Burnt Lumpia

Big Fan o' Tapa

Filipino Tapa is thinly sliced beef that is cured and dried with salt, sugar, and other spices and then cooked in oil.  In other words, Tapa is fried beef jerky. And, as seen in the picture above, Tapa is usually served for breakfast along with garlic fried rice and a fried egg or two.  This breakfast trinity of fried foods is known as Tapsilog: TAP is from Tapa, SI is from sinangag (fried rice), and LOG is from itlog (egg). Substitute Longanisa for the Tapa and you've got Longsilog. Filipinos. Crazy wordsmiths we are.

I could be wrong, but I imagine that early Filipinos (by "early" I mean a long long time ago, as opposed to the opposite of "Filipino Time") cured and dried their beef to preserve it, and then later fried it to wake the flavors up a bit. Or, maybe we just like to make perfectly healthy foods unhealthy by dousing them in oil. Nah, that can't be it.

Anyways, in researching Tapa, I found many many recipes consisting of simple marinades but excluded the traditional curing and drying process. Heck, even I had one of these "quick" tapa recipes sans the curing and drying  Why no curing and drying? Well, because those are magical culinary processes that a home cook cannot duplicate because leaving raw beef out to dry can lead to things like bacteria, mold, and explosive diarrh...

You get the point.

But, in all actuality, anyone can cure, dry, and dehydrate beef at home with none of the ill effects I mentioned above.  It's true. Just ask The Goog for Beef Jerky recipes and he will gently whisper them into your ears, or at least flash them in front of your eyeballs.

After finding a gajillion and one recipes for beef jerky, I figured I could just make up my own Tapa marinade and then dry my marinated Beef Tapa in the same fashion as an American jerky. Why the heck not!

And so that's what I did.  I created my own marinade and chose a drying process that would be quick, easy, and AWESOME.  What could possibly be AWESOME about drying meat?  Well, I used a box fan, a couple of paper furnace filters, and some bungee cord to mummify my marinated meat.  I'm serious.

Mac On Some Cupcakes

I started Burnt Lumpia a year ago today. Strange, I know.

At the time, I really didn't know what I was doing (that's not to say I know what I'm doing now). But I knew I wanted to learn, I wanted to cook, and I wanted to write about what it was that I learned and cooked (and maybe poke fun at my family along the way).

I honestly had no long-term plans for this blog. I didn't think I'd have the time to experiment, research, cook, write and maintain a blog. After all, that would cut into my busy schedule of, uh, hmmmm. Well, it would at least cut into my beer drinking. But then I figured out that I could experiment, research, cook, write, and maintain a blog whilst enjoying liquid gold! Oh beer! A glorious beverage of convenience you are!

Anyhoo, I initially thought that after a couple of silly posts I'd slowly fade away. "Eh, I'll give it a couple months," I thought. But then, something funny happened.

The more I learned and cooked, the more I wanted to write and share. And vice versa. It was a vicious cycle. But I was enjoying myself. And, inexplicably, people started to respond to me.

So, I wanted to send a big thanks to all of you who check into this here blog on the regular. Thanks for sending me tips in emails and in the comments section--I learn quite a lot from my readers. And thanks to all you lurkers out there too (I see you! I've got a magic romper room mirror!).

As a sign of gratitude, I made something. I wish I could tell you that I felled a bull with a swift kick to his groin, quartered him with a machete, then pan seared some of his muscle mass for a bloody steak. But instead, I baked cupcakes.

Cupcakes.

I know. Not as cool sounding as killing a bull. But that's what I get for starting this thing on Valentine's Day. Egads!

Filipino Pantry Chicken Caesar Salad

Imagine, if you will, a Chicken Caesar Salad.

Cool. Crisp. Creamy.

Chickeny.

A classic dish, some may say.

Behold!

A Chicken Caesar Salad!

It looks innocent enough doesn't it? But, that is no ordinary Chicken Caesar Salad.

Look closer.

Closer.

Closer still!!!

That is a salad that has traveled the space-time continuum. A salad, constructed from the unusual. A salad so familiar, yet... so... strange.

What's so strange about it you ask?

This salad was created from the following ingredients...

Behold!!!

Gasp!

Those things can't combine to create a classic chicken caesar salad can they?

Oh, yes they can. Yes they can!

Mwahahahahahaaaaa!

Ladies and Gentlemen. You've just crossed over into...

The Filipino Pantry Zone!

Stuffin' Ain't Easy

You might not believe this, but every year for the past few years I’ve brined and roasted a turkey right around the time Thanksgiving rolls around. Sometimes a week before. Sometimes a couple weeks after. But I’ve never made turkey on Thanksgiving Day.

Why not?

Well, two reasons really: my Mother-in-law and my Grandmother. Every other T-day, my wife and I are either at her parents’ house to celebrate, or at my grandparents’ house to celebrate (this year we will be at my grandparents—more on that in the next post to come). So because my wife and I alternate between our respective families every year, there really isn’t much reason for me to cook a turkey since my mother-in-law and grandmother do such a good job with it.

So why do I cook a turkey at all?

Well, another two reasons: It makes me feel alls growed up, and it’s good practice for the one day where my wife and I may have to host Thanksgiving. Now, I’ve made one of these pre/post-Thanksgiving turkeys once before for my family, and that didn’t turn out too well. So I’ve stuck to just making a small turkey for only me and my wife. Not because my turkey isn’t good enough for others to enjoy, but because my family is a heartless and impatient bunch. Hmmph!

Anyways, every year my wife and I get to feast on two different turkeys (the turkey I make and the turkey made by the designated maternal figure for that year) within the span of a few days. That’s a lot of turkey! And even though I get the smallest gobbler I can find (10-12 lbs.), there are still a lot of leftovers for just me and my wife.

With the annual surplus of turkey looming, I was almost gonna take this year off and rest from my self-imposed turkey trials because I’m just burned out. But then I started getting different ideas to make this year’s non-Thanksgiving meal a bit different. Ideas like mashed Ube and gravy (gross!), or Adobo Turkey (tempting, but that’s a lot of soy and vinegar!).

Then, while making my Mango and Pan de Sal Bread Pudding, the dried-out cubes of Pan de Sal caused the flickering lightbulb thingy above my head to go off again: Pan de Sal and Longanisa Stuffing!

Mango and Pan de Sal Bread Pudding

I’ve wasted a lot of food in my lifetime.

As a kid, I would randomly open our refrigerator door, take out an egg, toss it at my little brother and yell, “Catch!!!”  He sucks at catching.  Good times.

There was that time in college where I was dared to drink a gallon of milk in less than an hour (yes, I was THAT guy).  I was able to drink the milk, but let’s just say it wasn’t in me for very long.

There were also a few half glasses of beer that I’ve had to leave behind at the bar. Mind you, I’ve never left a beer behind that I didn’t want to, or couldn’t, finish.  But there just always seems to be that one person in your group who just can’t let a man finish his beer at his own pace and has to leave the bar right that second.  I must befriend more patient designated drivers, or live within stumbling distance to a decent watering hole.

And from the time I was able to ingest solid foods until right this second, I’ve probably thrown away a metric ton of rice—much to my mother’s chagrin.  Even though my mom now lives a couple of hours away from me, I’m sure that whenever I scrape the uneaten rice off of my plate and into the trashcan she can feel it in her soul.  She then turns to my father and says, “I felt a great disturbance in the Force… as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.”  At least that’s how I picture it.

Anyways, all of this wastefulness was weighing on my mind when I was about to toss some stale Pan de Sal into the trash.  But then I didn’t want my mother to randomly keel over from another Force disturbance (or as she would say, Porce disstuurrrbance).  So I decided to hold onto the Pan de Sal and put it to further use in a bread pudding.  You read that right.  Bread pudding.

Kalamansi Granita

Conventional wisdom usually dictates:

“Don’t eat the yellow snow.”

It’s sage advice, really.  And it usually makes sense considering the circumstances that cause the yellowing of snow:

• Huskies
• Rabid Raccoons
• The Abominable Snowman, Yeti, and/or Sasquatch
• Tauntauns
• Drunken Eskimos Canadians Russians Cold Climate Drunks in general

However, this advice does not take into consideration my sublimely yellowy and snowy dessert: Kalamansi Granita.

Kalamansi Infused Vodka

Don't get all excited folks. Yes, those are kalamansi limes you see in the picture above. But no, they are not from my kalamansi tree Kaladocious Kalamansi IV. Kal didn't exactly come through for me this year. He's a failure. Kal's fruit only got as big as the "O" on your keyboard. Go ahead and look down at your keys, I'll still be here when you look back up at your screen.

Tiny right? As soon as Kal's kalamansi got that big, they just up and died. I don't know what went wrong, but maybe Kal needs another year of maturity before he starts producing actual fruit, or maybe the neighbor's cat peed on him one too many times. Poor bastard (Kal, not the cat).

Anyways, ever since I got Kal, I've had all these Kalamansi ideas floating around in my head and I didn't want them all to go by the wayside just because Kal sucks at his job. So last time I was at my parents' house, I went into their backyard and filled a couple of plastic bags full of kalamansi from my mom's tree (I'm hoping jealousy is a motivator for Kal).

Seeing that I love Filipino ingredients and booze, I decided to combine both of these things for my first Kalamansi recipe: Kalamansi Infused Vodka.

Filipino Americans and Gumbo

When speaking on the origins of Gumbo, perhaps the most celebrated of dishes in Louisiana, a hodge-podge of cultural and ethnic groups are usually given credit for its conception. And rightfully so.

For example, Africans are largely credited for Gumbo's name since the term "kigombo" is an African dialect word for okra - a key ingredient in many Gumbo recipes. The use of File powder as a thickening agent in Gumbo is credited to the Native Choctaw Indians who had many uses for the Sasafras leaves from which File is made. And of course, the French (by way of the French Acadians) are credited with the use of a roux as the base of any good Gumbo recipe.

But, there is perhaps one more group to add to this list of Gumbo progenitors – Filipinos. Filipinos first settled in the Bayou State in 1763, a very significant time in Louisiana history as it coincides with the arrival of the Acadians – a group of people who would later become known as Cajuns. Since October is Filipino American History Month here in the United States, I wanted to share  my theory that, in addition to the Cajuns and the various ethnicities already mentioned, Filipinos also contributed to Gumbo's emergence as an All-American dish.

Purple Yam Gnocchi

Pablo Picasso had his Blue Period, and I guess for me, the last couple of weeks have been my Purple Period. Luckily however, my monochromatic muse was not inspired by someone's suicide or large quantities of absinthe.

Unlike Ol' Pablo, my inspiration came on much happier terms. Using the purple Ube yam of the Philippines, I have made Purple Ube Pancakes, Ube Ice Cream, and now, Purple Yam Gnocchi.

(On second thought, maybe absinthe did play a role in these seemingly odd creations of mine.)

Anyhoo, whether I was lucid or not is besides the point people! I have come to the conclusion that Ube is a very versatile ingredient--lending its mildly sweet flavors to desserts and savory dishes alike.  That’s right. Savory! (Egads man, he has lost his mind!)

For my latest (I’ve purposefully delayed posting this so as not to oversaturate your eyeballs with violet visions) and probably last (I'm all purpled out) Ube recipe, I used a couple of purple yams that I found at my Asian grocery store.

Flowers for Longanisa

Sometimes food can become a bit too complex. Now, there's nothing wrong with complex, some of the stuff I've made up on this blog has been a bit difficult, but sometimes it all gets a bit tiresome.  Standing in my kitchen over a long-simmering pot, or separating a handful of eggs, or prepping the last of a gajillion and one ingredients--that all starts to wear on me after a while.  So every now and then, it's good to revert back to simpler recipes and simpler techniques to keep me from going crazy.  And by simpler, I mean using leftovers.

I've got enough homemade Longanisa in my freezer to stretch from here to Manila and back, and I've been wanting to deplete that supply so that it only reaches Hawaii.  That's a lot of Longanisa to use up. Luckily, this fried squash blossoms post by Wandering Chopsticks set off one of those flickering lightbulb thingies above my head.  Except, instead of stuffing squash blossoms full of minced shrimp, like Wandering Chopsticks did, I figured I'd use some of the Longanisa in my freezer.

And, as we are in the last throes of summer here in SoCal, I wanted to make sure I took advantage of the squash blossoms at the local farmer's markets before they were all gone.