Late Night Sardine Supper

Sardines in tomato sauce, hot with chilli peppers or plain, are a staple of a lazy-Filipino snack. When we were children, sardines, corned beef, and Spam were our favorite fare when a typhoon raged outside and the cook could not go to market for fresh produce. Corned beef like Hormel and Spam were obviously American, from my mother's childhood days, I assume, when the country was introduced to American convenience foods i.e. canned foods and we inherited the love for "americano" style foods, including "pan americano," great to sop up the sardine sauce! The most famous brand of sardine was Ligo, introduced in 1945 in collaboration with the Chinese-Filipino businessman, Gregory Tung, and Liberty Gold Fruit Co. of California.

The original impetus for the Filipinos' love for "sardinas" must have originated from the Spanish. Iberians have been fishing for sardines for centuries. Even today some of the best canned fish come from Portugal, Spain or, across the Gibraltar Strait, Morocco. Spanish anchovies are a special treat when one could get them. They are still harvested and prepared the centuries-old way. While Americans think of anchovies on pizzas and Caesar salad, they have a more profound role to play in Spanish cuisine, similar to the role played by "guinamos" in the Philippines and fish sauce in Vietnam and Thailand.

As children, my sister and I harbored a special fondness for sardines, especially the Tomé brand in a hot, oil sauce with thin slices of carrots. Food was not always enough. Merma had a secret source of pin money. She would send the girl helper to the sari-sari store in front of our uncle's house on Burgos Street for Tome that we would consume in the bedroom after an insufficient supper. Thus was born for me the status of sardines as comfort food.

They are excellent with pan de sal, native Spanish-style rolls with a thick floury crust, or with white rice. They are, of course, wonderful as hors d'ouvres, served on salt-free crackers with sliced manzanilla olives stuffed with pimento and/or whole garlic cloves. Here I've paired them with rice, caponata and ripe strawberries. I would have wanted to crown the plate with a long, arching stalk of chive, another produce in season in early spring, or braised asparagus but late at night I get lazy: I want my comfort sardines!

Tilapia with Caper Cheese Sauce

Asians scoff at the lowly tilapia, fish imported to countries like the Philippines where indigenous inland fish has been wiped out by widespread use of fertilizer. In the U.S., Wal Mart, among others, has been marketing frozen tilapia fillets that health nuts and body builders are scarfing down. Stripped of their skin, the fillets tend to be bland which suits Midwest American palates just fine but for those of us who want more flavor there are many ways of enhancing the flavor without drowning it in macabre sauces.

This recipe is simple. Crush a couple of peeled garlic and throw on a hot non-stick pan with a cover. When slightly golden, add the fish and cook for 2 minutes. Slowly drizzle scant olive oil along the edges of the fish, tilt the pan to let the oil run around the fillet and cook another minute or

two before gently turning the fish. Top each with a teaspoonful of salsa picante or just capers with fresh salsa, top with strips of a slice of American cheese, cover over moderate heat for two minutes and voila! An impeccably cooked tilapia. Here I paired it with Romaine lettuce with a plain Balsamic vinegar dressing and sliced Roma tomatoes quickly seared in the same pan as the fish, and Japanese sushi rice.

Mozarella Egg, Seared Vegetables with Soy Bean Paste

Spring brings out adventurousness. My friend, Kevin Logan, has suggested I avoid salads and cold food to give my pancreas a break. So I cooked my salad. In a nonstick pan that I spray with extra virgin olive oil, I quickly seared garlic, yellow onion slices, cucumber, celery, tomatoes and Romain lettuce. I add a fourth of a teaspoon of Chinese soy bean paste and a tablespoon of hot, filtered water, shake and plate.

On the same pan I break an egg, top it with low-fat mozarella and grated Parmesan and cook for a couple of minutes until the white has set.

Toast is my own sourdough topped with chilled eggplant caponata (sorry, unlike St. Anthony, I resist temptation poorly). Finally a small bowl of vegetarian minestrone, hot, of course, to complete a late-lunch feast!

Five Quick Ones

Food Heaven

I cooked mussels for lunch yesterday. It's from a two-pack bag of pre-cooked bivalves from Wal-Mart. The package displayed a recipe for Mussels Magnifico on one side.

I love mussels but remember cooking them only once before. That was in the early 1980s, from a bag of fresh, bearded mussels I bought at Joe O'Malia's (now part of the Marsh chain). I had to scrub the mussels, remove the beards and allow them to regurgitate their last meal in water for a couple of hours. The Wal-Mart packet is convenience par excellence. The mussels are already cooked and separately vacuum-packed in thick plastic envelopes that I just heated up in the microwave. Cooking shellfish should be this easy!

The mussel meal I remember best was one my sister and I ate at Cap'n Jack's Restaurant in Orlando some 15 years ago. The restaurant was by the side of the lake at the mass of shops and restaurants called Disney Downtown. We had a corner table next to the black wrought-iron grill separating us from the water below. Ambiance, I am sure, played a big part why that meal was so memorable. The shellfish, black on the outside with iridescent pearl and purple insides reclined on a bed of al dente linguini fragrant with garlic and white wine.

What I fixed yesterday was almost as good as the memory and memories as you know are hard to beat. I resisted the impulse to modify the recipe until the very last stages. I didn't trust a dish with just onions, garlic and white wine with no other herbs and spices. I used fresh Roma tomatoes that I cubed without removing the skin. I had a tube of  concentrato di pomodoro con verdure I bought in Sorrento last May. Adding a cup of chardonnay made the dish too soupy for me. Instead of simmering it gently I boiled it down until it got saucy. That emendation made it perfect for topping Italian-produced linguini cooked perfectly al dente.
The result was perfection! Ambiance might count for much in memories but in the making of new memories freshly prepared dishes rise to the top of the list. I was surprised that with no other herbs like oregano or thyme the dish was so tasty. In fact the simple preparation brought out the taste of the fresh tomatoes made darker and complex by the pomodoro concentrate. I also used plain curly parsley instead of Italian parsley but the lunch experience joins other memories in my food heaven!

Citrus-Coriander Roasted Yams

Yams are one of the top choices of Nutrition Action for vegetables because of the vitamin A. Outside the south, they are often served only at Thanksgiving or Christmas and then in buttery dishes. I put together this recipe from various ones I've found on the Internet and modified it to exclude salt, brown sugar and butter.

Ingredients: 2 medium yams, brushed clean, dried, sliced 1/4 inch thick; 2 Tb. each, orange and lemon peel; 2 Tb. ground coriander (for added flavor start with freshly roasted seeds); freshly ground pepper and virgin olive oil in a mist-sprayer; chopped parsley for garnish.

Directions: Preheat oven to 375°F. Spray jelly roll pan or cookie sheet with olive oil. Lay yam slices in pan in one layer. Sprinkle tops with peels, coriander and black pepper. Spray with olive oil and bake for 30 minutes or until the centers are tender. They also turn dark orange. Sprinkle with parsley and serve hot.

Mabo Tofu

I fixed this for the first last Sunday when eM, Luz and Yoichi came for dinner after our morning meditation and  yoga. I went to Asia Mart this evening after the gym to pick up the ingredients to cook it again for these photos.

This is cheating on a grand scale but the resulting viand is grander still, worth using a store-bought sauce! "Chinese Mabo Tofu Sauce" is distributed by House Foods Corporation of Tokyo, Japan. The ingredients list contains about thirty items including soybean paste, palm oil, corn starch, ginger, garlic, "fermented seasoning," red and black pepper, sugar, sesame oil, leek, soy sauce and salt.
For tonight's dish, having had last Sunday's taste experience, I decided to "doctor" the recipe with quite stunning results!

First I heated 1 1/2 TB canola oil in a wok until very hot. I fried finely chopped garlic, ginger and crushed Chinese red pepper until garlic is golden. I added half a pound of ground pork and simmered until no longer pink.

Then I poured in the store-bought sauce and cooked for two minutes before gently folding in 14-oz or one package of silken (firm is not as good) tofu cut into 1-inch cubes, along with 3 scallions cut into short pieces. I cooked this until the tofu is just heated through then poured into a bowl.

This would taste great with Japanese white rice but I used Japanese medium-grain brown rice which was chewy and nutty, making for an awesome supper tonight.

I checked out several recipes on the Internet. Not one included the ingredients I would use if I made the sauce from scratch. I would use fermented black beans, Sichuan hot chilli paste, red soy bean sauce (optional), and maybe saki, rice wine or sherry. Chinese oyster sauce might help, too, but I would try to cut back on the oil since ground pork exudes oil when cooked and not add any salt. And, no MSG!