Low Fat Adobo

One of the famous dishes you would hear around the world from Asia is Adobo. It is “the most wanted” dish in the Philippines.  I grew up with it as my favorite dish.  But I think, Adobo is far older than my grandmother.  Judging from the word Adobo - which means seasoning or marinating in Spanish; my hunch is, this dish is born during times Philippines was visited by the Spaniards. So it has been famous; and still getting popular: http://entertainment.inquirer.net/119843/after-eating-adobo-pancit-canton-one-republic-rocks-araneta.

My husband likes Adobo, but not his favorite because, I have to cook it the Filipino way; that is with meat parts that has lots of fat: the ingredients must be chicken with skin, and with or just pork with fat. I have to skim the fat (which is additional work), so my dear would eat it with me.

Luckily, here in England, meats are cut and grouped and sold according to different cuts. They go further on chickens; there are skinless and boneless chickens.

My husband grew up having skinless and boneless chicken breast while my diet about chicken is the opposite of his. The more skin, the more I like it.  However bad this is, or good in giving enough supply of bad cholesterol, the more the merrier.  I like salty foods too.

But as we all do, as I move on to the next stage in my life, marrying an Englishman who made me give up my liking for a high cholesterol diet is a good thing. In fact, a very good thing.  After five years of lower cholesterol diet, my body could not take a highly fat diet anymore.  It complains through ill-bloated-disgusting feeling.  But still I love Adobo, I have not given up on it.  So I thought of creating a low fat recipe that my son will also eat. I was successful.

My low fat Adobo has the same ingredient as other adobo.  The difference is the meat and the way the adobo is cooked.

You can group the adobo ingredient into two: the marinating ingredient and the meat.

Marinating ingredient:

• 200 ml mixed of soy sauce & vinegar 
• two Bay leaves
• Sugar (optional, have some if you are using strong sour vinegar like datung puti, malt vinegar).
• a teaspoon of Saki, rice wine, whisky or white wine (I call this my blending agent; it blends the sweet, sour and salty taste from the strong ingredients)
• 3 big cloves of Fine Chopped Garlic 
• Ground black pepper

Mixed all this together. Make sure the sugar is dissolved. Taste it to know if it will make a lovely condiment. If yes, put in your freezer for a day.

• A kilo of Skinless, boneless chicken cut into one inch in size.
• Sunflower or ground nut oil for frying.

Then marinate your chicken for at least two hours.

• If you like to add potato, peel, then cut these the same size as the chicken. Potato should be not more than half of your chicken.

Fry these. Fry it until brown on the sides. Put it aside.
Fry the chickens until just cooked (this is when the colour is not pink anymore). Mix the potatoes.
Pour back the sauce in to the pan.
Cover and simmer it until cooked.  If too dry or very little sauce, little by little add water to bring back some sauce.

Serve it on top of Jasmine rice.

A Crunchy and Moist Banana Bread Recipe

I have tried a lot of banana bread recipe using self raising flour and it always ends very hard as a brick. The last one I encounter bakes the banana bread at 150 degrees Celsius. And wallah! It is crunchy outside, soft and moist inside.  Because of its texture, I thought of freezing it and only warm it after just turning off the oven.  It is even crunchier on the top surface where the nuts are.  To explain it further, here is the recipe so you can see, taste and touch what I mean crunchy and moist banana bread.


You need,

• 190g self raising flour
• 150g caster sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 very ripe bananas, mashed
• 125g butter
• 60ml milk
• Chopped pecan nuts
• Greased the loaf tin. 

Start baking!

1. Melt butter, sugar and vanilla in a saucepan over a medium heat.
2. Remove from heat and add the mashed bananas, mix well.
3. Add the egg, mix well.
4. Stir in the flour and the milk.
5. Pour into the prepared tin, sprinkle with a tablespoon of sugar or pecan nuts to give a crunch topping.  Pecan will give a more subtle sweet taste.
6. Bake at 150 C fan oven for 20 minutes; or until a knife comes out clean when pierce through.  
7. Slice and pour custard on it, or just simply leave to cool and enjoy it as a snack or pudding.

The Most Simple Salmon Recipe

My husband creates this recipe; and mind you, he does not eat fish. However, my son loves fish. They are going camping and needed something easy to cook for dinner; that is after he built and set up the trailer tent. So he came up with the idea of wrapping a cleaned (meaning scaled) salmon in a foil seasoned by lemon, little soy sauce and parsley (you can a little bit of garlic, as you preferred). Still in the foil, he cooked it on simmering fire on his stove. At home, we cook this in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 18 to 20 minutes .  This recipe brings subtle flavour into the salmon so it is best to serve it with Jasmine or Basmati rice.

This recipe can be also serve as and evening dinner date for a couple.  Choose big pieces of salmon for the recipe.  Serve it with just boiled bright color vegetables like carrots, peas, corn and maybe with chinese patchoy.

Chocolate Ice Lolly with Mung bean

I believe in the powers of mung beans. This kind of legumes is pack of protein, fiber and more.  One of the meals I wean my child to is boiled mung beans. Maybe this is the reason why he is small but heavy for this size, which surprised the health visitor who visited us.  But now he only eats it as part of ice lolly. This kind of green beans is also called mongo or mungo bean in Asia. Some people like mung bean as snack with sugar after cooled from boiled.  It could be cook further by sauteing it with garlic,  onion and flavor it with chicken cubes, or hebi (dried shrimp) to serve as viand to go with rice.  Chinese people make delicious  moon cake out of it.  My favorite is my mother’s simple way of making ice lollies. How to make as ice lollies it? Equipment: ice lolly molders Ingredients: mung beans chocolate powder ready for making instant drink like Nesquik (by Nestle), Milo (by Nestle too) or Ovaline; or make some by adding cacao, sugar and powdered milk. milk (it is an option)	Boiled mung beans Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz) Energy 441 kJ (105 kcal) Carbohydrates 19.15 g - Sugars 2 g - Dietary fiber 7.6 g Fat 0.38 g Protein 7.02 g Thiamine (vit. B1) 0.164 mg (14%) Riboflavin (vit. B2) 0.061 mg (5%) Niacin (vit. B3) 0.577 mg (4%) Pantothenic acid (B5) 0.41 mg (8%) Vitamin B6 0.067 mg (5%) Folate (vit. B9) 159 μg (40%) Vitamin C 1 mg (1%) Vitamin E 0.15 mg (1%) Vitamin K 2.7 μg (3%) Calcium 27 mg (3%) Iron 1.4 mg (11%) Magnesium 48 mg (14%) Manganese 0.298 mg (14%) Phosphorus 99 mg (14%) Potassium 266 mg (6%) Zinc 0.84 mg (9%)
Directions: Wash it and soak it overnight (like 8 hours) or more in a bigger container, with at least 1 inch more of water above the beans.  The beans will expand and split as it softens.  It is important that all the beans are soaked underwater to make sure that every grain are equal in texture.  It is ready to cook if the beans split a little bit.  Do not let it turn into bean sprouts. Replace the water with boiled water or cook it straight by boiling in medium heat. When boiled stir it and you can simmer it leisurely.  Add water gently to a level not more than the beans, if it looks dry and the beans are still hard. Keep doing this until the beans are cooked. Then beans are cooked when soft and it seems to fibrous that it has thicken the water and not dry. From here you can cook the mung beans in many different ways.  To have some as ice lollies - Let cool to room temperature.   Mixed it well with lots of chocolate powder (that is like chocolate powder ready for making chocolate drink like Nesquik, Milo, Ovaltine, or with your own made chocolate mix). Scoop this mixed into the ice lolly moulders to the level almost filling the top of the molder; or up to the level that your molder will work in freezing the ice lolly with the stick. Make some chocolate drink with milk and fill out the ice lolly moulders. Or just scoop more of the mixed chocolate mung been into the ice lolly molders. Freeze it. Serve it as snack when fully frozen and enjoy.   On my experience, a full mung bean ice lolly is enough for a snack or to finish the meal as the pudding, for my seven year old boy.