Ma cancelled the parties she had scheduled over Christmas save one, ostensibly because she did not want me stressed, although I suspect it was more because she was in no mood to entertain. At least she made good on her proffered reason, because that one occasion was a potluck dinner with her high-school friends.
I got off on the wrong foot with miki. Also known as Shanghai noodles, they are made with wheat, enriched with egg, and are thicker than Canton. Because they are sold fresh, they tend to be salty — the better to preserve them — and so need to be rinsed and parboiled before further cooking, a step the cook might have missed on that occasion. Also, they reeked of piss (from food coloring, I assume; we used to run a bakery and I remember the smell quite well).
Every now and then, you come across a recipe that flies in the face of what you have been taught about cooking. Such is Roy Finamore’s broccoli cooked forever, in which the vegetable cooks for two hours.
Quick — what do you think that dish in the photo is? Did you say “fried chicken?” That was what I thought, too. Not that the chicken looked bad — far from it, in fact — but I was hoping for something less run-of-the-mill for my first proper Hong Kong meal.
The best meat sauce comes to those who wait. However good your ragù is, it will not be as good as when you let it sit for a few days, even weeks (in the freezer, of course, reheating every now and then). Just give it time and it will come into its own, like fine wine, cheese, or the boil on your buttocks (sorry; Coco Martin in Serbis suddenly sprang to mind).
It just occurred to me that when mention is made of instant pancit, people automatically think Canton (egg noodles). Having spent most of my life in retail, I can tell you that instant pancit bihon (rice noodles) is a slow mover, a drag in the inventory.
My experience with sesame oil has mostly been as a seasoning. A few drops are enough to give a dish a hint of… nuttiness, I guess is the word. If I have to be honest, I had never really given it much thought beyond the fact that it makes everything smell better.
“Your cooking’s off these days,” my mother says.
“Is it?” I say, rather defensively. “It’s him, isn’t it?” I mean my father; he has not touched my food in days, preferring the morcon from Hobie’s instead. It’s good, the morcon, but I hate to think about all the Magic Sarap/Ginisa Mix that had made it so.
We skipped the usual noche buena fanfare this year. That meant there were no leftovers to contend with the day/s after, which was exhilarating and pathetic at the same time. It was a wonder no one slammed the fridge doors off their hinges after taking one too many peeks in there and finding nothing — we didn’t even have bread.
Who says frugal can’t be festive? “Morsels” of steamed vegetables on a bed of crispy egg noodles and you have a pig somewhere thanking you, if not too soon. To cook, 4 minutes for the beans, 5 for the broccoli, and 7 the for carrot and chayote. Keep the liquid that you steamed the veggies with, flavor with oyster sauce or a chicken cube (or both), season, thicken with a little cornstarch, drizzle with sesame oil, and you’ve got a sauce. Tuloy ang Pasko!
