Steamed Milkfish En (Faux) Papillote

I just love the phrase "en papillote." Sounds more sophisticated than "wrapped in parchment paper." Don't you think so? :) Since this fish is wrapped in foil, I had to put the word "faux" because I did not use parchment paper and I do not know the French term for foil. :)

Cooking "en papillote" is a method in which you seal the food in a pouch and bake (or grill, or steam, as what I did.) The food essentially steams and cooks in its own juices. Making the dish naturally tasty. Fish, having delicate meat, is perfectly suited to this technique. The method is also incredibly easy and has the added benefits of being a low fat method of cooking and easy to clean up. Healthy and easy are synonymous with this kitchen.

En Papillote usually uses parchment paper. But in my grandmother's kitchen, we have always used foil, which is convenient, spill-proof, and leak proof.

Some secrets to a succesful en papillote cooking are:

1) Always use fresh ingredients. The fish or meat will be cooked in its own juice, so if it is fresh, the dish will taste fresh. If the fish is not so fresh, the dish might turn out to be "fishy."

2) Use various fresh herbs and condiments that will naturally compliment the fish. This will bring out the natural taste of the fish and enhance instead of overpower the taste.

3) Adding white wine and olive oil would add a different dimension to your fish, though these are optional.




Here is what I did:

1) Cut a foil big enough to wrap and cover the whole fish.

2) Begin by laying out the deboned milkfish (you can use any kind of white fish fillet, or whole deboned fish) on the pre-cut foil.

3) Please refer to the topmost picture, sprinkle sea salt and red chilli peppers on the fish. Spread some chopped tomatoes, onions and garlic. I also added freshly cut dill from my balcony garden. Splash with 2 tablespoons of semi-dry white wine.

4) Close the fish, with all the herbs inside. See the second picture above. Fold the foil and close the edges together.

5) Steam in medium heat for around 15 minutes (depending on the size and thickness of your fish).

6) Serve immediately.




Result? Very, very tasty, naturally flavored, soft and flaky fish. Hubby declared it the best milkfish dish he had ever tasted.


Sharing this tasty and healthy dish with the Grow Your Own community. Grow Your Own is a twice a month food event headed by Andrea of Andrea's Recipes, to celebrate the foods we grow or raise ourselves and the dishes we make using our homegrown products. This edition's host is Rachel of The Crispy Cook. To see last week's delicious round-ups, please check out the round-up done by yours truly!

Stir-Fry Chinese Spinach (Polunchay) and the Secrets to a Chinese Vegetable Stir-Fry

I confess Hubby is the real vegetable lover in this family. He has healthier eating habits ( and exercises) more than I do. As I have mentioned several times before, he has to see "greens" on the table with every meal. This means I have to serve vegetables with our every meal. I have learned to love vegetables as well, since we got married (many, many years ago) and I am happy that our kids learned to eat vegetables while they are still young. I did not have to "train" my kids to finish their vegetables. I suppose it happens naturally if you serve it everyday, every meal. And of course, we have to serve it in different delicious ways. :)

The vegetable featured today is the Chinese Spinach. We call it Po Lun Cai in Fookien Chinese. It contains significant amounts of Vitamins A, B and C. And when I googled about Chinese Spinach, I found out that it contains twice the amount of iron than the regular or Western Spinach. Thus, this vegetable is highly favored in Asia. Again, as with most leafy green vegetables, it is recommended that we do not cook the polunchay too long or the dish will lose most of its nutritional content. That is why, a quick stir-fry is a perfect cooking method with most vegetables.

Through trial and errors, through various experiments, I have discovered a variety ways to make our stir-fry vegetables more delicious and tasty. If you have kids, you would understand the need to make your veggie dish more attractive and flavorful... Here are some of them:

1. If you are particularly worried about vegetables containing pesticides, and other industrial chemical contaminants, a quick 2-second blanch in boiling hot water is recommended after washing the vegetables. This would also give you a " brighter" and "greener" vegetable dish.

2. Use good quality peanut oil or grapeseed oil, in the cooking. And add some drops of sesame oil after the cooking. Do not cook the vegetables in sesame oil, as the sesame oil changes its smell and taste when subject to high heat.

3. Add lots of garlic in your stir-fry, as much as your taste buds can take it. Garlic is healthy anyway. It would add more flavor to the dish. And do not let garlic burn when sauteing, as it will turn bitter.

4. If you are not adding any meat or seafood to flavor your vegetable, instead of flavoring with MSG or bouillon cubes, add a spoon or two of Chinese cooking wine to remove the "green" or "herby" taste of the vegetable.

5. Always use high heat, hot wok (or cooking pan) when sauteing and with quick hands, stir, stir, stir, all the time. It would only take a minute or two, so you will not really get tired. This is to mix all the flavors in the shortest time possible.


5 T peanut oil
300 gms Chinese Spinach (Polunchay)
5 T minced garlic
2 T cooking wine
1 T soy sauce
salt and pepper
pinch of sugar, optional (my kids just like their veggies sweeter)
dash of sesame oil

1. Clean and blanch the spinach.

2. Heat oil in wok, and saute the garlic until fragrant but not burnt. Add the cooking wine and soy sauce and sugar. When the mixture boils, add in the spinach. Stir fry and mix everything up to allow the spinach to absorb all the flavors. Turn the heat off.

3. Adjust taste with salt and pepper. Add the sesame oil and serve immediately.


Result? A very quick dish (5 minutes - max) that is tasty, flavorful and nutritious!


Sharing this dish with the Weekend Herb Blogging Community, supervised by Haalo of Cook (Almost) Anything At Least Once. This week's host is
Scott of The Real Epicurean. To see last week's array of wonderful dishes, please check out Siri's Corner.

Secrets of Making a Good Omelet

The picture above was actually taken in January, during my early days of blogging. It was an early attempt at food styling. Original post here. Whether we, food bloggers admit it or not, we do take a whole lot of effort to present delicious food pictures for the blog. Which is not often the case when we present everyday food for our families. Shhh, don't tell. :) Anyway, one thing good about blogging is that now, I am trying to present food "beautifully" to my family, to encourage the kids to eat more; whereas before, I would just dump all the food in the serving plate... :)

Back to Omelets. Do you know that I used to spell Omelet as Omelette? And I thought that was the correct spelling, until the spell-check function of blogger informed me that was wrong. Maybe that is the way French spell it? Does not "omelette" sound more sophisticated than "omelet?" :) Anyway, since this blog is in English, I better stick to Omelet.

Omelet is a very versatile food. If you cannot decide what to cook, just cook an omelet! If there are left-overs in the fridge, cook them in an omelet. At least that is what my grandmother used to do. That is why we always have trays of eggs in the house at any given time.

How do you prefer your omelet? What do you consider a good omelet? For my family, there are two factors. One, the filling should be healthy, a combination of meat and vegetables. Two, the egg should be soft, moist, fluffy and tasty; not hard nor dry.

The fillings are easy enough, you can just combine whatever ingredients you have on hand, season them according to the taste you prefer. If you're an omnivore, add lots of meat. If you're a vegetarian, you can limit your fillings to your veggies. That is how versatile this omelet is!

The secret of making a good omelet is in the cooking of eggs! That is, if you want soft, moist, fluffy and tasty eggs...

For reference, the original recipe of the Ham Omelet can be found here.

Secret No 1. Before cooking, add a dollop of cream or milk into the beaten eggs, and beat like crazy. :) The more air that is incorporated into the egg, the fluffier it is going to be. Cream makes the eggs, well, creamier, richer, tastier and moist.

Secret No 2. Slowly cook the eggs. Cook the eggs in low fire, scatter the filling ingredients on top of the "still-cooking" eggs and wait for the omelet to set. This might take as long as 15 minutes, but it is going to be worth the wait, I assure you.

Secret No 3. Since we like our omelets to be cheesy, choose good quality mozarella cheese. This will provide the chewy, gooey texture. Omit this step if you do not like cheese.


That is our family secret recipe, handed down by my grandmother. She still has some more egg recipes that I want to share (So please watch out for those!)



This post (with the original post here) will be joining Sangeeth's 101 Omelet Recipes. If you have omelet recipes you want to share, please check out her invitation to the 101 Omelet Recipes. :)

Rice Noodles Stir-Fry (Bihon Guisado) - A Leftover Delight

Be forewarned by the title. This dish is simply a medley of leftovers.

Is it just me? Or do you also experience leftovers? Do you sometimes have a small amount of leftover cooked foods that are too small to be considered one serving? And, by left-overs, I do not just mean left-over foods that we cook ourselves, or from take-outs, but also a little of unused ingredients, here and there. For example, you buy a bundle of carrots, only to use 1 or 2 sticks for a recipe then, stuff the rest in the refrigerator until they languish into oblivion?

Long before the "going green, zero waste" revolution, my grandmother would practice zero waste in her kitchen. This is probably because she has first hand experience of World War II (sounds so long ago?), and the difficultly in rebuilding life in the aftermath of the war. She knew how it hard life could be, such that even when we were already living in the times of plenty, she would train us to be cheapskates and not to waste anything - specially food!

Thank God for grandmothers! Now that the world is experiencing a food crisis, I think my grandmother's training is worth it! I am trying to be more conscious of our food choices, food portions, food management and definitely, food left-over management. I have to be more creative: how to transform leftover foods to leftover delights.

Here are some little things from my refrigerator this weekend: 1 stick of carrot, 2 small bell peppers, a small amount (probably around 1 cup) of leftover pork stew (adobo) with bamboo shoots, the meats (laman) of a Soup No 5 (this is a popular soup here with 5 major ingredients. Will do a post on that soon!), some Bok Choi (pechay) leaves ... definitely Bihon Guisado material.

Bihon is a type of thin rice noodles (Pancit) very popular here in the Philippines but definitely it has Chinese origins. The name itself came from the Chinese words "rice flour." Guisado literally means stew, but in this case, it is used loosely for stir frying as well. This dish is easy to cook, and very versatile. You can use any kinds of meat or seafood. You can use any kinds of green leafy vegetable. That is why any leftovers can be used. If you do not have any leftovers, you can simply add fresh ingredients. The flavoring sauce are simply made from soy sauce, fish sauce (patis), and the finished dish is sprinkled with calamansi (Philippine lime).

I made the dish extra special by adding a can of Chinese Pork Leg Stew, and some slices of shiitake mushrooms.


1 pack (around 250 gms) Rice noodles, washed, soaked for around 10 minutes
1 C leftover meats (or fresh chicken meat, or seafood)
1 can Chinese Pork Leg stew
5 pcs dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in hot water to soften, sliced
1 stick carrot, peeled, sliced
2 bell peppers, seeded, sliced
1 bunch Bok Choi (pechay)
4 T cooking oil
4 T garlic
3 slices ginger
4 T soy sauce
1 C water
salt and pepper to taste
slices of calamansi

1. In a wok or cooking pan, heat up some oil and saute ginger until golden brown. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant but not burnt.

2. Add the Chinese pork leg stew and mushrooms. Add in all the leftover meats as well. Stir around for a while. Then add the carrots and bell pepper.

3. Add in the cup of water and the soy sauce. When the mixture boils, add in the softened rice noodles (drain and discard the soaking water!). Mix everything up, making sure that all the rice noodles are mixed evenly with the sauce.

4. Continue stir frying and mixing once in a while until the noodles are cooked. Add in some amounts of water if the sauce dries up.

5. Serve warm with calamansi slices if preferred.


Because I did not have seafood in this dish, I did not flavor the dish with fish sauce (patis). Otherwise, the fish sauce would have added more flavor. Instead of bell peppers, you can also use cilantro or leeks.

Maybe somebody should start a Leftover Blogging event... any takers? :)

Woks, Induction Cooker and Prawns in Tamarind Soup

Whew! long title? Actually, I was going to write about my new induction cooker (umm... actually, not that new... but story later.) Then, Wandering Chopsticks is inviting everyone to write about their woks. Aside from my old wok, I have a new wok that I bought specially for my induction cooker! So, I have to include my woks in this post too. And of course, I have to share a recipe using my new gadgets... :)


This is my relatively new induction cooker. Last year, when Hubby went to Hong Kong for one of his business conventions, he was able to purchase this induction cooker. Accordingly, this induction cooking is different from what we ordinarily know - gas or electric coils. Ordinarily, the range tops or electric coils becomes hot and this heat is then transferred to our cooking vessels - the pots and pans, in order to cook the food inside. But in induction cooking, the pot or pan itself becomes the generator of heat! The surface of the cooker remains cool to the touch!

How does it work? Through electromagnets that the cooking pots or pans have. Thus, iron skillets and woks are ideal for induction cooking. Stainless and other types of pots are also alright to use, if they are equipped with electromagnets at their base. For a detailed explanation of how induction cooking works, please click here and here.

However, last year, I was too stubborn. I insisted on using my faithful gas stove. I like my gas stove (translated: I like to stay in my comfort zone.) I have always used my gas stove. (translated: I am too lazy to learn new technology.) My gas stove gives me high stable fire and heat I need for my cooking (translated: I am still lazy to learn new technology.) I just set the new induction cooker aside. (translated: I am slow to learn new technology.) Come to think of it, Hubby must have not been happy when I did not use his "gift" :(

This year, the gas prices have been steadily going up and up and up. One day, when I was bemoaning the high prices of everything, Hubby suggested I should use the induction cooker. It will save us money for the cooking gas. Isn't he very patient with me? One year and he still is not insistent I use his "gift."

Finally, I did use it and I am hooked! Wow! It is so easy to use. Things get cooked faster than the regular gas stove. Therefore it is energy-efficient. It is so easy to clean. No more grills and coils to scrub. Plus, the surface is really not hot! There is no steam or fire coming out of the cooker. In this hot country where our everyday temperature hovers around 30C, this matters a lot! I can turn on the electric fan while cooking and there is no fire that will go out. I do not have to sweat while cooking! Yipee!

But lest you accuse me of being biased towards induction cooking, here is the site where it tells you the pros and cons of induction cooking.

Actually, the only "cons" I can think about now is that if you do not have iron skillet or pans, or any pan that can attract magnets, you have to invest in another set of cookware if you are going to use induction cooking.




I already have a non-stick wok which I am using for many many years now (for the gas stove). I would have preferred a cast-iron wok like the one Darlene of Blazing Hot Wok has. But cast iron woks are rare here in this country. My mother-in-law has one but she had to lug it back here all the way from China! (Imagine the excess baggage weight she has to carry!) I do most of my cooking in my wok. (translate: I use my wok everyday.) I cook eggs in it. I do stir-fries, I do deep fry, I steam, I braise and make stews in it. It is an all-in-one versatile pan and pot! Here is an example of a complete meal I cooked using my non-stick wok: Chinese Flavored Rice.

a WOK is definitely indispensable in any serious cooking. However, I believe I do not have to bring my wok to heaven :) I am sure there will even be a better kind of wok in heaven! :)

Since I am still on earth, and since I want to use my induction cooker now, I have to buy a wok that can be used for induction cooking. See my shiny new wok in the second picture above?


I can do a lot of things with it. A wok is not limited to doing stir-fries and deep fries. You can do almost all kinds of cooking in it. I can even cook pasta in it! So, if you want to invest in a cookware, make sure it is a versatile WOK!



Here is a simple soup I made using the new wok and induction cooker. It is a Filipino Dish called Sinigang na Sugpo (Prawns in Sour Soup). Actually, the real dish is a lot more complicated with more veggies like okra, string beans, radishes, etc. I did not have these ingredients on hand, but I made the soup anyway...

400 gms prawns, cleaned
5 slices ginger
1 onion, chopped
400 gms tamarind, cleaned
1 small piece taro root, cleaned, skin removed
3 tomatoes, chopped
1 bunch chinese kang kong (swamp cabbage)
3 pcs finger chillies (jalapeno peppers)
salt and pepper to taste

1. Boil the tamarind and taro root in a cup or two of water until softened. Mash the tamarind in the same water to extract the sour juices. Mash the taro. Remove the solids through a sieve. Keep the water with the juice extraction.

2. Boil the tamarind extract with 2 more cups of water. Add in the ginger and onion slices. Also add in the tomatoes and the finger chillies. When everything boils, add in the prawns.

3. Prawns are cooked when they turn pink. Add in the kang kong. Add salt and pepper to taste.

4. Dish up. Serve hot with rice.

More on Bok Choy

Pardon me if I want to share with you more information on Bok Choi. It is one of our family's favorite greens.

Bok Choy is the more international known name, derived from its Cantonese name. Locally, it is known as Pechay, derived from its Fookien name. This is not surprising since most of the Chinese people here in the Philippines come Fookien province in China.



You should have no trouble finding bok choy at the market all year round. There are several varieties but the most common in this side of the globe is pictured on the right. Bok Choy tastes clean, slightly sweet, and mild, without the 'earthy' taste and feel of other kinds of vegetables. That is why it is tasty in itself when cooked with simple soy sauce or oyster sauce. It is also very crispy when cooked properly. This is one of the first vegetables my children learned to love.

Look for a plant with firm stalks that is free of brown spots. Wrapped in paper towels or newspaper and stored in the vegetable crisper section of the refrigerator, bok choy should keep for up to a week. But you would want to consume it immediately because young ones are more tender. The older it gets, the more chewy and less tasty it becomes.

There are many ways to cook bok choy. You can add it to soups. You can simply steam it and dip it in desired sauce when you eat it. In my family, we usually stir fry it with soy sauce and lots of garic. Then we add a dash of sesame oil to make it more fragrant.

Before cooking a full-sized bok choy you'll want to separate the leaves from the stalks, as the thick stalks have a longer cooking time. You stir fry the stalks for a few minutes before cooking the leaves. You should cook the leaves until just wilted. Do not overcook this vegetable or it will lose its crispiness.

Alternately, you can blanch washed bok choy in a boiling pot of water then immediately dunk the drained veggies in a bowl of cold water before stir frying. This hot-cold treatment will give you 'greener' leaves and ensures the crispiness as well.

The Bok Choy is one of the easiet vegetable to cook. It is also one of the more delicious and nutritious too. For a bok choy recipe and more information on Bok Choy, please refer to my previous post or simply click here.