Adola, tinobo and yummy porkchops

Anne was telling me today about her adventure in making adobo. I'm not used to calling her Anne. Dayang...the adventures of dayang.

Anne: Pwede palang maglasang tinola ang adobo.

Me: Anu raw?

Anne: Kase kase I followed the recipe and it said to put ginger.

Me: Anong nangyari?

Anne: Ayon, pagkagat mo lasang adobo tas pag matatapos mo nang kainin naglalasang tinola.

She's invented a new dish, calling it adola, or tinobo whichever you want it to be. Read about it at: http://demensya.blogspot.com/2006/09/adolatinobo-lesson-learned-for-today.html

So promising her my adobo recipe here it goes:

250g chicken, chopped
250g pork, cut into cubes
3-4 cloves crushed garlic
1 bayleaf
Black peppercorn
1 cup vinegar
1 1/2 cups dark soy sauce
chicken stock
salt
oil

1. Heat oil in a deep pan. Fry the chicken until golden brown. (Anne...golden ha hindi brown)

2. Add the garlic, bayleaf and peppercorn.

3. Cover the chicken with stock halfway. Simmer until chicken is cooked. (Anne
ulit...blup...blup...blup as opposed to blupblupblupblupblup)

4. At this stage the stock should almost be evaporated. Add in the vinegar and soy sauce to taste. It's better to add the vinegar and let it evaporate a little bit to take out the sharp taste. Afterwards add in the soysauce a little bit at a time. You might not need the full 1 1/2 cups of soy sauce.

5. Let the sauce simmer. You can let it evaporate until sticky or take off from the heat if you want a bit more sauce.

Pictures to follow.

I had a good dinner last night. After a crummy day at work, I was glad to be home. Mike didn't have work so as I got home he was preparing dinner. The thing with my husband is food prepared for me always has to be special. I'm not ashamed to say that...life is good. Last night we had Dutch inspired mash, Baked porkchops, brocolli and gravy. The mash was mixed with apples and spring onions. Different but it works really well with the porkchop.

Koeksisters...

Sitting beside Sean at work has given me new insight about South Africa. What I know about it could fit in the palm of my hands but that's a lot better than before. When I first came here I didn't know anything about South Africa...that's embarassing. Now I have moved up a bit in my geography lessons. I have made my first South African dessert...or maybe it's a snack.

When I'm stressed out at work I start browsing through food websites and that invariably makes someone hungry. I think maybe Sean was just tired of getting hungry seeing the food so he introduced me to a traditional South African dessert...or snack. Hmmm...note to self...must ask if it's a dessert or a snack. Palm of my hand remember?

Koeksisters...cook what? Captain cook? (I didn't say that out loud...I thought it was spelled cooksisters...duh) Aparently in SA it's a mix of Dutch, something I don't remember (I am getting quite forgetful lately) and British immigrants. Hence the dutch sounding name. Not bad eh? You learn something new everyday.

It's really easy to make (ok so Mike helped out a little bit, hey I was making dinner). The dough rests for an hour and puffs up quite a bit. After resting you roll them into strips or braid them. I opted for the braiding. It's then deep fried and coated with syrup flavored with cinnamon.



The finished product... mmmmmmmmm



It kinda reminded me of cinnamon buns and I mean it as a compliment. I think it turned out pretty good for my first foray into making it. Although Steve (another brilliant South African coworker) says it could do with a bit more syrup as they tend to overload the real thing with the syrup coating. If he says it then it must be true.

It got the thumbs up from Sean, I think Steve liked it as well. I may not be the real thing but I'm proud of my koeksisters... Yummm

Lazy english fares...

At the start of the week, Mike and I planned to have full english breakfast on our weekend off together. Last weekend, we planned to have dinner and movie afterwards. After scouring countless of restaurants and deciding on the so so movies on show at the O2 center it was a bust. First, we couldn't find a decent restaurant that had any seats available and a movie that we both wanted to watch. So we decided to stay in, make dinner and watch a marathon of CSI. We had some leftovers and Mike made yummy steak and chips for dinner. Perfect.



On Sunday, we had dimsum with Winnie and Ray. Afterwards a spot of shopping then home. Mike ordered takeaway pizza but I didn't really feel like it. So I made my no fail chorizo pasta. He couldn't resist.



This weekend we were better prepared. Full english breakfast at home. No need to rush to get out of bed. Sunday paper, tall glass of oj... I got the ingredients together from my local sainsburys on Thursday. Even more perfect.



Seriously though, I'm glad we only have english breakfasts once in a while. I'm still full...

Dumplings

Winnie gave me Ray's mother's (yeah it's a bit long winded I know) dumpling wrapper recipe and this weeked I decided to try it for myself. After much laughter (some turned out like pasties...courtesy of my very artistic husband), we had a couple of plates full of dumplings. Yum!

3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup water
salt

Add the salt to the flour. Boil the water and pour in the flour and mix well. Knead until the dough is formed.

You will have sore hands afterwards because of the hot water, but it is worth it. It beats using the store bought wrappers anytime.

Dinner?

Whenever Michael has a day off on a weekday, he spends his whole day sleeping or on the computer, but come dinner time, he always has something special prepared for me. Aww, it's mushy to gush about it, but he always makes a wonderful meal everytime I come home from work. This time, dessert was a bit late in coming, because it didn't come out the way he wanted. So out we whipped out our Martha Stewart dessert book and viola!

Starters: Prawns and roast peppers with chilli, sundried tomatoes and pine nuts


Main: Grilled tuna with sesame seeds, sauteed green beans, tomato and mango salad



Dessert: Millefeuille of mango with strawberry and mango coulis