Grazing on Tapas

Posted on 11 July 2012 by sheg4184

Growing up in a meat-and-three-veg kind of family, I have always enjoyed the novel concept of grazing, and to this end, tapas is the perfect way to travel: a light snack to share with friends, easy finger food, or pica pica as they say in the Philippines. I don’t speak Spanish, but I was surprised by how many ‘food’ words were familiar, after two years in the Philippines.

I think I could probably spend the next five years in Madrid, eating every night at a different tapas bar, and there would still be some left to discover. The difficult decision, when you only have a few days, is where to pause and taste. In which case, advice from the locals can be useful.

Yet if you walk into any tapas bar, a small plate of something to nibble on will arrive automatically with your drink: chunky slices of chorizo, a handful of croquettes, a dish of marinated olives – worst case scenario, a bowl of cheese biscuits. That may be all you need: a small beer and an hors d’oeuvre before heading off to a full dinner. In a good tapas bar, however, I usually find the temptation to order extra dishes from the menu too tempting to resist. Once you start dipping into a ración of patatas bravas (roast potatoes with spicy tomato sauce), a dish of lightly fried whitebait or a bowl of ensaladillas (hard-boiled egg mixed with carrot and homemade mayonnaise), I challenge anyone to stop before they are full to the brim and thoughts of an a la carte menu have been long forgotten.

I have found a café one hundred metres from our friend’s apartment for a morning café con leche and a slice of toast and tomatoes – breakfast tapas? My mother might ask ‘Why go out at all, such a short distance from home and the kettle?’ For me, it is a joy because the morning air is cooler than it will be any time after the midday sun strikes the streets. And it’s such simple fun to sit and people watch. In the same way, at the end of the day, it is relaxing to perch on a bar stool and sip rosé and watch the world go by.

patatas bravas

And it does go by: people still walk everywhere in Madrid. Like the Italians passeggiata, an evening stroll is popular with the Spanish too, and the streets, parks and plazas fill with people of all ages, shapes and sizes. Sometimes it is fun to sit at a wobbly table on the pavement, but only if there are few smokers in the vicinity – a rare thing on the Mediterranean, where smoking is still incredibly popular.

Back in Madrid, some popular tapas might include the ubiquitous tortilla. In its simplest form, this is an omlette made from eggs and potatoes – and anything else you care to add. Jamon (pronounced hamon with a guttural hoik) is Spanish cured ham. Very thin slices are cut straight from the pig’s leg, which you will notice immediately hanging over the bar.  Salchicha covers a range of sausage: dark red spicy chorizo (pronounced choritho), white salchichon, or blood sausage, called morcilla (morsiya).  Typically all these meats are served with slices of baguette. Revuelto literally means ‘stirred’ in Spanish, and this simple but delicious dish is a mix of scrambled eggs, potatoes and ham or bacon.  Gambas are prawns, and they come in many varieties, plainly grilled, with spicy sauces, hot or cold.

I am not going to provide a list of tapas bars to visit. Be brave! Find your own. Daggy and cheap or chic and expensive, you only have to drop in for one small beer and sample one plate of free tapas to decide if you like the place. There is always another one just round the corner…

…so find a space at the counter to eat and enjoy grazing. Buen apetito!

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El Baile Flamenco

Posted on 9 July 2012 by sheg4184

Café de Chinitas is located in a back street near the Royal Palace in Madrid. Chinitas apparently means little Chinese girls, which is somewhat at odds with the fact we were hoping to watch some Spanish dancing. As we settled ourselves at a table right in front of the stage, a gentleman was already seated at the back of the stage, playing on his guitar (toque = guitar playing). I once tried to learn classical guitar, but despite my teacher’s best efforts, my fingers inevitably got tangled in the strings.

Our guitar playing Spaniard had no such problems, as his fingers skipped with consummate skill – and at terrifying speed – across the strings. He was joined by two more men with their guitars and the pace got faster still. No one smiled; in fact they all looked rather grim. Our companion explained that this is normal with Flamenco.

Flamenco is a genre of Spanish music, song and dance from Andalusia in southern Spain, a combination of Andalucian and Romani dance styles remarkable for its high energy levels and staccato style. Cante (singing) is at the heart of every performance: a wailing, passionate, somewhat unmelodic, tragedy, usually performed by a soloist. Soap opera at its finest.

Perhaps the most familiar part of flamenco, though, is the dance or baile. El baile flamenco is renowned for its emotional intensity, upright stance, expressive twirling of hands and fierce, rhythmic stamping of the feet. The dancers tonight predominantly danced solos, as is common to ‘flamenco puro,’ the form of flamenco closest to its gypsey origins. Traditionally, this is improvised rather than choreographed.

Modern flamenco is a highly technical dance style that requires years of study to perfect, with an emphasis on precise, lightning-quick footwork. It is flamboyant but highly disciplined, generating immense heat and energy.

The level of fitness required to keep up the pace is astounding, especially as all of tonight’s dancers appear to be over forty, some much older. Apparently this is perfectly normal for flamenco dancers, who are not considered to have the emotional maturity for flamenco until they reach their thirties, and many will continue to perform into their sixties.

Our companion told us that traditionally, flamenco dancers do not smile, although, happily, tonight some do. Otherwise I fear the evening would have become rather grim, after almost three hours of fierce, sneering faces and the furious blur of feet pounding the stage like jackhammers.

Tonight’s tablaos flamenco consists of a company of about twelve performers. Our three guitar players were joined by three clappers (palmas = clapping). ‘Your job?’ ‘I am second clapper,’ has undertones of Monty Python.

The soloists are amazing. One gentleman mounts the stage in toreador hat, black, heeled boots and leather chaps, but performs as if he were both the bull and the bullfighter, butting his head and scraping his boots on the steps, then twirling his cape about the stage.

His performance is followed by a solo from each of the four women seated on the stage, clicking and twirling and balancing on their heels, one flicking and kicking aside a long frilly train with impressive skill. I would undoubtedly have tripped over so much fabric. As the dancers whirled faster and faster and tossed their heads, hair clips, combs and earrings flew across the stage.

While we sipped on a pleasant Rosé and nibbled on tapas (fried calamares, fried pimientos, jamon and cheese), a fifth woman swaggered onto the stage in black trousers, waist coat and boots. I found her passionate but controlled performance the highlight of the evening. Her fierce concentration as her boots beat a seemingly endless, frighteningly fast tattoo on the floor boards had us all frowning in mirror-images of her expression.

A grand finale brought the four women back onto the stage together, the combined clicking of castanets and frantic clapping almost bursting our ear drums! It may have been a tablaos designed for the tourists, but we loved the evening’s enthusiastic entertainment. I will definitely be heading off to dancing classes…


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Markets in Madrid

Posted on 29 June 2012 by sheg4184
I  discovered a reference to the San Miguel Market during a web crawl for food tours and cooking classes in Madrid. The first are few and far between, the second are ruinously expensive and will have to wait until I win the lottery, but I love exploring local markets, and this seemed to be the central city market, so I added it quickly to my ‘must do’ list.
San Miguel proved surprising, a new venture in city markets. The beautiful iron and glass structure have been restored, polished up and modernized. Fruit and vegetable stands have been replaced by wine bars and counters full of up glamorous snacks and trays of extravagant tapas: Caesar salad or tandoori chicken on kebab sticks, shucked oysters, meatballs (albondigas), tortillas or toasts smothered in a variety of smoked or salted fish. There are shelves of amuse bouche – bite-sized desserts and sweet pastries – and an ice cream counter where a cup of yoghurt ice cream can be topped with an array of fruit jams, nuts and lollies, tempting kids and adults alike.
Initially trying to escape the mid afternoon heat, which is  overwhelming by 3pm, even in June, we wandered in to find, not the longed for air conditioning, but regular showers of cooling spray from exposed pipes under the roof. The clientele consisted largely of smartly dressed local business men and women popping in for a light lunch and a glass of wine, perching on high stools around a number of tall counter tops.
Life is relaxed and gracious in Madrid. Long broad avenues are shaded with leafy chestnuts and white sailcloth umbrellas shade an ever-flowing  river of pavement cafes and bars, providing a gentile elegance that is soothing even when the day is stifling. Stately palaces, domed churches, wide, open plazas, high colonnades, columned government ministries and  soaring statues meld with narrower residential roads that are trimmed with sophisticated apartment blocks fashionably dressed in tall  wooden shutters and wrought iron balconies.
Parks with wide sandy paths and heavily flowing fountains beckon us in to sit on comfy wooden benches and watch the world passing. Our teenage son judges us judgmental, but we are simply amusing ourselves observing the  broad array of humanity passing by,  everyone enjoying these luxurious oases regardless of size or stature, stilettos or comfy crocs. Mobile phones and iPods are prevalent with lone wanderers – heaven forbid they should find themselves looking like a Larry Loner  – and every tourist carries a camera and – wisely – a water bottle. Dogs are more prevalent than children, and are just as much a mix of the delightfully appealing and the downright appalling.
Spoken English is surprisingly rare in the country’s capital. There is a quiet arrogance about the Spanish that suggests – possibly rightly – that as we are in their country, we should attempt to speak their language. But I have been in Italy for almost three weeks and find myself reverting to the more practiced Italian. Spanish is similar, but its lisping resonances are still unfamiliar to my ear, and my tongue. Nonetheless, its fun wandering through the little market we find three blocks up the road, using pointing fingers and querying eyebrows to ascertain the Spanish for cherries and capers and capsicums. Its also a great place to practice counting in Spanish.
This is a proper little local mercatino – oops, Italian again! – secreted in a quiet nook of a shady residential street. Unlike its grander cousin on  San Miguel Square, fruit and vegetables, chicken and fish, cheeses and jamon lie tastily displayed across these more traditional market stalls. We load up with armloads of veggies for caponata and a lunch of kumato tomatoes on toast, and collapse onto a roadside cafe for a reviving cafe con leche after a strenuous shopping expedition. I am quickly realizing that my foodie tours in Manila have provided a surprising amount of gastronomic Spanish!
Back in San Miguel Plaza we wolf down a shared selection of tapas, wishing there was room for more, reluctantly avoiding the wine bars. A cold white wine looks sorely tempting, but we know the heat outside will hit an alcohol infused body harder then normal – and that’s hard enough! The air-conditioned underground trains send their siren song over the heat waves as we weave our way through the reams of fellow tourists and head home, replete and dozy, for the requisite siesta.
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Tasteful Memories

Posted on 25 June 2012 by sheg4184

Cultural understanding through taste is one of the best ways we can learn to understand each other

~ Allhoff & Monroe

If you have ever wondered about the Filipinos and the origins of Filipino food, Memories of Philippine Kitchens is the book for you. Arguably one of the least understood and appreciated cuisines in the world, food historians and Filipino chefs are now attempting to document Filipino culinary heritage and champion the survival of its foodways.

According to Amy Besa, Filipino cuisine is essentially home cooked comfort food. Therefore ‘the essence of Filipino food is in the family kitchens of Filipino homes, passed down through the generations, melding native traditions with those of Chinese, Spanish, and American cuisines’. With this in mind, she and her husband, Romy Dorotan travelled throughout the Philippines exploring the different cooking styles in each region and recording traditional family recipes.

First published in 2006, the revised edition of Memories of a Philippine Kitchen was released in May 2012. It is a compilation of culinary tales, cooking techniques and recipes from the Philippine provinces; a scrap book of memories recording Philippine culinary history, emotive photographs by renowned photographer Neal Oshima, and interspersed with Romy’s own recipes.

Originally from the Philippines, Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan now live in New York where they once owned Cendrillon, a renowned Filipino restaurant in SoHo. In 2009 they moved to Brooklyn to open Purple Yam, a very cool Filipino fusion restaurant. (Sadly we didn’t make it to the restaurant while in New York last Christmas, but we tasted some of the menu’s highights at a Night Market in Williamsburg. Next time Amy, for sure…)

Amy Besa posted on Facebook: “what’s the diff[erence] between the original and the revised edition of Memories of Philippine Kitchens? … For me, a world of a difference. The last chapter is more than a shift from Cendrillon to Purple Yam. It is a worldview developed from 17 years of promoting Filipino food here in NYC (and beyond). It reflects how our love for our own goes back to our roots.”

This beautiful book will give you a much deeper understanding of the Filipinos, their cuisine and their culture, from the variations on the well-known adobo and zesty sinigang to banana hearts in coconut milk and bringhe, the Filipino version of paella. All in all, an experience to engage the senses!

Memories of Philippine Kitchens won the International Association of Culinary Professionals 2007 Jane Grigson Award for scholarship.  It was also a finalist for the Julia Child First Book Award.

 

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To Taormina, with love…

Posted on 21 June 2012 by sheg4184

Almoezia. A three star B&B on Sicily’s east coast. A broad sunny terrace flanked with colourful pots overlooks the coast from Siren’s Bay to Capo Sant’Alessio on one side, and the seemingly inaccessible mountain top town of Castel Mola on the other. Old and new homes cling with fierce determination to the steep, dusty-dry hillsides. The Mediterranean sparkles and shimmers with the lustre of a polished sapphire, its surface as smooth as perspex, boats and cruise ships lying motionless, becalmed in the numerous bays and coves along the coast. In the distance, to the south, Mount Etna puffs away like a chain smoker all over the daring but potentially endangered villages clustered around its lower flanks.

Our lovely host Sebastiano suggests taking us on a day trip to Mount Etna and the Alcantara Gorge, where the water is icy. Driving tortuously winding roads for the questionable joy of climbing Mount Etna, blackened and desolate, in 35 degree heat does not appeal to me one iota. So I farewell father and son to bond and explore without me, and set myself up on the swing seat on this glorious terrace above our cool, cave-like bedroom.

Down below, Taormina’s narrow lanes are crowded with pretty cafes and tourists, sunny piazzas and panoramic views, pedestrian staircases cluttered with geranium pots and tiny tables and smatterings of centuries-old souvenirs. Here, the air is still, the rooftops quietly roasting in the sun. A local gardener has used up every inch of his hillside plot to plant plum trees and grape vines, fig trees and fennel, rosemary bushes and pocket-sized citrus trees, cacti and olives. Large white butterflies flit silently from bush to branch to flower. A gecko squiggles across the burning tiles near my toes. The peace is broken by the occasional rooster, the desultory chirruping of heat struck birds, or the sudden outbreak of pealing church bells across the valley at seventeen minutes past the hour! The twenty first century butts into this unchanging medieval landscape with an insistent telephone or a chain saw Vespa grinding up the steep mountain road.
Amoezia was the name given to Taormina by Saracen conquerors in the 9th century, and is also the name of the B&B we found tucked beneath the Saracen fort, high on the hilltop above Taormina. The town has been a tourist resort since the Ancient Romans laid claim to the island, with its Greco-Roman  amphitheatre that is currently dressed for a summer film festival. I should wander down  into town for lunch, but 500-odd steps in the midday heat appeal as little as mountaineering! Instead, I will survive on the doughnut shaped peaches and the sweetest, reddest mouthfuls of cherry tomatoes we found in the market yesterday…
…And save my appetite for dinner, when we will wander 100 metres up the road again to Il Saraceno ristorante, a pure gem on a terrace perching above a sheer drop over limestone cliffs that are covered in outcrops of prickly pear, and over looking the sea and the city lights.

Il Saraceno’s menu abounds with local specialties. We share an antipasti platter of ‘siciliana rustico’ that is  dominated by eggplants and capsicums: a serve of Caponata; another of Melanzane Parmigiana; a third of Pepperonata, as well as some warm, spicy olives and a slice of crumbed and fried cheese. (These popular vegetables reappear in a mouth-watering pasta al pesto siciliano with cherry tomatoes, basil and garlic). A second platter of carpaccio di carne on rucola is sprinkled with pecorino cheese. This is accompanied by a lovely cold bottle of local Chardonnay – unexpectedly zesty compared with our more buttery South Australian variety –  and home made bread, heavy and saltless, from a baker across the hill in Castel Mola. 

As always, seafood dominates the menu. I try a grilled grouper steak dressed in a tangy caper and olive sauce – the combination is overly salty, the fish overcooked and a little rubbery, but the sauce is perfect with the bread. A squid and clam pasta sauce is a delicately flavoured and highly acclaimed speciale served with angel hair pasta, and a pancetta and mozzarella pizza for one curls luxuriously over the edges of a large dinner plate.
And below, as we sip on a chilly limoncello and a splash of espresso, the earth seems inverted as the coastal lights twinkle like stars.
To stay with Sebastiano, you can see his website on www.villalmoezia.it or contact him on: info@villalmoezia.it
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Wannabe Italiani

Posted on 13 June 2012 by sheg4184

Most people travel to Florence to experience the Renaissance art and architecture, which is undeniably superb. Guide books warn  about avoiding astronomically lengthy queues to the main tourist attractions by purchasing tickets in advance. We simply avoided the tourist attractions. Admittedly we have walked past the Duomo and the Baptistry, sat on the steps of Santa Croce, traversed the piazza in front of the Pitti Palace, and eaten copious amounts of gelati.  But we had other fish to fry.  The Food and Wine Academy of Florence was offering a tour of the Mercato Centrale, followed by a day of learning to cook some typical Tuscan dishes. Sold!

We joined an early morning gathering just off Piazza della Republicca. Our guide and chef Giovanni and his second-in-command Andrea ran through the itinerary for the day and led us into the maze of narrow cobbled streets. Our first stop was Mercato Centrale to buy ingredients. If you know Melbourne’s Queen Victoria markets, you’ll get the gist.

While Andrea & Giovanni strolled off to gather cooking supplies, we were herded into a tiny shop full of oils and vinegars, salamis and mouth-wateringly huge wedges of Parmigiano Reggiano.  Our friendly hostess then indulged us with tasting platters of traditional Tuscan chicken liver pâté, made with chicken  livers (what else?) and capers, anchovies,  carrots, onions and dessert wine.  We scooped up her  own tomato, basil, mozzarella and chilli dip eagerly, and indulged in a surprisingly soft young pecorino spread with a light honey jam, a pungent white truffle honey or homemade sun-dried tomatoes. We devoured them all, with great enthusiasm.

We were then offered various aged balsamic vinegars, rich and syrupy, that our hostess recommended on a broad selection of food: basted on roast chicken or beef steaks, drizzled over icecream or bruschetta, or splashed on figs, strawberries or Parmigiano Reggiano. Real balsamic vinegar comes from Modena, just 20kms from Bologna. It is aged in wooden barrels made from oak or chestnut, cherry, ash or juniper, and the syrupy sweetness is natural: no sugar added.

Next, a stunning extra virgin olive oil with unsalted bread was handed round. Don’t ever waste this in the cooking, she advised us, save it for toppings. My recalcitrant taste buds craved a dipping bowl of rock salt, but somehow survived without. Our hostess then described a simple recipe for a dressing that can be stored on the shelf for as long as it takes to empty the bottle! Take a quarter bottle of 12 year old balsamic vinegar, fill with extra virgin olive oil, a dash of the flavoured oil of your choice, salt, and shake. Do not refrigerate.

Eventually we moved on to check out the butchers. As in Manila, there is an amazing amount of offal, although rather more hygienically arranged behind refrigerated counters. Tripe, trotters, tongue and tails mix, unperturbed, with minced beef, pork sausages, whole rabbits and chickens deflowered of feather but not of head.

The smell of the fish forewarns us of what we will  find around the next corner, and we visit one entrepreneurial fishmonger who has recently started serving paper cones of freshly fried seafood. As few in our group were much interested,  I happily hoed into calamari, sardines and a white fish all lightly dusted in flour and deep fried on the spot.

At last we left the market to go in search of the Holy Grail: a hole-in-the-wall kitchen, with huge white marble-topped tables around which we all  congregated eagerly. Sent off to wash our hands and don aprons, we obeyed like good children and returned promptly.

Our first task was to create tiramisu from a mountain of eggs (huge eggs) and horrific amounts of sugar.  Luckily, whisking so many egg whites is a breeze when there are a dozen of you to share the job. We soon had a fluffy marshmallow pillow of meringue that would have rendered me armless to achieve on my own!Layering the egg cream with dustings of cocoa powder and espresso dipped sponge fingers, we each produced a glass coppa of picture perfect tiramisu, to be served later.

Then we were faced with the choice of making a traditional Tuscan meat sauce or fresh pasta. I opted to see how the sauce differed from any I make at home. As Jamie Oliver noted in his recipe book of Italian cooking, Italians are ferociously regional. Their way is the best way, and they will argue forever on the right or wrong ingredients to use. In this case, garlic, mushrooms and peppers were out, onions, celery and carrots were in, and any of our own variations were sneeringly scorned.

I quickly recognized that my own method, without reference to regional recipes, but simply the desire to insinuate into it as many vegetables as I might get away with when faced with picky kids, was unlikely to be tolerated. Despite wanting to get each of us involved in the preparation, I noted that Giovanni was quietly grading us on our knife skills. I wisely stepped back from the chopping board.

We then swapped with Team 2 and had a go at making pasta from scratch. I have chatted all the way through a similar demonstration in the past, so was keen to concentrate this time. Despite a slight nervousness, I quickly realized that I have made plenty of playdough in a toddler-filled past and a similar method applied. We each made a neat well in a heap of flour and poured in an egg, reminiscent of creating sandcastle moats. Using a fork, we blended and kneaded until we had created a smooth, shiny, elastic dough.

Half an hour to sit and ponder, and then out came the rolling pins, with the advice from a more experienced cook that we should roll it so thin we could see the veins of the marble through the dough. Eventually, tuck shop arms reduced by half, we had created strings of fettucine and 4-5 handsome ravioli. This time Giovanni’s side-kicks had prepared the ricotta filling earlier, but the recipe looked simple enough to try at home later.

Andrea had whipped up a platter of bruschetta as we had been playing with our playdough cutters, and while some students hovered round the stove to supervise the pots of boiling water, others wiped, rearranged and set the tables for lunch. At the belated lunch hour of ten past three we regrouped to taste our efforts, accompanied by chunky glasses of Chianti.

All was well. The ravioli had been doused in sage butter, the fettucine stirred into the meat sauce and coated with lashings of Parmesan. Both were absolutely, drippily delicious. We reluctantly held back from seconds in order to leave room for the dreamy creamy tiramisu. We may not be opening an Italian café just yet, but we are definitely planning to repeat our success with homemade pasta when we get home.

If you ‘wanna be Italiano’ and enjoy cooking, contact www.FlorenceTown.com

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Rome: a Brief Encounter

Posted on 10 June 2012 by sheg4184

 

I remember a mad dash around Rome in the mid 80s, on a bus tour that galloped through seventeen capital cities in as many days. Rome flashed by in a blurr of terribly kitsch accordion music, third rate hotels and a mad swirl of traffic. I got my backside pinched, joined horrendous queues for famous sites and vaguely remember a peaceful interlude in the Tivoli Gardens.

I returned in the 90s, parked a tent on Lago Bracchiano and caught a train into the city. Having sat down, somewhat naively, at a coffee shop on the Via della Conciliazione,  with a wonderful view of St Peters Basilica, I was charged $20  for the privilege (our daily allowance) and stayed glued to my seat for the day, determined to get my money’s worth, while the artistic Catholic boyfriend wandered off to explore the Vatican City.

This time I have travelled to Rome with my son, and we have had three days to explore this ancient city, basing ourselves in a beautiful old monastery only a stone’s throw from the Colosseum.

Rome is a feast for the senses. With a myriad restaurants, ruins and Renaissance churches, it provides food for the stomach, the soul and the imagination, the latter fuelled by memories of Dan Brown’s “Angels & Demons”.

Beset by jetlagged, bleary eyes, reading maps was beyond us that first day, as we wandered aimlessly though Ancient Rome: down narrow cobbled lanes strung like bunting with brightly colored fiats, hondas and minis; up pedestrian staircases lined with tubs of hydrangeas; past wrought iron balconies decorated with pots of geraniums, and coming upon the Forum, Capitol Hill and the Colosseum from unexpected angles.

Rome is definitely full of the unexpected. Glancing down a side street, flotillas of motorbikes lining the walls, we discovered the Pantheon winking back at us. Poking a nose through a broad, arched gateway we were greeted by a glorious courtyard decorated with impressive marble statuary – doubtless some Super Star Renaissance sculptor. Skipping round a corner in search of gelato we came face to face with the Fontana di Trevi. A little pavement cafe served us pizza and pasta and provided a first class view of the Colosseum looming above us at the end of the street. A large, black, wooden door in a grubby wall opens into a heavily gilded church, a series of trompe l’oeil frescoes of heaven cast across the vaulted ceiling, a feat of skill and scaffolding to defy any fear of heights. Here we sat, away from the madding crowd just beyond the doorway, discussing science and religion, pondering the end of the world and the birth of grown up ambitions…

Then back to our eerie on top of a hill, climbing endless staircases to reach our cell-like room under the eaves with its high ceiling and tall smoky blue shutters. A tiny terrace is secreted within the terracotta-tiled roof line, dotted with tubs of colourful flowers and an insurgent vine creeping off the wire, while glittery, green-striped geckos dash about our feet and deep pink bougainvillea frames an arched window. A shady, peaceful recess from the world, as we gather our energy for another day spent drifting round Rome, stopping for gelati , cappuccini or panini con proscuitto.

 

 

 

 

 

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Aussie Pies at Legazpi

Posted on 3 June 2012 by sheg4184

'Simple Simon & the Pieman' by cartoonist W.W. Denslow*

In Manila we quickly become familiar with myriad street stalls and market stalls selling cheap, popular, take-away snacks to passers-by. Those of real notoriety include grilled chicken intestines on a stick, known tastefully as IUDs; grilled chickens feet, nicknamed Nikes, and grilled pork ears, or Walkman, not to mention the infamous balout, a boiled duck egg complete with three week old embryo. Although the food may be unfamiliar, the concept is not.

In Dickensian England, the poor, crammed into rotting tenements with no facilities, lived off  cheap street food sold on trays. For a penny they could buy anything from pea soup, pigs trotters and pickled herring to meat puddings and muffins.  Peddlers and hawkers would gather round the theatres after the shows were over to sell late-night snacks to hungry audiences and actors, such as sandwiches, green peas and pies: beef or mutton, eel from the Thames, or seasonal fruit such as apples or rhubarb , gooseberries or cherries, plums or mincemeat.

Adelaide Pie Floater*

Throughout history, sweet and savoury pies have been popular at every level of society. At Royal Banquets, wafer thin pastry was intricately decorated and filled with an array of custards, jellies, fruit and fowl. Penny-pie sellers did a roaring trade, pouring gravy under the lid as we do tomato sauce. Pepper and other strong seasonings were often used to disguise aging meat, and rumours were rife that less salubrious piemen used cat meat instead.

The habit of feeding the poor on the streets came to Australia with the First Fleet. In Sydney, by the middle of the nineteenth century, hawkers were touting their goods throughout the city: the muffin man and the milkman, the prawn seller and the ‘Flying Pieman’. Pies have since become ubiquitous to Australian food culture, the favourite of school children for packed lunches, and later in the school tuck shop. Businessmen no longer went home for lunch but grabbed a pie at the pub.

Harry's Cafe de Wheels *

Bakers and factory owners picked up on the trend, and now no supermarket or bakery is without its own version of the meat pie. By the 1930s a meat pie with tomato sauce was virtually a national dish, and continued as popular comfort food through the Depression and the war. South Australians become nostalgic for the name – if not the taste – of the notorious ‘Pie Floater’: a pie served in a bowl of pea soup. Harry’s Cafe de Wheels has been sitting in front of the naval dockyard at Woolloomooloo selling pie and peas and crumbed sausages since the Depression, and now has seven locations across New South Wales.

Renowned meat eaters, it is obvious why Australians love their meat pies, and with the national penchant for outdoor picnics and snacking, it serves a double purpose of being portable and easy to eat without table or cutlery, and a hearty dollop of tomato sauce. Now so thoroughly entrenched in Aussie food culture, the ‘Pie ‘n’ sauce’  has its own chapter in Bold Palates, a new book on Australia’s gastronomic heritage written by well known Australian food historian Barbara Santich, where she describes it as ‘Australia’s original fast food.’

So imagine my delight to discover a stall at Legazpi’s Sunday Market selling homemade Australian pies. Our own Villi’s pies have secured a corner of the market in Manila, and can be found at a couple of local pubs, or ordered online, although they are rather pricier than they are from the corner deli at home. But as we all know, a little taste of home is a treat sometimes worth paying extra for!

New in Manila's markets*

Mary Garrido travelled the length and breadth of Australia on a pie-tasting mission with her Aussie partner. Over the next four years she perfected her own recipes adapted from Australia’s best, and now has a menu ranging from steak with onion, kidney or mushroom, plain beef pie, egg and bacon pie, chicken and leek pie and chicken or beef curry pies in three sizes: family, regular and Australian. She also makes sausage rolls, old fashioned English pork pies and yummy fresh crumpets.

Garrido’s Australian homemade  pies can be bought at the market, or online, and will soon be available at Power Plant Mall. We have put several in the freezer already to keep my husband happy while we are away this summer, and I am on a mission of my own to taste test them all. So come one, grab the tomato sauce and let’s go eat pies…

* Internet images

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An Evening on the Mediterranean

Posted on 31 May 2012 by sheg4184

Ravioli a la Niçoise

A peaceful dinner at Restaurant 101 on McKinley Hill is always a welcome suggestion. When Chef Cantrel has prepared a Mediterranean feast it’s an offer too good to refuse.

The dining room, as always, is calm and welcoming. We are shown to my favourite booth, and settle ourselves with a sigh. Remembering that the dining room staff consists of waiters-in-training, we readily forgive them any small oversights or over-zealousness, as they are generally efficient and professional.

A bottle of French GSM or Grenache, Syrrah, Mourverdre is recommended by the helpful sommelier as a suitable accompaniment to our meal. It proves to be a good choice: by the end of the meal we have finished the bottle without a murmur of complaint.

‘Out & About in Le Méditerranée’ (cuisine from the south of France) is a set menu, and I am just in the mood for avoiding decisions. We sit back and relax, waiting for the show to begin.

pissaladière

It opens with a slice of pizza. Let me elaborate. This is not just a slice of pizza. This is a rectangular slice of puff pastry, spread with pesto, and topped with anchovies, caramelized onions, roast tomato, ricotta and thyme. It is a dreamy, delightful mixture of texture and taste that explodes on the tongue.

The pizza is rapidly followed by a trio of large, round ravioli a la niçoise, perfectly al dente, filled with thick, rich beef stew and black olives, and finished off with a delicate beef and red wine jus. We savour every mouthful, and find ourselves wishing there was more.

Roast Barramundi

Our main course is fillet of barramundi roti. It has been roasted so that the skin is light and crispy, and it is accompanied by perfectly braised fennel (I must learn how to do that), tomato confit and Meyer lemon.  A Meyer lemon, as I discover later, is a citrus fruit native to China, commonly grown as an ornamental tree. It became popular in the States after being ‘discovered’ by Alice Waters of Chez Panisse.

The final act is named, poetically, pompe a l’huile: an olive oil brioche accessorized with a crème anglaise and a huge strawberry dipped in dark chocolate. While it is an interesting combination of sweet and savoury and I love the accessories, the brioche is a little dry for my taste. Nonetheless, we leave the table, after a curtain call coffee, cheerfully replete.

There are regular themed nights at Restaurant 101. Earlier this year there was  a special evening for Valentine’s Day,  an Easter brunch and a Mother’s Day lunch. There was a whiskey dinner is on the agenda for April, and a White Asparagus night in May to celebrate the very short but renowned white asparagus season. We attended that one last year and thoroughly enjoyed a set menu focused on this northern European delicacy. Father’s Day will be celebrated in June and there is talk of a Bastille Day dinner in July.

Watch the Enderun website for further dates and details: www.101.enderuncolleges.com

* As published in the BWA magazine, June/July 2012.

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Frills & Furbelows at Café Juanita

Posted on 28 May 2012 by sheg4184

Catfish and mango salad

Late last year, armed with map and compass, I journeyed into the depths of Pasig City on a quest for Café Juanita. Our diligent driver turned out to be better at following his nose than I was at map reading, and we eventually arrived without too many wrong turns.

Parking is not plentiful, but we fluked a spot right in front of the restaurant, where the car toasted nicely for the next three hours. I had arranged to meet a friend, and sat admiring the unusual décor until she arrived.

Cluttered with ornaments, antiques, woven hangings and Christmas decorations, the dining room is an amalgam of Victoriana and the Middle East with a twist of the Philippines: fussy but fun, and wonderfully cosy. The floor is a profusion of Persian rugs. Beautifully carved wooden dressers and sideboards encircled the room. Every table was decked out in a lace tablecloth, and many of the chairs are dressed up in tulle and bows, Chinese paper parasols and lampshades adorn every surface, and the centerpiece is a vast orange layered chandelier, an imaginative creation that looked like an upturned wedding cake hanging from the ceiling. A courtyard tucked away at the back displays an abundance of old-fashioned bird cages and wrought iron garden furniture.

The eclectic décor is reflected in the menu: an interesting mix of Filipino, Vietnamese, Laotian and Thai, as well as a predictable selection of pasta. I am told Café Juanita has a great Sunday buffet, but we wandered in on a Friday afternoon, and enjoyed the offerings of the à la carte menu. The service is efficient and friendly. My bottomless iced tea never bottomed out, and we even got a visit from owner “Doc” Dr. Boy Vasquez, who calls himself Doctor Cisionaría. Obviously there is way more fun to be had delivering good food than small babies, as he gave up the one for the other more than seven years ago.

Deep fried lapu lapu with tamarind sauce

We ordered several dishes to share and were very happy with our choices, although next time I’ll invite a larger group so we can explore the menu more fully. My friend ordered a Thai catfish and mango salad (mouth-puckeringly sour with light crispy crunch) and chunks of deep fried lapu lapu (a local white fish) with tamarind sauce – my latest favourite condiment. The ubiquitous Filipino coconut oil had the day off, thank goodness, and the food was much better for its absence.

Keen to try out the Filipino cuisine, I chose a very snappy sigadilyas salad with chili jam (that’s wing beans) and a rich beef caldereta with rice. Locals praise Café Juanita as the closest thing you’ll get to Filipino home cooking. The serves are unexpectedly hearty for a Filipino restaurant and we ordered far too much as it turned out, but the staff cheerfully packed up the left-overs to take home.

We shared one dessert – well how could we say no? I have always wanted to taste the Spanish dessert and local favouite Sansrival, and finally had the opportunity, but sadly this cake is much too rich even for this Dairy Queen. Layers of sponge fingers bound together with a thick coat of butter cream were undoubtedly for those with a sweeter tooth than mine.

Last week, I discovered the second Café Juanita in Burgos Circle. Smaller than the Pasig restaurant, it still sported the kitschy frills and furbelows but in rather less profusion. An upper floor is apparently available for private events.

Gambas al ajillo

We were a larger group this time, so we were able to try a wider range of dishes. Sadly, the Global City restaurant doesn’t have the sigadilyas salad on the menu, but the catfish and mango salad was a must and one everyone enjoyed. We also loved the gambas al ajillo (stir fried shrimp in garlic with button mushrooms), in a spicy red sauce and the fresh lumpia or goicon (fresh spring rolls), filled with a medley of meat and fresh vegetables.

There are many local offerings on the menu: tinuktok (crabmeat) wrapped in taro leaves with coconut milk; oxtail and tripe kare kare, and deep fried tanigue tail (Spanish mackerel) with green mango salsa and bagoong. Attempting to maintain the Filipino theme, we finally decided on three dishes to share: the two way pork adobo ribs with garlic rice; the lightly battered lapu lapu topped with a fishing net of egg, and a vegetable dish which sounded like ratatouille with the interesting addition of dried fish.

Pausing for thought – and to settle the abundance of food we had already consumed – we debated the desserts and decided on a mouth-watering, nostalgic sticky date pudding and mango jubilee (ice cream with caramel sauce and balls of mango). Neither dessert was particularly Filipino, but more Victorian nursery food with a touch of the tropics, but it was a lovely dash of sweetness to complete the meal. I will be going again, especially now I have one Café Juanita around the corner and won’t need a compass!

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