[Clayton SF]

And then!?

!

 

[deadie]

  And then!?

 
I confess that after many hours of smoking, after the final apple juice sprays, after the final few brushes of sauce, I pulled the ribs and we dug in like ravenous hordes.  Side dishes, and well, photography be damned.  

 
 
Ok ok, if you need a pic of cooked pork, how about this Lechon I made in my La Caja China? 

 

[Eee Pee]

Cooking bro fail!  

 

[deadie]

After the next rib smoke...
 
"Stop eating!  Stop eating!  The internets demands pictures!"  

 

[ax3kill3r]

I can cook. A little. I cook steak, eggs, chips quite well. I also do a pretty good chicken masala. haha. Cooking is quite good fun.

 

[daigo]

Pumpkin cheesecake brownies I made for a Halloween party over the weekend.  Couldn't swirl the batters together well since the pumpkin puree I made from roasting a Sugar Pie pumpkin yielded a cheesecake batter that was much thinner compared to the thick brownie batter.  
 

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Hi guys, I've been on hiatus (work and got heart palpitations from my gout meds), but after my medication and BP stabilized, I got back on the grill and the skillet with a vengeance!
 
At one of two (post) Christmas parties I was in with high school buddies, this time I was in early and actually had time to take photos while searing (of course, not watching out for flare-ups on stacked charcoal helped). Here's a rib eye and a striploin, each about 2" thick and about 3/4kg. Salted and kept in the chiller (had to shop before Christmas to avoid the rush), then seasoned with black pepper and rubbed with garlic-infused olive oil; then a pat of butter over each while resting.


Just a quick photo-op before I sliced them up. Everyone thought they would be overdone thanks to the smoking hot grill, but came out medium-rare at the ends and blue rare everywhere (I sear the sides after top and bottom just to kill anything in there that isn't beef). Even my friend's Mom went up to the roof deck because she can smell the steaks from her home office.

 
A rib eye and porterhouse I grilled over charcoal, and since I was an imaptient idiot, I used two cubes of charcoal igniter. I had no idea that after that, any fat dripping would have it erupting in flames. Not that bad though - steaks are still rare inside.


 
New Year's Day lunch with my cousins - I was too lazy to light up my charcoal grill so I whipped out my cast iron skillet for this monster 2", 1kg rib eye (it was at the end of the huge roast cut I got the previous steaks from). Even my aunt asked for the recipe, which is just "salt a day prior and keep in 2deg C chiller; pepper and olive oil; sear, then top with butter and into a 350deg oven for about five minutes."

 
 
----------
 
And of course, no Christmas will be without ham. This one is from the most famouse ham-maker in Manila (in Quiapo area), and the classic debate at home is whether we're getting Chinese or American ham. The latter always wins for Christmas thanks to its sweet sauce. Once home all I needed to do was brown the fat, basted with the sauce, in the oven. The best part is having it with our breakfast buns over strong, locally-grown coffee/chocolate the day after.

 

[White Lotus]

Dude, I want more photos from you.
 
FWIW, I love Filipino food also.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

  Dude, I want more photos from you.

 
I'll work on them; my holiday season was devoid of food shots for the rest of the dishes thanks to impatient bastards! Imagine walking over to the table with steaks sliced and lightly steaming, only to find that everybody already had the pritchon,* crispy tadyang,** and stuffed chili as appetizers.

*It's basically prito(fried)+lechon(roast) - whole young pig deep-fried then chopped up and served in wraps like Peking Duck
**Beef rib chunks braised along with garlic, then marinated in soy sauce and vinegar with the garlic turned into paste in it, then deep-fried in garlic-infused palm oil
 

  FWIW, I love Filipino food also.

 
If you're ever in Manila, you have to eat in Mesa, Tres, and a bunch of other places that modernized Filipino food. Traditional presentation, particularly our stews, just don't photograph well, but lots of chefs have been modernizing our cuisine. Take for example our steak, which I usually describe as the love child of Swiss steak and salpicao, but with onions and soy sauce instead of mushrooms or tomatoes. A restaurant here infused the same flavors into a pan-seared, 1in thick tenderloin steak, and I'm still trying to figure out how they did it. Lazy solution is they might have marinated the tenderloin (and probably just pat it dry before searing), then served it on top of onions. My other theory is they used the garlic, onion, and vinegar powder as dry rub along with just a little sea salt and pepper, then tossed in the onions and spritzed with soy sauce before it's done (caramelizing the onion and resting the meat at the same time off the stove). As soon as I finish the porterhouse in my freezer I'm gonna pick up some sirloin in 1.5in thick cuts, and see how well I can integrate the flavors onto the surface of cheaper local cattle seared blue then finished in the oven to rare (that restaurant doesn't do rare, likely due to the process of integrating the onion flavor).
 
 
 

 

[White Lotus]

I have friends in Mabalacat (Just north of Angeles) who I visit every so often. I've grown really fond of sisig, and I know THAT doesn't photograph well 

 
Bangus, on the other hand.. Ooohr.
 
We had huge amounts of pritchon for my brothers wedding in 2009. So good. I almost exploded.
 
The places you speak of sound incredible - definitely marked on my "To do" list for next time.

 

[Eee Pee]

Those look great Cooking Bro!  Thanks for sharing!  
 
I just finished a 6 pound beef loin, took one picture... of uncooked beef.  

 

[ProtegeManiac]

  Those look great Cooking Bro!  Thanks for sharing!  
 
I just finished a 6 pound beef loin, took one picture... of uncooked beef.  

 
I actually did the same thing, and I posted them on our Events page on FB to annouce to everybody not sure of attending that "there will be steak, f-----s!!!" before I wrapped the salted steaks in plastic cling wrap for storing in the chiller

 

  I have friends in Mabalacat (Just north of Angeles) who I visit every so often. I've grown really fond of sisig, and I know THAT doesn't photograph well 

 
Bangus, on the other hand.. Ooohr.
 
We had huge amounts of pritchon for my brothers wedding in 2009. So good. I almost exploded.
 
The places you speak of sound incredible - definitely marked on my "To do" list for next time.

 
Nice! Yeah, sisig doesn't look too good - I suspect they're topped with a fried egg for aesthetics since it ruins the crunch anyway. Actually a lot of the modernization happened in the provinces, like pulling Adobo and Tapa into fibers and then frying them in their own fat until crispy, but of course Manila (also Cebu and Davao) makes trying them all more convenient by having all these restaurants within the same metro area. And trust me, I'm never having Pritchon with steak on the same night ever again! My blood pressure shot up to 144/119 within a few hours!

As for bangus, it's popular here, but I don't eat it as fried steaks or fillets. I eat it lightly breaded, like the belly cut with the fat. But since I'm a cheapskate, I more often buy the back fillet (none of the fat, half the price), cut them into thick strips, and make Fish n' Chips along with some sweet potatoes. I'm actually surprised restaurants here stick with imported fish for that, even the cheapo ones as they go for Cream Dory, when milkfish meat is tastier. Goes better with garlic-infused vinegar too, and easier to handle as it holds its shape - easy to cook then eat with my hands in front of the TV.

 

[jc9394]

 

[Clayton SF]

During New Year's week I visited my family in Hawaii. No time to cook--lots of time to eat! My first stop right after I landed at HNL was Zippy's for lunch with sis.
 

 
EDIT: I just baked a Hawaii Chantilly Cake... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chantilly_cake
 

 

[ToryUTah]

I cook. Almost exclusively Paleo Dishes of grass fed beef and vegetables. Kind of boring, but I consider food as mainly just fuel.