Kitchen MIshaps and Victories, Restaurant Rants and Raves and a whole lotta wanderlust!

Monday, November 7, 2011

Kitschen Chaos: Urban Dinner 2

I hosted another dinner for my friends last week because 1. We love to eat and 2. We had guests from across the world who also like to eat.

STARTERS:
I wanted to do loose interpretations of street food as starters/ or food that is typically Pinoy. I played around with Filipino flavors and mixed them with that of other, mostly Asian countries. I love coming up with stuff like these starters because it's always fun!

I put a squid ball on a bed of carrot + green mango salad and wrapped them in lettuce leaves so they ended up being a kind of squid ball bomb. On the street, these are usually served with your choice of sweet, sweet and sour and sweet and spicy sauces so I made nuoc cham to dunk them in-partly for selfish reasons as I love nuoc cham and also coz I thought the sweet/spicy/sour/salty Vietnamese dipping sauce would work well with the other elements.

This is usually ORANGE when you see it on the street, but I made my kwek kwek with five spice and with a chili-hoisin-honey sauce.

While this isn't traditionally "street food", Pinoys love thier Chicken Lollies! I made this Thai style marinated in green curry paste, patis, bagoong, ginger etc and baked it in the oven. Meanwhile, I added some coconut milk + drippings to the mashed potatoes for an interesting twist.

And the last of the starters was toasted bread with kesong puti topped with dilis and drizzled with honey.

MAINS:
For the mains, I thought of a set of food that might work together (and obviously what I like eating hehe) It still went with the Fun Filipino theme that I love so much---you know, the older I get the more I appreciate and really like Pinoy food! Never was a fan growing up!

Lechon Kawali tossed in a brown sugar/soy/fish sauce/garlic glaze and topped with coriander. Love the flavors of this sauce, I also use it for wings!

From the outside, this looks like any other fried lumpia, but what I did was I stuffed it with egg noodles (if the Vietnamese can put vermicelli in their spring rolls, why can't we do this? lol) smoked fish and ubod and had a toyomansi dipping sauce. Super simple but bursting with flavor!

My favorite growing up--- no twists and turns here, just yummy, Royal Tru-orange prawns! Cooked in orange soda, butter and garlic! Seriously, you don't need much else!

Lastly, I made beef Rendang- typically known as a Malaysian dish but also really popular down south as a Maranao dish! Since my boyfriend's family is from Lanao, I have made it my mission to little by little learn how to make a few dishes from Mindanao! Thanks to my REAL (and damn good) chef friend Hylton Le Roux (Pi Catering) for the recipe! It was my first time to make it!

DESSERT:
For dessert, I mixed two Filipino faves on one plate. First, I baked Milo cupcakes earlier that day and warmed them in time for dessert--Yes MILO cupcakes, so good! Then I topped them with ube ice cream and a few halo-halo condiments such as kaong, langka and macapuno.

Guests:

Maybe we should start doing URBAN DINNERS again. What y'all say? Would you wanna be invited to something like this? :)

6 comments:

  1. yes yes yes! more urban dinners! well, no... because i'm leaving soon =( come back to NY!!!! THANK YOUUUUUUUU

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  2. Who wouldn't wanna be invited to something like this? This is brilliant! YOU'RE brilliant. Those squid ball bombs were THA bomb. Lol. Keep playing with food and fire! Asian cuisine rocks! :)

    Justinne Go of Babe For Food
    http://www.babeforfood.blogspot.com

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  3. When are you going to open your own restaurant? Seriously! :-)

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  4. Just looking at those food, really made super gutom. and yes! i hope to be someday invited at those urban dinner of yours. :) ☀ ♥

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  5. josh just walked me through this meal he was blessed to share with you...my name is nick and i am a good friend , no, a great friend of abdul and josh's ...we have shared some unforgettable times...i am going to make a stop with you and abdul when i leave the country...i hope to learn something from you!

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  6. Thanks Nick! I asked abdul about you and he said YOU'RE working in the culinary field, so maybe i can learn from YOU :D

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