Sweet chili shrimp

How do you explain to someone who doesn't cook, or who can cook only with a recipe, what goes on through your mind when you're deciding on what to whip up?

Take this dish, for example. I had one kilo of shelled, deveined shrimp thawing in the refrigerator. I had moisturizing gunk on my hair and scalp and wanted to keep it on the whole day so I didn't want to have to go out to buy ingredients. So I was running through both the refrigerator and the pantry in my mind (I was reading blogs at the time and didn't want to get up to check). When my mind got to the bottle of sweet chili sauce, it stopped. Ah ha! Okay, shrimp sautéed in sweet chili sauce. But a kilo of shrimp isn't a lot—what can I use to extend it? Ooh, I still have a pack of fish tofu in the freezer. So I get up, take it out of the freezer and put it in the refrigerator to thaw. And as I do that, I see the carton of quail eggs—that'll do. Better boil those now so they'll have plenty of time to cool—I hate peeling hot hard-boiled eggs and scorching my fingertips. Much later, when the eggs have been boiled, cooled and peeled and it was almost dinner—I expected the cooking time to be less than 30 minutes—I bring out the shrimp, tofu and sweet chili sauce from the refrigerator. My eye gets caught by another bottle of sauce, chili garlic this time. Ooh, that'll add a little more kick to the dish—the sweet chili sauce hardly has any. So there, ingredients complete and all I have to do now is cook everything.

I think almost everyone here can follow the thought process, but I don't think I'll ever be able to describe how I know that one ingredient will taste good with another. Will "You have to imagine how they'll taste like together" help?


Anyway, let's cook the dish now.

Since the tofu pieces were pretty big, I cut each piece into quarters. I also cooked it first because it's not pure tofu and is actually a little starchy so I figured it would need to be cooked longer than the shrimp. In a wok, heat a teaspoon of sesame oil, add a teaspoon of chili garlic sauce, stir until mixed well. Add the tofu and sauté until the pale sides are a bit brown, adding a tablespoon of sweet chili sauce sometime during the sautéing. Set aside.

Add more sesame oil and chili garlic sauce to the wok and sauté the shrimp, with one and a half teaspoons of salt. Add sweet chili sauce during the sautéing. When the shrimp's more than halfway done (that is, it's losing its transparency), add the tofu and continue sautéing. When the shrimp's cooked, add the quail eggs. Toss—lightly, so the eggs won't break—to mix the three main ingredients well and to coat the eggs in the chili sauce (add more chili sauce if necessary).

Mediterranean fish fillet

My version of a dish served during one of our office's special events. I couldn't ask the caterer for her recipe—that's her business edge after all—so I kind of had to guess what she put in it, ending up with another un-recipe. I do know that it's based on the Provençal tapenade (a paste of black olives, capers and olive oil), because that's what she calls her dish. But she didn't use a paste and she put sun-dried tomatoes, so I think that it's actually more Mediterranean than French.

My changes: (1) sun-dried tomatoes are not easily available here so I had to use fresh tomatoes, so I lost the tartness of the sun-dried tomatoes, which I like; and (2) the caterer's version was baked, but I couldn't get the gas oven to work, so I cooked it stove-top. This, and using fresh tomatoes, at least gave me a dish that was more moist than the caterer's.

My one kilo of fish (I again used creamy dory), had four fillets. Since I don't have a pan which can accommodate all four, I had to cook them in two batches. Not difficult, don't worry, since fish cooks quite fast.

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small bottle sliced green olives
small bottle sliced black olives
small bottle capers
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsps butter
1 kilo fish fillet

1. Sauté all the olives and capers in about one tablespoon of olive oil for about one minute. Set aside. Divide into eight servings (for four fillets—the idea is two servings of the mixture per fillet).

2. Put a dab of butter in the pan and melt it. Place the fillets of fish in the pan and spoon one serving of the olive mixture on top of each fish. Cover the pan and wait about three minutes.

3. Flip the fish over with the olive mixture—try to place as much of the olive mixture under the fish. Spoon another serving of the olive mixture over each fish. Cover and cook until done.

The reason for the pot

Nilagang manok—literally, boiled chicken—is the reason why I got my humongous pot in the first place.


Basically, it's just chicken (I use 8 or 10 pieces) boiled with onions and fish sauce (patis in Filipino, nam pla in Thai). I bring it to boil then simmer for about 40 minutes.

While the chicken's simmering, I cut up all the vegetables. Green beans, ballhead cabbage, pechay (bok choy) and Chinese (Napa) cabbage. I add all these to the pot after 40 minutes and keep it simmering for less than 5 minutes.

It's because of the vegetables that I needed the pot. I always use a lot, but even then, they're usually the first to go. This new one is so huge, you'll notice that the water level is way below the rim—in my old pot, it would have overflowed already.

I really love this pot.

Not quite from scratch

I think I'm a little slow here, but I've just discovered how to make quick, chunky soup using canned condensed soup. My only excuse is that Campbell's soup is imported here and I don't pay it much attention when I do my grocery. There's not much variety either—we only seem to have a few of the cream-based soups plus the chicken noodle soup, and only the regular kind too—none of the chunky or low-sodium varieties. But I wanted to make a shrimp-based chunky soup last weekend—it's rainy season here already and nothing beats hot soup when it's raining—and I didn't have much time to make one from scratch because I woke up late Sunday morning. So I grabbed two cans of Campbell's New England Clam Chowder and a brick of low-fat milk and that's what I based my chunky soup on. I don't think I'll be doing this often though. I checked the nutrition information and the sodium content is high!

2 cans condensed clam chowder cream soup
1 brick (250ml) low-fat milk
1/8 cup butter or margarine
2 small onions, minced
1 kilo peeled shrimp, sliced into bite-size pieces
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon marjoram
2 small carrots, chopped
1 medium zucchini, chopped

Place the condensed soup and milk in a stockpot and use a whisk to mix the two until smooth. Set aside.

In a wok or large skillet, melt the butter and sauté the onions until translucent. Add the shrimp, salt, black pepper and marjoram and sauté until the shrimp turns pink. Add the carrots and zucchini and sauté for about two more minutes. Set aside.

Heat the soup. Add the sautéed shrimp and vegetables, including the liquid, and mix well. Simmer for three minutes.

Wasabi fish stir-fry

That blog I wrote about wasabi-flavored snacks got me to thinking about using wasabi in a recipe. I remember printing out a recipe from Better Homes and Gardens for wasabi-glazed white fish so I read it again. I couldn't use the recipe, unfortunately, because it called for wasabi powder and all I had at home was wasabi paste in a tube. So I ended up experimenting again, and we liked the result. Obviously, this is another un-recipe—measurements are not exact and the main ingredients are fish and vegetables which are readily available here and which we like so feel free to change them.

Just a few notes about this dish (as much for myself as for anyone who encounters this recipe):

• Wasabi's flavor dissipates when cooked. I used quite a lot yet both my husband and I could hardly taste it and I ended up serving more wasabi paste at the table. Maybe I should add more wasabi to the dish just before serving.

• I used dory, a very white fish, tender and flaky when cooked. When you first cook it in the sesame oil, make sure it's only half-cooked. I didn't and it almost fell apart when the dish was done—I practically overcooked it.

• I really wanted to use fresh mushrooms but our small neighborhood grocery didn't have any available the weekend I decided to do this. I tried looking for canned straw or oyster mushrooms but they were out of stock too and I was forced to use canned button mushrooms. Didn't quite have the flavor or texture I was imagining for the dish. I really need to find myself a mushroom supplier here since we love them so much.

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2 tbsp soy sauce
6 inches of wasabi paste, as squeezed from the tube
1/4 cup minced fresh ginger
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 kilo fish fillet, cut into bite-size pieces
1 cup fresh Chinese / snow pea pods, tops removed
1 can button mushrooms
1/2 cup chopped green onions

1. Place the soy sauce, wasabi paste and minced ginger in a small bowl and mix well. (This looked more like ginger soaked in soy sauce than soy sauce with ginger.)

2. Heat the sesame oil in a wok. Add the fish and half of the soy sauce mixture. Toss until the fish is half-cooked. Set aside.

3. In the same wok, place the snow peas, mushrooms, green onions and the rest of the soy sauce mixture. Toss until the peas turn bright green. Add the fish. Continue tossing until cooked.

Seafood tomato soup

An un-recipe. Because when I say "pack," it's how my local grocery packed it and I won't have the weight of it for you. Because I decided to use parsley as the main flavor, rather than my usual basil, oregano and rosemary, which I added anyway. Because you can pretty much substitute any other kind of seafood for what I used and list here. And because the only cooking instruction I can give you for this is: fill a pot with water, add the first five ingredients and simmer for about half an hour, then add the remaining ingredients one by one, simmering for five minutes after everything looks cooked.

After ladling the hot soup into bowls, you might want to sprinkle some grated cheese on it before serving.

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one large onion, chopped
one pack parsely, chopped
one small garlic, minced
2 tbsp soy sauce
12 tomatoes, chopped

one pack scallops
one pack shrimp
one pack creamy dory fillet, sliced into bite-size pieces
dash pepper, basil, rosemary, oregano

one head cauliflower florets
one head broccoli florets
one pack green beans, sliced into half-inch pieces
one pack frozen corn and carrots, thawed

Sweet treats

My online friend Lori, in the spirit of Christmas, shared three no-bake recipes for sweet treats in my other blog. But because she posted them in the guest book, they can't be tagged. So here they are in their own posting. Thanks, Lori!



Creamy Pralines

1 cup sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter
2 cups pecan halves
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup half-and-half

Line a cookie sheet with waxed paper and set aside.

In a saucepan, combine the sugars, baking soda and butter. Cook over medium-high (234–238°F) heat to a soft ball stage. Add the pecans and vanilla during the last few minutes of cooking.

Remove from heat, add half-and-half and stir until thickened. Drop onto cookie sheet in small patties and allow to cool completely before storing in an air-tight container.



Orange Balls

4 cups vanilla wafer crumbs
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
1/4 cup melted butter
1 (6 oz) can frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed
powdered sugar

In large bowl, combine crumbs, sugar, nuts and melted butter. Stir in orange juice. Mix well and form into 1-inch balls. Roll in powdered sugar. Chill.



Cornflake Wreaths

1/2 cup butter
3 cups miniature marshmallows
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon green food color
4 cups corn flakes
red hot candies

Melt butter, add marshmallows, stirring until all marshmallows are melted. Add extracts and food coloring; stir until it is a uniform green color. When mixture is smooth, add corn flakes; mix well but gently so as not to crush the cornflakes.

Form into wreath shapes on sheets of waxed paper, decorate with red cinnamon candies. Let cool.