On My Palette

The days have been so mercilessly hot and humid. Living in a tropical climate all my life would make me think that I could take this summer beating but this is somewhat too plain much!  After going through all those rains and floods last year, now this?

The unbearable heat leaves you drained of energy – move an inch, and you’re already shedding buckets of sweat! ﾊｯ!(｀ﾛ´ ; )  Sure there is an AC at my place of work, but it’s the Holy Week break (yahoo!) so I’m at home now.  My unreliable AC can’t fight off the heat in my room. During the hottest part of the day (10 am to 4 pm) I can’t help but lie down and sleep off the heat.  Ugh! huhuhu!

But summer has its perks: fruits like mangoes, melons, avocado, and watermelons are cheaper and abundant; tropical flowers like our fiery fuchsia bougainvillea seem to be thriving in this unusual dry spell; since school is out, there’s less traffic jams, and of course, summer means BEACH OUTINGS!

Last Sunday, we had our company outing at Laiya, Batangas.  I brought along my best bud, Levlev.  I’ve been going to Laiya every summer since 2004  (except last year though 😦 ). It’s my most favorite beach (even topping Boracay in my list) so far…

Located in San Juan in Batangas, Laiya is a three hour drive from Manila.  The beach is clean, and has no dangerous waves… great for kayaking.

Casa Remo was where we stayed.  It is reasonably priced and has small apartelles and one big house (above) with plenty of rooms.  It is not beside the beach though, so you have to walk a short distance to get to it.

Palm Sunday 2010: we celebrated mass at White Cove Resort.

Early Monday morning, we woke up to make use of the time left… swim to our hearts’ content!

Watcha waitin’ for? Ligo naaaah! Woo-hoo!

I♡♡♡  Laiya, forevah! \(♡´∀`♡ )/ If only this is the view that greets me when I look outside my house.  Sighs.

if not, then, i’m praying for the rains to come soon…*fingerscrossed*

~pls Lord umulan na sana~ (^人^ ) 雨乞いをする

The FooDorama Challenge: I Watch It, I Try It!

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Movie Inspiration: Sikgaek

Sikgaek or Le Grande Chef is a Korean movie released in 2007. It is based on a comic strip series by Young-man Ha.  It is a story about two men, both schooled in royal culinary arts, competing in a cooking tournament in order to become the rightful heir to Korea’s last Royal Chef of the Joseon Dynasty.

This is the first movie and non-Japanese drama to be featured in my FooDorama Challenge so I thought it proper to choose something that I truly liked.  Any movie about food is such a delightful thing to watch, especially if the food prepared is beautifully photographed and lovingly presented with much pride and creativity.  So that is why I really adore this movie so much that I watched it twice. The climax was unexpected yet sensible.

Movie Food: Samgyeopsal

Since it was a movie about Korean cooking, there were many dishes to choose from.  However, many of the dishes presented during the competition were obviously too complicated (and too “Iron Chef-ish”) to make for an amateur cook like me.  Anyway, since I find the movie so inspiring, I will feature two dishes. One is samgyeopsal and the other I have yet to name soon in a future post (besides, talking about it may also mean giving away the movie’s ending).

Samgyeopsal (also spelled as samgyupsal) is a Korean dish which requires the liempo or unseasoned thin slices of pork belly meat to be grilled or fried by the diner himself and to be eaten while freshly cooked with lettuce and garlic.

The KMovie Connection: In this scene, our protagonist, Sung-chan (played by Kim Kang Woo, at left), and his friends eat at a theme restaurant that serves samgyeopsal while they talk about the upcoming culinary contest.

Sung-chan’s samgyeopsal being fried using a hot pan on their table with slices of garlic and onions.

Jin-Su (Lee Hana) shows how to eat samgyeopsal: placing pork slices on pieces of lettuce and perilla with ssamjang before eating.

Other recent KDramas that feature samgyeopsal are:

The Man Who Can’t Get Married (2009): In this scene, single lady, Dr. Ja Moon Jung (Uhm Jung Hwa), didn’t have anyone to accompany her to eat grilled meat in a restaurant so she eats samgyeopsal alone in her apartment.

Dandelion Family (2010 – ongoing): In episode 10, sisters Mi Won and Ji Won make up after a slight spat by drinking soju and eating samgyeopsal as pulutan while talking about memories of their childhood.

The FooDorama Challenge: Going Korean with Samgyeopsal

Note: FDC#6 is also my Sunday Lunch Project#7.

Any dish that requires the use of my table-top griddle can mean something fun is afoot. 🙂 This dish had me looking for a Korean grocery store on the internet.  Good thing I discovered one near my place of work.  I bought the necessary ingredients and then, last Sunday, I invited my usual bunch of lunch guests for a Korean noonday meal.

I did not mention what I had in store since it was a surprise…

For samgyeopsal, I bought thinly sliced liempo (top left) and cut it into two inch pieces.  At top right, I also got lettuce and perilla or sesame leaves (available at any Korean grocery).

Ssamjang is a condiment also necessary for samgyeopsal.  It is the ‘ketchup’ of Koreans made of fermented soybean paste, chili paste, sugar, and other spices.  I am not sure if it’s available in the supermarket now but if not, one can also get it in a Korean grocery.

We then cooked the pork, kimchi, onions, garlic, and mushrooms. Just like our Yakiniku dining experience, the ingredients were spread out on the table while my guests helped themselves with the cooking and eating.

The fun part is when you spread ssamjang on a piece of lettuce, place the cooked pork (dip it in sesame oil with salt and pepper first), perilla leaf, garlic, and onion. If there is still space, add mushroom, kimchi, and/or rice like I did and roll it up into a ball and pop it in your mouth (if it could fit!). It could be messy but it was superb!

So. Was my Samgyeopsal a hit or a miss?

Answer: Definitely “mashi-nun!” (hope i used the right word for ‘delicious’).  It was something we will have over and over again (but I have to or else what will I do with all this ssamjang?).  After the meal, nothing was left, not even a drop of kimchi juice. However, unseasoned pork was something too strange for Pinoys like us to appreciate so it wouldn’t matter if you season it (with salt and pepper) before grilling or not.  Go with whatever you prefer, I guess.  Btw, this meal goes well with soju (Korean vodka-like beverage) but since i don’t drink (much), ice cold coke can hit the spot, too.

~BURP!~  ε= (^0^*)げっぷ♪ *oops*

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—————— fodocha, sunlupro

Dish info source: wikipedia

Ssamjang info source: wikipedia

Kmovie info source: wikipedia

For Sunday Lunch Project #6, we had Goi Buoi or Vietnamese Pomelo Salad that is perfect for the hot, humid days of early summer.

The first time I had this was when we ate at Pho Hoa.  It is such a refreshing and delightful salad that one can’t easily forget.  It is easy to prepare, and quite nutritious, too.

Pomelo is what we call suha (Tagalog) and cabugao (Visayan) in my country. It is also known as the Chinese grapefruit.  It is the largest citrus fruit and is native to Southeast Asia.  We usually eat it for dessert or snack: the citrus fleshy segments are taken out of its membranous covering, best served cold, and dipped in coarse salt. Mmm, yum!

For an amateur cook like me, I like goi buoi because it is such an easy recipe that could surely impress your lunch guests in an instant…

To make Goi Buoi, cut strips of carrots, cucumbers and crab sticks, placing it on a bed of lettuce for presentation.

Normally shrimps are used for Goi Buoi but since I was on a budget, I used cooked chicken instead, and garnished it with peanuts, cilantro and mint.

And of course, don’t forget to add most important ingredient (which I almost did *facepalm*) – the pomelo cut into bite-size pieces.

Toss all ingredients.  For the dressing, it varies from recipe to recipe on the net. One says to just add fish sauce but I found it wanting so I added kalamansi (or lime) juice and sugar to the fish sauce.

So. Was my Goi Buoi a hit or a miss?

Answer: My lunch guests today enjoyed it so much that before I could get a second serving, it was all gone. Oh, well.  My dad liked it and found it refreshing (“Ang bango sa bibig… Para kang nagtoothbrush” lol) especially because of the mint which we don’t normally use in Pinoy cooking.  So this definitely was a certified hit!

That’s it for SLP#6.  BTW, thanks to Pchie for shooting these nice macro pix, and to Paw for the necessary tweakings…

And also my next Sunday Lunch Project is also my FooDorama Challenge#6:

~~~~~~~~~~~~ sunlupro

Pomelo info source: wikipedia

Recipe source: recipezaar

The FooDorama Challenge: I watch it, I try it!

(ﾍ・v・)ﾍ ┳━┳ ﾓﾄﾞｼﾓﾄﾞｼ ~letzzeat!~

Jdorama Inspiration: Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge

Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge is a 10 episode comedy/drama that ran from Jan. 15 to March 19, 2010 on TBS.  It is based on the manga series by Tomoko Hayakawa. It is a story of four young men who are renting a large mansion owned by a very rich lady.  They must turn the owner’s weird niece into a proper, well-mannered, presentable-looking woman (in other words – make her normal). If they succeed, they can stay in the mansion for free.  They thought this would be a cinch until they finally saw the goth-like, black-cloaked, skull-obsessed niece whose name Sunako somehow appropriately rhymes with Sadako.

Think My Fair Lady meets Beetlejuice.  It is a funny series with few dramatic moments.  It did not follow much of the story-line of the original manga series which was fine with me. Frankly, I am not fond of highly-exaggerated comedies and over the top manga stories but this was something I could tolerate – finding it cute and silly.  The 4 actors who were supposed to portray the unbelievably gorgeous male characters from the manga did a good job of pretending they WERE ‘unbelievably gorgeous’ even if they looked so-so (ok, ok, Uchi Hiroki is hot!) – at least the spirit of the characters was there, and they pulled it off just fine.  And Kamenashi Kazuya was great in those emo scenes; I gotta hand it to him (great job!) – he’s definitely stepping up.

But for me, the real heart-throb and best guy in the drama is cutey-pie Kato Seishiro as the landlady’s son (at right). I wanna adopt him and pinch those cheeks to death! (@^-^@)

Jdorama Food: Natto

Being a great cook, Sunako whipped up batches and batches of food during the series but never mentioned what they were (plus, before I could blink, they were fast gobbled up by those four guys).  But in one scene though, one food was mentioned and it was the one thing I was dreading for sometime…

Natto is one of Japan’s traditional dishes made of soy beans fermented using a certain bacterium called Bacillus subtilis.  They eat it usually for breakfast.  Slimy and with a pungent smell, it is said to be highly nutritious – packed with Vitamin K and helps aid digestion.

The Jdorama Connection: (Warning-Possible Spoiler Alert!) In Episode 4,  Kyohei (Kazuya) had been eating too much French gourmet food for the past few days that it had given him heart burn. So he asked gloomy Sunako (portrayed by Oomasa Aya) to prepare an all Japanese meal complete with his favorites like miso soup, sushi…

“…aaaaand Natto!” Kyohei’s natto topping a bowl of steamed white rice.

The FooDorama Challenge: Getting Slimed by Natto

I knew this day would come. The first time I have heard of natto, I said, “No way.” But then I decided to include it in my list only on one condition: If I come across a jdorama that mentions natto, THAT will be my NEXT FooDorama Challenge… And so here we are…

Since it is difficult to make natto, I bought it from a Korean grocery near my place of work.  I honestly only wanted to buy just one but each item came with 4 packs for Php100. So, fine, I bought it anyway.

Each pack comes with small sachets of mustard and some kind of mild sweet soy sauce. Hmm, the smell wasn’t that bad. I mean, I wasn’t put off by it.  I stirred it up with the condiments, slightly fascinated with its cobweb-like slime…

…But I found out that the more I stir it up, the more it started to look like, um, like it was drenched in some slimy doggy drool which was pretty bad for a first-timer like me.  x-P Before I got too grossed out,  I ate it all up with chopped onion springs and rice:

My verdict? Let’s just say if you could get over the first hurdle, you’ll be fine. I was over-analyzing the taste and smell the first time I had it that I did not enjoy it much. It WAS bland and slightly bitter.  But the next time I tried it, I was more relaxed and the more I got used to it.  It also tasted well with mayo.

Since this was not much of a challenge (meaning, I did not get to cook or prepare anything at all), I decided to try out natto recipes I got from the internet:

Apple Natto: mixed with mustard, soy sauce, mayo and aonori and use apple slices to scoop it up. It was ok but I think green apples would be better than red.

Avocado Natto Dip: mixed with avocado, mustard, and soy sauce along with nori flakes.  For me, I find this better than apple natto. Nacho chips go well with it though it could overpower the taste of natto (if you could detect any taste, that is).

So. My natto challenge is done. Whew! Was it nasty as I initially thought it would be? Not really. It was surprisingly underwhelming though. Let’s say, I don’t hate it but I don’t love it either. And even though I am acquiring the taste for it – I’m in no hurry to buy another pack anytime soon. 🙂

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Natto info source: wikipedia
Jdorama info source: dramawiki
Natto recipes source: gaia21