s birthday a couple of days ago. We would normally go out to dinner but that night we just didn’t feel like going anywhere. And at this stage in the pregnancy (7+ months) we’re not quite up to staying out very late.

So anyway, Cherry requested I cook noodles because she actually felt like having noodles and also as a birthday tradition. She already had her big dinner party on the weekend when we served noodles but she wanted more. Being the obedient husband (takusa) I gladly complied.

I love sotanghon (bean thread noodles). I actually did not know that it was made from soy beans until recently. How cool is that! I also like it because among all the noodle varieties it is the most forgiving. It’s pretty hard to get it wrong. You can’t do that with bihon (rice noodles) or miki (egg noodles) or even Canton noodles. Too much or too little broth means disaster. Not with sotanghon.

Pinoy sotanghon is typically bright yellow or orange due to the atchuete (annatto). I don’t think the atchuete adds anything to the dish apart from colour so I never actually use it.

Kidpawan’s Sotanghon

500g Sotanghon (bean thread vermicellit)

Chicken (whatever part you like except for claws, beaks and feathers)

2 cups chicken stock

2 medium sized onions chopped

4-6 cloves of garlic chopped

1/3 cup Kinchay (Chinese celery, you can substitute normal celery)

2 Chinese sausages chopped

1 large carrot julienned

1 cup mushrooms (fresh not canned)

1 head broccoli (optional)

Half a cabbage head

1/3 cup soy sauce (Lee Kum Kee Premium is the best. It’s light in colour and not too salty)

2-3 tablespoons oyster sauce

Salt

A bit of oil for sautéing

Freshly cracked black pepper

1. Boil the chicken together with one onion and a bit of salt in approximately 2 cups of water for about 10-15 minutes. Let it cool down. Save the stock. Chop the chicken.
2. Soak the noodles in cold water for about 5 minutes. Drain and set aside.
3. In a large wok heat up a bit of oil. Sauté the garlic until golden brown then add the chopped onions.
4. When the onions are soft and translucent add the chicken and the Chinese sausages.
5. Add the carrots. Add a bit of oyster sauce and soy sauce at this stage. Stir fry for a minute.
6. Add the rest of the vegetables plus some more soy sauce, oyster sauce and black pepper. Stir fry for about another minute. You do not need to cook them fully at this stage.
7. Take the stir fried mix off the wok and set aide.
8. Pour the stock in the wok and let it boil. Adjust the taste by adding salt, pepper, soy sauce and oyster sauce.
9. Lower the heat then add the noodles. If it is too dry add some more stock a little bit at a time to avoid soggy noodles.
10. Add the stir fried mix back in the wok. Mix it well with the noodles. Cook for another 5 minutes or so.
11. Add more black pepper. Cover the wok and turn off the heat. Let it stand for about 5-10 minutes.
12. Turn the heat back on and stir fry the noodles one more time before serving.
13. Serve with pan de sal.

Lunch Club – Pancit Sotanghon (Stir Fried Bean Thread Noodles)

Lunch Club is turning out to be a mini quest for me to introduce Filipino food to my community (made up of mostly non-Filipinos). Although Filipino food is equally as good as other Asian cuisines what we’re well known for outside of the Philippines is mainly classified as bizarre food. In fact, the only TV show that showcased Filipino cuisine was Bizarre Foods on the Travel & Living channel.

So anyway, in my own small way I am trying to make a difference. Today, we had Pancit Sotanghon (Stir Fried Bean Thread Noodles). Among all the stir fried noodles this is one I find the easiest to make. Bean Thread Vermicelli is quite forgiving in that it doesn’t break up quite easily like rice or egg noodles. You can have it cold like in a noodle salad. You can have it in a soup. Or like today’s menu, you can have it stir fried.

I especially like the texture of this noodle. It’s a bit jelly like. It doesn’t have a strong flavour like other types of noodles. It just absorbs the flavours of the other ingredients in the stir fry.

I made some Pan de Sal to go with the Sotanghon. Traditionally we squeeze Calamansi (Philippine Lime) into the noodles before eating but lemon would do for today.

Lunch Club – Mike’s Rice Vermicelli

For today’s lunch Mike has prepared Rice Vermicelli noodles.

leftover roti paratha

To supplement the lunch we’ve cooked what’s left of our roti parathas. To wash it all down today I’ve chosen soy milk!

aussie soy milk

Lunch Club – Sarah’s Chicken & Rice Vermicelli

First of all, I’m pleased to advise everyone that there’s been some rearrangement of the kitchen furniture. One of the tables was moved to the centre of the kitchen. This made the table a lot more useful in that you can actually fit four people.

miss Sarah preparing today's lunch

Today was Sarah’s (not her real name to protect her identity) turn to prepare lunch. It was Asian style chicken with rice vermicelli. The chicken was cooked with ginger and onions and diced up aubergine. This is then served with the rice vermicelli. Steamed broccoli was optional but it was a nice touch to include in the dish.

our table in its new location

I like my noodles more on the spicy side so I’ve added chillies with soy sauce to dress it up. It was a very satisfying meal even pregnant women will love! *wink* wink*

close up

Lunch Club – Mike’s Fried Rice

Tuesday is Mike’s (not his real name to protect his identity) day to prepare lunch. Being from the Lion City a lot was expected from him. Singapore is quite well known for its cuisine after all. Who could resist Chilli Crab prepared Singapore style? I couldn’t! Then there’s the famous Hainanese Chicken Rice! What about a steaming plate of Char Kuay Teow (I don’t really know how to spell this, I just know it sounds that way)? Or a bowl of Curry Laksa! Yum!

Our table for today

But were not having any it! *sigh* For today Mike has lovingly prepared fried rice (his style) for us! It’s chock full of ingredients including ham, dried shrimps, egg and...cabbage?!?!?!?!?! What the?!?!?!?!?!?! It certainly wasn’t traditional Singaporean fried rice!

the ever present cucumber salad (for balance) and the fried rice (close up)

The fried rice was a bit on the wet side but it certainly was flavoursome!

Rendezvous, Darwin Seafood Laksa

The Laksa at the Rendezvous was highly recommended by my colleagues in Darwin. The café’s opening hours was not the most convenient for me. I was only able to visit just this once on this trip. My workload was lighter than on my normal visits.

It was not the best Laksa I’ve ever had but it sure was good. The soup was spicy coconuty rich. I prefer an equal balance of egg and rice noodles but this one was served with more egg noodles. As a plus though, the egg noodles were really fresh and had a good bite to it. The seafood was real seafood. None of those “crab/prawn” imitation that’s very prevalent in seafood kuno takeaways in the land down under.


I’ve ordered home made lemon iced tea with my Laksa. The iced tea was excellent! I would go back to the Rendezvous Café just for that. It was unsweetened but it came with a serving of sugar syrup so you can sweeten it to your liking.

It’s 8.5 out of 10. The extra 0.5 for the excellent home made lemon iced tea!