Got this recipe from Good Housekeeping Magazine. I was intrigued with this recipe. It made me think what is special with this that is not common to the traditional Adobo. I just realized after checking the ingredients and the way it was cooked.

So, the last time I went to the grocery, I bought the necessary ingredients for me to cook this recipe. Here are the ingredients needed for Chinese Adobo recipe.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 Kilo Chicken Cut into pieces
3 tablespoon Sesame Oil
5-8 cloves garlic Crushed or Minced
5 slices ginger
1/4 teaspoon pepper powder
1/4 cup rice wine
1 cup Kikkoman soy sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
2 cups water


Cooking Preparation:

1. In a pan heat sesame oil and fry garlic and ginger.

2. Add chicken cuts, cook until lightly browned.

3. Pour in rice wine, soy sauce, sugar, pepper and water.

4. Cover and simmer adobo for 30 minutes or until tender and the liquid has been reduced to 2/3 of the original volume.

5. Simmer in low heat so the meat absorbs the marinade for added flavor.

6. (Optional) You can splash with some sesame oil before serving. In my case since it's very oily already, I did not splash additional sesame oil.

Chinese Adobo has a different taste compared to the traditional Adobo because of its ingredients. Kikkoman sauce has a different flavor compared to the traditional soy sauce that we are using. The rice wine and the sesame oil that gives different taste as well. You can try this recipe for you to find out.

Bicol Express is a popular dish from Bicol Region of the Philippines. According to some Bicolanos, the original Bicol Express has less coconut or none at all and has more "siling labuyo" or hot chili. It is said that you have to run as fast as its namesake train for a glass of water after having a bite of the dish.

Bicol Region is known for its dishes cooked in coconut milk and highlighted by hot chili peppers or siling labuyo in our term. I have learned cooking bicol express through recipe books and as I have observed, there's a lot of version in cooking bicol express. Here's one of its version on how to cook bicol express.


Ingredients:

1/2 kg pork thinly sliced
2 tablespoon cooking oil
1 tablespoon Chopped garlic
1 head chopped onions
2 cups seeded and sliced hot chili pepper(siling Labuyo)
2-3 teaspoon of Bagoong alamang
1 cup of thick Coconut milk
2 cups thin coconut milk
2 cups Fresh long green chillies sliced lengthwise
salt to taste

Cooking Procedure:

1. Saute garlic in hot oil. Add onions and cook until translucent.
2. Add in the sliced pork. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes.
3. Add bagoong alamang and chopped hot chilli(siling labuyo). Stir until the pork is completely covered by the mixture.
4. Pour in thin coconut milk and simmer for another 5 minutes.
4. Add the thick coconut milk and the sliced hot long green chili and bring to a boil.
5. Continue cooking for about 20 minutes or until half of the liquid has evaporated.
6. Add salt if necessary.

Note: You can decrease or increase the amount of siling labuyo according to your taste.

Adobo is a Spanish term for dressing or seasoning. However, here in the Philippines, Adobo is a recipe name which is a popular dish. Pork and chicken are two popular types of adobo.

According to history, when the Spanish invaded the Philippines, they encountered the cooking process of the Filipinos that involved stewing with vinegar. This kind of cooking method is a way to preserve the meat at once because there was no cold storage at that time yet. Spanish then referred the method as Adobo which is the Spanish word for marinade. Eventhough it has a name taken from the Spanish, the cooking method is originally of the Philippines.

Adobo has been the favorite "baon" of some Filipino mountaineers and travelers because of its long shelf-life. It keeps well without refrigeration because of the vinegar(one of its primary ingredient which holds back the growth of bacteria).

Adobo varies from regions as I have observed. In Batangas, their adobo is different from the adobo that I used to cook. When I was in Cebu, their adobo is also different since they do not use soy sauce.

So, let us learn how to cook adobo, this is the most common method that I have learned from my grand mother.


Ingredients

1 kilo pork liempo, cubed
2 tablespoon garlic, crushed
3 tablespoon soy sauce
2 dried bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon peppercorn
1/3 cup vinegar
water
salt to taste


Cooking Procedure:

1. Combine the first three ingredients, pork liempo, garlic and soy sauce. Marinate for an hour.

2. In a large pot, cook the marinated pork liempo for 3-5 minutes.

3. If the mixture turns dry, add about 1/2 cup of water. Simmer covered until completely tender.

4. Add pepper corn, dried bay leaves and vinegar. Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes.

5. Taste and add salt if needed.

6. Serve hot with rice.


If you like this recipe, kindly share this to your friends.

Banana Que or Banana Cue is one of my favorite street food. Way back in Davao where bananas are very abundant, it's being sold for P4.00 per stick. There's two whole banana in a stick, but that was around year 2004 I think. Now, I'm no longer in Davao so, I don't have any idea of how much is the current price of banana cue per stick.

Banana que is sometimes confused with barbecue maybe because of the skewer stick. I remember children in our community call it "barbekyong saging". Banana cue is different from barbecue in a way, that barbecue is being grilled while banana que is deep fried.

Ingredients

16 pcs ripe saba banana (others wanted it to be semi-ripe)
2 1/2 cup cooking oil
1/4 cup brown sugar
8 pcs skewer stick (optional)


Procedure:

1. Peel off banana.
2. Heat cooking oil over a high flame in a large pan or wok.
3. Deep fry bananas for 5 minutes or until it turns golden brown.
4. Sprinkle brown sugar over bananas. Cook for another 3 minutes or until sugar has melted. Stir occasionally to cover all bananas with sugar.
5. Remove bananas when done and drain excess oil.
6. Skewer stick is optional, if you wish to sell banana que then you need to have this. But if it's just for home consumption, you can use fork so not to spend extra money.

Pesto is an Italian term which means to pound. It's a sauce originating in Genoa in the Liguria region of northern Italy according to wikipedia.

Though pesto pasta is not a Filipino dish, most Pinoys love this dish. There are several versions in cooking pesto pasta. You can follow some simple instructions in the internet how to cook pesto pasta or just experiment on your own.

Pesto Ham Pasta, this is my first try to cook pesto pasta and this is my first version adding ham to it. You can replace ham with chicken or bacon. It's all up to you.

Ingredients:

250g Linguine pasta
1 cup diced ham
2 tbsp olive oil or butter
1/2 cup cashew nuts, crushed (optional)
3 tbsp parmesan cheese
3 tbsp pesto
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 head onion, minced
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup evaporated milk
salt and ground black pepper to taste

Directions

1. Cook pasta following package directions. Drain and set aside

2. Meanwhile, brown garlic in a small pan in few teaspoons of olive oil or butter over medium low heat.

3. Add onions, ham, pesto, parmesan cheese, pepper, salt and cashew nuts. Cook until onions are soft or appears transparent.

4. Pour milk and heavy cream, mix well and simmer for 2 minutes or until the sauce thickens. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed.

5. Toss the ham and pesto sauce with the hot pasta.

Pesto is originally made of fresh basil leaves, olive oil, pine nuts, salt, garlic, grated cheese, which are pounded using a marble mortar or a food processor. For convenience I used ready made pesto that can be bought in the supermarket.

Beef broccoli is definitely not a Filipino dish but this is being served in some Filipino household. I've been searching the net for the origin of this dish, but I could not find a concrete proof of its origin. Some says it's a Chinese dish but others says it is just a standard item in Chinese restaurants but it is not a Chinese dish because broccoli is an Italian vegetable.

Well, beef broccoli is a simple recipe to follow simply because you only have two main ingredients for this dish which is beef and broccoli. You can actually make this simple recipe much simpler if you are going to use beef broccoli ready mix seasoning. However, you can try that later. It would be better if you know how to cook beef broccoli traditionally so, if ready mix seasoning is not available, you know what to do. Here are the ingredients for beef broccoli or beef with broccoli recipe.


INGREDIENTS

475g beef sirloin, sliced thinly across the grain
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 cups broccoli florets
2 tbsp cooking oil
1 tsp cornstarch, dissolved in 1 tbsp water


Beef Marinade

1/2 tsp cornstarch
1/8 tsp ground black pepper
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp rice wine

For the sauce

1/4 cup beef broth
1 tsp rice wine
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp oyster sauce


Cooking Procedure:

1. In a bowl, combine the beef marinade ingredients. Add the beef slices, mix well and marinate for 15 minutes.

2. In a separate bowl, mix the sauce ingredients. Set aside.

3. Cook broccoli in a salted water for about 2 minutes then drain water if done.

4. Heat a large pan or wok over high heat, pour in cooking oil when the wok is really hot.

5. Put the beef and spread it evenly or arrange it. Fry for one minute and do the same on the other side of the beef.

6. Add the garlic to the pan and fry for 1 minute.

7. Pour in the sauce and let it simmer for 2 minutes.

8. Add the broccoli and cook for 1 minute.

9. Pour in cornstarch mixture and cook until the sauce boils and thickens.

Beef Tapa is one of the favorite morning dish of most Filipinos. It's one easy recipe that anyone can prepare without any cooking expertise needed.

Tapa means cured or dried with a sweet and delicious taste. Traditionally, tapa is being dried directly under the sun to preserve the meat. However, doing that procedure is seldom practice nowadays. Commercialized beef tapa does not undergo drying anymore.

Tapa is one easy recipe for those busy Moms who does not have enough time to cook in the morning or during dinner, so it's better to have beef tapa ready in your fridge. Here are the ingredients that you need and how to prepare beef tapa.


Ingredients:

500 grams beef sirloin, thinly sliced
3 tbsp garlic, minced
2 tbsp sugar
1 cup soy sauce
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp salt

Procedure:

1. Combine all ingredients into a mixing bowl, mix well.
2. Cover and marinade for a minimum of 12 hours or at least overnight.

Cooking Instructions:

This cooking steps help you get a tender beef tapa.

1. In a pan, place enough water just to cover your marinated beef.
2. Add 3-4 tbsp tapa sauce to retain the taste of your marinated beef and 3 tbsp cooking oil.
3. Cook beef tapa until the water evaporates and fry with the remaining oil.
4. Best with atchara and fried egg.

Beef tapa is also one good source of income. One of my neighbors used to sell tapa and tocino to her friends and in our area. Now that you know how to prepare beef tapa, you can now start making money at home.

Calamares or Calamari is one of my favorite appetizer. It's not just a simple appetizer for me but can be a good dish to pair with rice.  When I was still working, this dish served as my lunch or dinner.

Here in the Philippines, Calamares is one of the famous street foods together with kwek-kwek. However, this food does not end only in the streets because a lot of restaurants are now serving Calamares.

Fried Calamari is a Mediterranean dish that consists of a batter-coated squid, deep fried and being serve with a lemon on the side. Other restaurant serve it with mayonnaise instead of lemon as condiments.

Here's how to cook fried calamari or calamares.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb medium to large sized squid, sliced into rings about 1/2 inch
2 cups flour
2 cups cooking oil
2 tbsp dried parsley
1 tsp iodized salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
lemon juice or kalamansi juice

Procedure:

1. For Batter, combine all dry ingredients
2. Put the squid into the batter, make sure the squid is well coated.
3. Fry for 2-3 mins (oil temperature must be 350-375 degrees to achieve crispy calamari)
4. Sprinkle a little bit of salt into the fried calamari for flavor
5. Squeeze lemon juice or kalamansi juice on top. May serve with mayonnaise if you want.

Image Source: cocinay recetas

Humba recipe is a very common dish in the southern part of the Philippines and one of the comfort foods of every Filipino household. During my child days, my late grand mother would always cook Humba for us and I really love her version of cooking it.

Humba is somehow similar to the famous pork adobo in terms of appearance. It uses the same basic ingredients of pork adobo, however there are additional ingredients added for it to have a different taste.

Based on the information gathered, humba is from Chinese origin, the rump of ham or pork cooked with garlic, water, soy sauce, brown sugar and other spices.

Pork humba has a lot of variations from household to household. And I will be sharing one of those variations using Piña as an additional ingredients.

Ingredients:

1/2 Kilo Pork liempo, cut into chunks
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 head onion, diced
1 tbsp cooking oil
2 1/2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp cane vinegar
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp tausi(salted black beans)
1 piece laurel leaf
1 tsp whole paminta
1 cup pineapple chunks
1 cup pineapple juice(syrup from pineapple chunks)

Procedure:

1. Preheat pan with oil, cook pork liempo until it turns brown.

2. Add onion and garlic and let it stay for a while or until the onion turns transparent.

3. Pour in soy sauce together with laurel leaf and whole paminta.

4. Add pineapple juice and simmer over medium heat until pork is tender. Add water if needed then bring to a boil.

5. Add vinegar, salted black beans and sugar. Simmer for 4 minutes.

6. Add the pineapple chunks, mix and allow to simmer for 3 minutes.

7. Serve warm and enjoy.

This version of pork humba is coming from Visayas and Mindanao. Other version includes dried banana blossoms which my late grand mother used to cook for us. You can replace pineapple chunks with dried banana blossoms if you want. On the other hand, Luzon's version of humba does not have salted black beans, instead they use bananas or toasted bread.

Image Source: Del Monte Recipe Guide