Saturday, 26 of May , 2007 @ 6:32 am
Tags: The Diamond Hotel, French cuisine, French food, Bistro
My mom could not attend this week’s International Culinary Cuisine Class at The Diamond Hotel, so I gladly took her place. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I mean, how often do you get to learn from the executive chef of a world-class hotel known for having some of the best restaurants in the country?
This week’s theme was especially enticing - French Bistro Cooking. I’ve heard the word ‘bistro’ before but I wasn’t sure what it meant. I am tempted to say that ‘bistro’ is a
kind of restaurant in France, but from what I learned today, bistros and restaurants in France are as different from each other as restaurants and cafes. Cafes are for, well, coffee; they rarely serve food there, save for sandwiches. Restaurants have full-course meals. French bistros do not serve “delicate food”, and have relatively simpler meals that are served quickly (I have heard from my friends who have gone to France that one must really wait for hours before their meal is served), made with ingredients fresh off the market.
Chef Jean-Pierre Migne definitely made this whole experience fun. He was not very hands-on with our class, but I still learned a lot of cooking techniques from his cooking demo. He is a very good teacher, and a very funny guy, too. I think he has been in the Philippines for quite some time, because he got the common Filipino expressions right - from using ‘di ba and sige na, to referring to the chicken as manok, to saying “Kawawa naman ako” when no one was volunteering. Ha ha! How adorable. You would love him if you meet him.
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Saturday, 19 of May , 2007 @ 3:36 am
Tags: adobo, adobo rice, Filipino food, Yummy Magazine
Okay, so I broke m pseudo-diet and made some adobo rice last night. I can’t help it! I love rice.
Here’s a delicious way to add zing to your usual bowl of white rice using leftover adobo (nothing goes to waste! yay!). I got this nifty tip for Yummy Magazine’s May 2007 issue (yeah, Yummy is my bible). First, I sauteed some garlic and onions, until the garlic turned golden brown and the onions became transparent. Then I added in some cooked white rice and some adobo sauce from the chicken adobo we had for lunch. After making sure that all the rice grains were covered in adobo sauce, I placed the rice in a nice plate and garnished it with green mangoes and garlic.
My mom suggested I place adobo flakes, but I was too lazy and I didn’t know how. But our help fried the leftover chicken adobo until it became crunchy, so we added that in, too.
Too bad I did not see Marketman’s Fried Adobo Flakes recipe right away. So if you ever want to make adobo rice, top it off with some adobo flakes using that recipe. Another tip: the sourer the green mangoes, the better. I think the ones I used were almost ripe, so they tasted a bit sweet.
But it was good. Screw that diet. I love rice.
Wednesday, 16 of May , 2007 @ 6:44 am
Tags: summer classes, Chocolate Kiss, French toast, Ifex International Food Exhibition
Today I treated myself to a Chocolate Kiss breakfast to celebrate the final stretch of Summer Classes and the start of Hell Week. That, and because they offer free coffee refills for their House Blend coffee (for 40 bucks!). Eating in cafes like Chocolate Kiss is a big splurge for most UP students. It was 9:00 AM, my favorite, less expensive cafes in campus weren’t open yet. There is only so much I can do to keep myself amused on my two-hour break, so I decided to be generous to myself today. Besides, I needed at least four cups of coffee to keep me awake during the next (boring) class.
The French toast is delicious! According to the menu, they coated the whole wheat bread in eggs, milk and cinnamon, and grilled it. And it was filling too, thanks to the fiber-rich bread (props for using the “healthy” kind of carbs!). So filling, in fact, that I only at 2 1/2 out of the 3 slices of bread. My bill totaled to P150. Steep, I know. But it was well worth it. Chocolate Kiss can be a bit overpriced but I think you get what you pay for, especially with their pastas and cakes. It’s nice to go there once in a while, when you’re loaded at the start of the week. Ha ha. I stayed there for about an hour or so, sipping my four cups of coffee (which didn’t work. I was still sleepy and bored to death) and reviewing some of my Chemistry readings
I should make French toast for breakfast tomorrow. Whee. I love food. Can’t you tell?
Oh, and I really want to go to the Ifex International Food Exhibition at the World Trade Center on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. I’ve been to food expos before; they’re the ultimate food trip. I hope I can drag someone along with me (ahem, Tiff, I know you like to eat as much as I do. Or maybe even more. He he). Tell me if any of you are going too!
Tuesday, 15 of May , 2007 @ 3:35 am
Tags: diet, culinary endeavors, recipes, grilled chicken sandwich
My friend and I are on a pseudo-diet, in hopes of losing the 10 or so pounds we gained since high school. The rules: no beef, pork and rice. Just chicken, pork, and healthy carbohydrates (whole grain and fruits). I used the word “pseudo-diet” because for all the saturated fat I won’t eat from from four-legged animal meat, I make up for my huge fat, sugar and carbohydrate intake from oils, fruits and dairy products. Still, it’s worth a shot. Besides, it’s about time for us to get “healthy”. Our clothes don’t fit us right anymore.
Today is Day 3 of my diet. So far, so good. For breakfast I had a slice of bread with cheese, and two small chicken pieces from last night’s dinner. In school, I ate chicken barbecue and a four seasons fruit shake (no milk, less sugar). Then, for lunch, I decided to make a sandwich with grilled… chicken.
Actually it wasn’t even grilled. I was supposed to use the grill in our stove but my Mom did not know how to use it and I didn’t feel like figuring it out. So I pan-fried it instead (with olive oil, healthy oil at least!).
So here’s what I did: First, I marinated some chicken breast in olive oil, garlic, rosemary, ionized salt, and pepper for about 30 minutes. Then I pan-fried it with a Teflon pan (since there was oil already in the chicken we didn’t need to add anymore), until the chicken was golden brown. While that was going on, I got honey mustard sauce with mayonnaise, mustard, all-purpose cream, salt and pepper. Then I placed some of that, as well as ketchup, lettuce and tomatoes, on two slices of whole wheat bread (cut diagonally).
Ladies and gentlemen, the final results:
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Saturday, 5 of May , 2007 @ 8:59 pm
Tags: recipes, Thai food, Asian cuisine, noodles, Yummy Magazine
In my quest to be more domestic (funny how that makes me sounds like a farm animal), I intend to cook at least one dish every week. I started yesterday, when I used my parents’ 22th wedding anniversary as an excuse to cook lunch.
I found this recipe for “Cold Nutty Asian Noodles” on Yummy Magazine’s April issue (p. 41) A warning, though, that magazine will let your diet fall by the wayside. The photography and food styling will make you crave for everything you see. Everything is so eye-candy; Summit Media always has the best magazine layouts.
Anyway, in the picture it looked a lot like Pad Thai, except that it had no meat and the noodles weren’t stir-fried. Actually, the only cooking required by the recipe is cooking the linguine; the dressing and raw vegetables were tossed in with the noodles later.
My mom told me to saute the vegetables anyway, as well as some tofu and shrimp. When everything was done, something didn’t quite taste right, so I added brown sugar.
Then end result:
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Marielle is a 20-year-old Psychology student at the 
