Kubiertos

The Holidays are almost over and I could have another run-down on the next restaurant that weve tried but today I would rather let you in on what I prepared for our family feast.

First off – Leche Flan. This succulent dessert is ever present during christmastime. I learned how to make great-tasting leche flan from my mother. I have never come across a better tasting one in all of my 31 years. I myself have tried but have never really matched the taste and texture of her masterpiece. However, my flan still tastes better than most (of course I made it! hehe). The secret I feel to making the best leche flan is two things. One: use only egg yolks (no egg whites puhleeesz!). Two: Knowing how to beat the egg yolks to the right consistency that would define fluffy. Another personal recommendation – do not use condensed milk to sweeten it. Use sugar. The result of using condensed milk just isn’t creme brulee.

Ingredients: Egg Yolks, Milk, Sugar, Vanilla (topping and syrup is only caramelized sugar)

Embutido. My husband loves embutido and I also do. Its just that I feel a lot of work goes into making it and I’m very often too lazy to prepare it. So we end up buying ready-to-cook ones that are being sold in supermarkets. The taste is disappointing. The holiday season gave me an excuse to whip up my own version, again something I learned from years of helping my mom cook it for christmas dinner. And what do you know? Sweetie actually loved it. That’s enough for me to strive to prepare the dish once in a while. The secret for my mom’s great tasting embutido (oh of course mine as well) would be using hotdog (the red one) instead of vienna sausage. My personal recommendation on this one, steam don’t bake.

Ingredients: Lean ground pork, ground hotdog, sweet pickle relish, onion, raisins, flour, beaten eggs, salt and pepper to taste. 

Kare-kare. Another dish that sweetie loves and I love to cook. I discovered a fairly easy but tasty way of cooking this dish. Instead of the challenging way of using nuts – just use peanut butter! When I was in the states, I was even using the imported brand which still made it delicious. The secret to this dish is the meat that you choose to cook it with. We both like tripe and I like to include beef slices, like brisket or ribs. Some use oxtail and I recall trying one that used the large intestines (mind you it was very good). It takes more or less a fairly decent cook to wrap up the taste of kare-kare. Bottom line you have to know how you want it to taste to get the taste you want.

Ingredients:  Beef, tripe, garlic, peanut butter (preferably the creamy types), talong (eggplant), sitaw (string beans), pechay (bok choi)

So you… what did you have for christmas?