Happy Valentine's Day y'all!

  1. When I was in high school, I was obsessed with Valentine’s Day. I don’t remember how I ever got the money, but I was able to buy roses and kitschy shit from, remember Blue Magic?, and even chocolates. There were two girls I really liked who got these gifts and all through high school, there was this song and dance of secret glances, cryptic messages on slum books and meaningful hand squeezes while practising the prom cotillon dance. When I met up with my high school friends Bam and Janice in December, it was hours of traipsing down memory lane, recontextualising experiences (Yes, that was bullying! Yes that was toxic!) and connecting the dots of who hooked up with whom. "So what happened with you and your girlfriend, M and the other one (also) M?” I looked at them, perplexed. “They weren’t really my girlfriends because I didn’t get to sleep with them”. I don’t remember now how Bam and Janice reacted to that, but it’s the truth.

  2. Sex is important in a relationship. If it’s gone, you better hope you have enough money to compensate, though I doubt even millions or billions ever do.

  3. I love chicken hearts. Hearts, in general, and it doesn’t matter if it’s chicken or beef, have this interesting texture that is neither soft nor firm, but somewhere in the middle. And however you season it, it just sits there as an outside layer of flavour, which doesn’t overwhelm the texture of the heart. I’m glad the local supermarkets sell them, though I only buy them as a treat (I’ve heard that they have a lot of cholesterol). I simply cook them like I do adobe and finish them off with butter. I don’t eat them with rice, or as a meal and instead snack on them the whole day with a glass of cold (no sugar) coke.

  4. We did go out for Valentines at Pearl Garden. The roast pork that I was looking forward to was a big miss though; I had a sneaking suspicion they did it on an air-fryer.

Food (lately)

  1. I bought a 2kg box of cherries (Central Otago cherries) and ate them all by myself (nearly- gave a small packet to a co-worker) because why not?. I missed them at Christmas, and even then, they’re too expensive and usually not of export-quality, like these. The big market is usually China, and when inexplicably, they’re not all sold out, then it’s half price for poor bastards like me who like them big and firm.

  2. Can you eat tortang talong without rice?? You certainly can. I realised too late that I had two big eggplants that would soon end up in the compost bin so I had to cook them, and torta was the only recipe I knew that had protein in it (I used pork mince). But the meal fell on a non-rice day, so in lieu of that, I had spinach (sauteed) and duck eggs on the side.

  3. For someone who has had fresh, shaved truffles, I never learn. The chips themselves were great, but they’re far, far, far from the real thing. So don’t get scammed- get the real deal or no deal.

  4. Fat on fat; baked eggs on avocado.

  5. I had a bottle of chimichurri sauce, but no steak. Guess what? It works on beef strips.

  6. If you love salted duck-egg anything, here’s a tip, especially if you like to use it for chicken wings. You don’t need a whole carton to get a satisfactory flavour. You can use three or four yolks and augment them with miso and butter.

Food lately

  1. I love Ortiz sardines, but at NZ$15 a can, it’s a love savoured only on occasion. A lot of recipes involve completely hiding it in a fried cannolini, or mashed and buried with cream cheese and capers as a dip. I like to taste the fish itself, flavoured with nothing more than a dash of lemon or a dab of mustard. To make it more substantial for dinner, it’s the protein filling with boiled eggs, romaine lettuce within low-carb, high-protein wraps.

  2. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should; the ‘orange juice Americano’ which mixes fresh orange juice (we used bottled) and two shots of espresso. It was okay.

  3. Pasta and steak is one of those meals you rarely ever find, in a sea of trendy, less substantial, aesthetic menus. Do you have it together? Or is it pasta first and then steak? But we were having it at home. It was Sam’s birthday dinner in lieu of going out (the day was a Wednesday) and there was no rush. Pasta was cooked first and when it was cooling a bit (because it was simply going to have a butter and cheese sauce and if the pasta was too hot, the freshly grated parmigiano was going to seize-up and harden), the wagyu scotch fillets were pan-fried and then finished off in the oven. I was grieving over the fact that the preference for them was well-done (it wasn’t my birthday so..).

  4. It still amazes me to get vegetables just from the local supermarket and realise how actually so fresh they are that all you need to do is blanch them in boiling water for 8-10 minutes. The green beans had the crispness and sweetness of a perfect summer day. There was even no point dipping them into a sauce or condiment.

  5. I only have rice twice a week for dinner and I make it count. I make sure I don’t get a shitty protein to accompany it, but nothing too extra either that you’re forced to go beyond the 1 (generous) cup limit. I love pompano and I always end up baking it in the oven. The seasoning is fresh ginger and garlic scallion sauce with a side of stir-fried greens.

Smashed it

I believe I may have written about smashed burgers a couple of times and that:

  1. It’s the only way to make home-made burgers for me

  2. That I may never again order fancy burgers when we eat out with the exception of McDonald’s.

  3. The only bun to serve it on is brioche (this is non-negotiable).

But I’m writing about it again because I’ve managed to make it in less than twenty minutes (including prep time) with the least mess possible. I guess, familiarity creates a perfect system.

The trick is, to start cooking your beef the moment you press the on-button on your air-fryer for your fries.

It takes about 15 minutes for the fries to cook and in that space of time, you smash/fry your patties on the skillet; put the cheese slices on top; and then onto the oven at 180 to finish cooking, and then a resting period as the fries finish cooking.

I always weigh my beef, and a 60+ gram patty within this time frame ends up being medium-rare which is how I like my beef.

The small bun can be misleading; I’ve attempted to eat two and it ended being two much.

The weekend

Funny thing is, mac and cheese isn’t one of those dishes I would personally pick.

I think it’s a dish that personifies the excessiveness and wanton disregard for health of most American comfort foods. Sure, if it’s on the table I’ll have a couple of spoonfuls.

And yet I make it every so often (coz it’s such a crowd-pleaser), and everyone loves it to the point that I actually get requests to make it personally for get-togethers and parties. The recipe that I’ve been using is not anything special. I think I simply Googled, ‘best mac and cheese recipe’ and used the first one that came up that didn’t look complicated or excessive (truffle, barf).

But the trick to good food is simply making it well, and for pasta dishes, the same fundamental rules apply: salt your pasta water generously and don’t overcook your pasta. I also learned that having at least three different kinds of cheese creates a more dimensional flavour.

I also layer the pasta the same way I would do lasagna. For the quantity of 650 grams of elbow macaroni for a 15 inch x 7 inch pan, I did three layers, including the crumbed-parmesan and smoked paprika topping.

I made this for my friend Jordan’s uncle who had his birthday this weekend.

The work weekend

WHY ARE IPHONE PHOTOS SO SHIT??????

Friday at the Auckland Night Markets

We’ve been going to the markets for years and we’ve seen how it’s become a barometer of changing tastes and food trends. New Zealand is a bit behind I must admit, but who cares? I’ve calmed down now and realised that food is just food.

We’ve seen the current It food come and go. When it came out, there were always queues for churros and now, we look with sympathy at the Indian dude stuck with a franchise with practically no buyers (I looked furtively and his deep-fryers hadn’t even been used and it was already 7pm). From a business perspective, this kind of customer desertion can be brutal.

Asians on the other hand have always been more adept at pivoting to another product. We remember the dumpling wave (wasn’t really obsessed with it) when every other stand was hawking them at ridiculously cheap prices. And now, there was only one or two selling them. On their commercial gill plates, there were various meats for the now-popular food combos that promised more food for your buck.

Islander food- pork roasted on a spit, hefty cubes of taro, rice sticky with coconut cream - has also seen a resurgence for the heartier eater.

The same thing for desserts- the still trendy Korean waffles with sweet bean paste, American-styled cheesecakes, pecan tarts, baked Alaska and cookies as big as your face featuring the now ubiquitous Biscoff biscuit.

A couple of years ago, I would spend $40 which seemed a lot (I liked variety). Now, you’ll easily go past that if you weren’t careful now that most of the vendors have EFTPOS machines.

Tested and Approved:
Trendy Tanghulu; various fruits encased in sugar similar to candy-apples. Surprisingly refreshing with just enough sugar to complement the fruit’s sour notes. Careful in eating them though- the sugar crystals can be sharp enough to nick the inside of your mouth.

Korean puff pastries; the woman selling them filled the pastries with cream and torched the sugared top ala Creme Brulee.

Still a NO
Filipino food includes the usual suspects like dinuguan, pork laing, adobo, etc. The problem is that I can cook these better in my own house. The only thing I like is pork barbecue, and no one else does it better than Pinoys. The trick? You need to put some fat in your BBQ.

The Viral Dubai chocolate; they were selling portions of it and even if I’ve never really been a chocolate fan, I just needed to taste what the fuss was all about. And this is what it’s like- imagine eating a ton of pistachios and barfing it out, before using it as a chocolate filling. Gross.

Weekend desserts

I’ve made this once before and I wasn’t exactly thrilled. I thought it was dull and stodgy.

But the 2nd time’s the charm and I think it’s the recipe (a different one) and it’s also because I’ve used a stand-mixer for this one- you do a lot of mixing which a hand-whisk wouldn't be able to do as well.

The recipe called for a lot of creamy things and this is what you get in the end, a truly rich, ultra-creamy cake that straddles the fine line between a too-sweet and a too cheesy (savoury) concoction.

And to pair it with something that has alcohol makes it a little bit more adult, more refined.

Almusal (breakfast)

I’m putting the sad, sludgy and gray overnight oats on the side for a while for something a bit more substantial.

I wish I had jumbo Pinoy hotdogs instead, but these are (pork) Kabbanos sausages made locally, and they would have to do. They take a while to cook through so take your time to grill them over low heat until all the little cuts you’ve made on them all bloom out like petals.

Our current spice obsession is ras el hanout which has found its way into our air-fryer chips and now, fried garlic rice. Sunny-side-up eggs are covered with our other favourite seasoning, More Than Just a Bagel Seasoning.

At the UP, this was my favourite go-to meal at Rodics who I think, invented the entire SiLog portmanteau. I didn’t care much for their signature TapSiLog because I felt that the salty, tangy beef bits demanded more rice, and the single-cup serving was never always enough. And it was never a thing back in the day to order an extra serving.

But the hotdog and rice combo was just right, and even if I can have extra rice, I won’t.

Gochujang Spam

I saw this on Insta where it was described as ‘elevating Spam’. I loathe the word ‘elevating’. Pretty much the only things that elevated somethings manage to elevate are your expectations and 9 out of 10, it comes crashing down anyway. If it’s beneath you to eat anything out of a can, then fuck you lol.

When I bring Spam to work for lunch, I get a lot of comments but not because Kiwis are precious or anything; processed meats haven’t really been part of the gastronomic landscape.

But this recipe really works when generally, stuff from social media are not properly kitchen tested, or worse, fake.