~*Merry Christmas - 2014!!*~

Hello peeps! First of all, a very MERRY XMAS to you and all of your loved ones! I hope you enjoyed your day as much as I did :)

For the past couple of years, I have blogged about my family's Christmas eats and decided to continue this tradition by doing it again this year. As mentioned in previous years, I feel very lucky to be from a multi-cultural background and to have grown up with such amazing food from the Philippines, Japan and England, and from other countries too.

This Christmas, my mum did the usual and laid on an amazing spread of foods from our cultures. We had the traditional English Christmas dinner (Turkey, vegetables, Yorkshire Puddings, etc), Japanese Sushi, as well as a wide selection of typical Filipino Xmas foods, such as Jamonado (sweet ham) and Morcon (beef role). We also had a few buffet-style nibbles on the table, such as breaded scallops and mozarella sticks - yum!!

Here are a few photos of the amazing food we had on Christmas day, plus some personal favourites of my family. 

"Pigs in Blankets" (chipolata sausages wrapped in bacon) - a favourite during Xmas eaten with traditional Turkey dinner.

Breaded scallops and prawns.

The Christmas spread :)

One half of the food table.

The other half of the food table.

Spread xx

Me and my mum before dinner xx

Mum, my sister-in-law and I with our "Jungle" cocktails.

My mum, sister-in-law and I :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS & ALL THE BEST!! XXX

~* Easy Filipino Style Beef Steak (Bistek) Recipe*~

Hi everyone! I hope you are well!

Today I would like to share a very simple recipe for a popular Filipino dish called "Bistek".

Bistek is made up of thinly sliced beef, which has been marinated in soy sauce, citrus juice (lemon, lime or calamansi), pepper and a little bit of water, and is served hot with onions and rice.

I was inspired to make this after watching Benji Travis (of benjimantv on YouTube, the husband of Judy of itsjudyslife) cook this with his Filipino mother-in-law, and since I was really craving Filipino food (as I do every day!) and had bought some good beef from the bargain section of the local supermarket, I thought "why not?" :)
I hope you enjoy this dish as much as I do!

INGREDIENTS

• 1 lb thinly sliced beef
• 1/4 cup Soy Sauce (preferably the light sort)
• Juice of 1 Lemon / 1 Lime / 4 Calamansi (I used lemon for mine)
• Black Pepper
• Water
• 1 onion (red or white), sliced

HOW TO COOK...

1. Take the thinly sliced beef and place into a bowl.

 

2.  Put the soy sauce into the bowl so that it covers the majority of the meat. 3. Take your citrus fruit (in this case, I used lemon), cut in half and squeeze the juice over the meat and soy sauce. You will need the juice of the whole fruit.

 

4. Put a little bit of water into the bowl in order to slightly dilute the soy sauce - I used about a tablespoon and a half of water.

5. Grind some pepper onto the meat, then mix everything together so that all of the beef is covered in the soy/citrus juice marinade.

6. Cover the bowl and allow the meat to marinate for 2-3 hours (the longer the better).

7. Once you are ready to cook the meat, heat a little bit of oil (enough for a shallow fry) in a frying pan.

8. Place the beef and a little bit of the marinade into the pan and allow to cook on medium heat. Leave for 1-2 minutes. Flip the meat and cook the other side, again for 1-2 minutes.

9. Now for the onions! Put the sliced onions on top of the beef and lower the heat, cooking for a further 1 minute. The intention is for the heat from the beef to cook the onions, so they should not go really soft.

10. Switch off the heat, and serve the Bistek with hot rice. Make sure you save the juices from the pan, as it tastes really good with the rice!

ENJOY!!!

 

~~**Beef Caldereta (Kalderetang Baka)**~~

Ooops, I have been really rubbish and not updated this blog for over 2 months now :( It's been a very busy couple of months, and now things have started to calm down, there's no excuse for me not to update on a much more regular basis!

Anyway, I have just come home from my parents' house, where I had a really delicious dinner cooked by my mum. I was watching her cook it, which spurred me on to get back on here and blog about it.



Beef Caldereta cooking in the pan!

She cooked a dish called Beef Caldereta (or Kalderetang Baka in Tagalog), which is a popular Filipino stew most commonly served either at home or during festivities and gatherings. It is a Spanish-influenced dish (which is more commonly referred to as "Caldereta" in Spain), and is made up of beef (though chicken, pork, goat or even fish can be used), potatoes, carrots, tomato sauce and liver spread/pate. It has a canny resemblence to a typical English Beef Casserole, only in my opinion, Caldereta is richer and miles tastier.

I believe this was the second or third time my mum had attempted this dish after getting a recipe from a website, but already she has somehow become a pro in making it! Her first attempt was for a house-gathering she had with friends (Filipinos love to socialise and eat!), and they seemed to be very impressed!!

Unlike English Beef Casserole, which would typically be served with boiled or mashed (or any type of!)potatoes and vegetables, we did it the Asian way and of course, served it with rice. My mum also boiled some broccoli to serve as a healthy side.

And here is how is looked on the plate! It went down very well, and I am looking forward to trying to cook this myself, though I doubt it will be as good as this (coz mothers do it the best, right?)

Amen!
 

P.s. For the Japanese speakers out there, no this is not "Idiot Stew", "baka" (or "vaca" in Spanish) is cow (or beef in this case!) xxx