Almondigas

Hubby has been having wisdom teeth issues since last weekend and it has worsened to the point that now, he can only eat [slurp] soft foods.

We're going to have a lot of soft noodles and congee dishes in the next few days. This also means that Swe-cha can get a taste of more home-cooked meals this week, I hope that he gains his appetite back soon (he is currently not feeling well).

This dish is an experiment, I really have no idea how Almondigas is supposed to taste like or what's supposed to be in it. I just needed to prepare something quick and did not have time to check our recipes over the internet or even prepare the ingredients.

Meatballs:

1 lb ground pork

minced spring onions

salt & pepper

sugar

Soup:

Misua

1 can chicken broth (lite, sodium free)

water

3 cloves minced garlic

1 onion, minced

patis (fish sauce)

1. Prepared the meatballs by mixing pork, spring onions, salt, pepper and sugar. Formed the mixture into balls and lightly browned them in oil (I remember seeing my friend, Kay, do this before .. or maybe not, it was so long ago!).

2. Saute garlic and onion in a saucepan and add the broth and water when cooked. Let this boil and then add the browned meatballs. When the meatballs are fully cooked, add miswa.

It gets tricky when adding the miswa as I had no idea how much to put in. Tantya lang.

Sotanghon with Pork Leg

I don't even remember how I prepared this but it was mostly a lot of cutting up the ingredients and stir-frying.

ingredients:
- 1 can stewed pork leg
- carrots, julienned
- scallions
- green veggies (cabbage, perhaps ?) - did not add
- sliced mushrooms

Stir fried noodles

Hubby and I decided to try our hand at preparing a Chinese egg-noodle dish. It didn't turn out so bad, considering that this is our first dab and neither of us had a clue.

Ingredients:
Egg noodles
Straw mushrooms
Quail Eggs
Shrimp
Carrots (julienned)
Veggies (was supposed to put in some broccoli but I forgot)
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp lite soy sauce
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 cup water
minced garlic
2 tbsp oil

Given the above ingredients, this was what we did:

1. We pre-boiled the egg noodles in some chicken stock left over from an earlier dish. Do not boil till noodles are completely cooked otherwise, they'll soften and become overcooked when you stir fry them.
2. Combine the cornstarch, lite and dark soy sauce, oyster sauce and water in a small bowl.
3. In a skillet, heat oil and saute garlic. Add the shrimp, carrots, straw mushrooms and broccoli. Saute until heated.
4. Add the cornstarch & sauce mixture. Stir constantly until sauce thickens. Add a little broth as necessary.
5. Add the noodles and mix.
6. Serve.

We're still skeptical about the noodles. I believe that we shouldn't have pre-boiled it but should've just soaked it in water and cooked it during the stir fry process. Any thoughts on this?

Hubby thought the noodles came out bland and said that it could do with a dash of salt.

Pancit Palabok

For starters, I'd like to let you know that this isn't made from scratch. However easy the instructions on the Palabok Sauce mix may sound, it wasn't as straightforward as we first thought :P

The ingredients listed below were the exact ingredients that we used to get the amount of palabok in the picture. This is a 9 x 12 inch pan.

Ingredients:

• 1 package rice noodle sticks
• chopped garlic
• spring onions
• 2 Mama Sita's Palabok Mix
• 1 pack atsuete powder (optional)
• 1/2 cup tinapa flakes (available at pinoy/asian stores)
• ground chicharon (pork rinds, available at pinoy/asian stores)
• 6 boiled eggs, sliced
• cooked shrimp (boiled)
• 5 cups chicken broth - we recommend that you omit this and just use water.
• lemon juice to taste

Steps:

1. Cook the rice noodle sticks according to package instructions. Note that the instructions on ours said to soak the noodles in boiling water for 2 to 3 minutes and then take them out. It actually took more than 15 minutes of boiling before our noodles were done. I'm still wondering why.
2. Dissolve the Palabok mix in 2.5 cups of water. Set aside. Package instructions state that water or unsalted broth could be used. Hubby and I decided to use unsalted chicken broth to add more flavor but our sauce turned out too salty, we've had to adjust the taste towards the end.
3. Dissolve the atsuete powder according to package instructions. This ingredient is optional and is tasteless but I find that this gives the dish a nicer color.
4. In a wok or saucepan, saute chopped garlic in a tablespoon of oil.
5. Add tinapa flakes.
6. Pour in the palabok mixture.
7. Stir constantly until the sauce thickens.

Pour noodles in a container and top with the sauce. Sprinkle with ground chicharon and top with sliced egg, shrimp and spring onions.

Serve with a lemon slices and the rest of the ground chicharon, if there are any left.