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MAJA BLANCA CAKE

Maja Blanca Cake Tart Good morning everyone( or evening depending under what palm tree you are reading this post) and Happy Birthday! Who's birthday? Depends on specific cases ( Happy Bday Ate A and Gabrielle (counting that you'll be a Feb. baby, people born this month are the best!), but mostly generic we should celebrate the best day of all, Women's Day, on March 1st! Why the best? Because it's well known they always bring the best ( or worst ) in us ( but for this specific occasion we shall assume it's the best! ), and as such I have researched deep inside my endless bucket of inspiration for an appropriate gift. Not having found one and considering that flowers are overrated, I shall give you the best gift of all: the gift of knowledge, as I shall bake the best cake ever, using an old filipino recipe and my best unique ideas for an astonishing end result that I shall eat all alone while you cheer Sarap, Sarap ! Yes, as you already figured it out from t

MENUDO - AFRITADA

MENUDO - AFTRITADA

Good morning everyone and Oh Canada! to you also. Yes it's that week with 2 long weekends again ( don't worry, I did my shopping yesterday from an actual grocery store) because it's summer and that's when all Canadians do and celebrate stuff. Not that winter is not good enough but we just try to take advantage of the one month per year when your beer doesn't freeze your manly mustache.
Aaaaaaanyway, since it's Canada day ( Ooooh Canadaaaa! ) we are going to prepare a traditional Filipino dish ( we'll add some Canadian touch to it also ). In fact let me rephrase that: we are going to prepare 2 in 1 dishes. Because we can ( and also to make L wait for the kare kare longer!) So the menu of the day is the all famous Chicken Afritada which we'll combine with another V.I.D ( very important dish),  Menudo ( what can go wrong?) ! The two are in fact twin dishes which I, as a very good parent, can't really tell apart. So I'll call them both at once and see which will show up first.
 Alright, so I'll grab my helmet and steel boots and see what happens next.
1-First of all I need to mention that I was told on numerous occasions to respect the recipe, so today I'll try my best to. That is why we will only replace 2 ingredients.
Right, so first thing first prepare your all canadian beer ( sorry, I was thirsty with all those positive temperatures ). Right , so now that you are all set let's get coookiiiing! Oooo Canadaaaa!
2-As mentioned above, we shall start by replacing the chi-cken with a similar bird, tur-key ( afritada ingredient). It's good for you and doesn't come from US due to the trade wars. Carefully slam it in the pan with just a bit of oil because we forgot to buy a new bottle and the old one has less than 1 spoon on the bottom. I could try and mix it with water but from what I remember it's not a happy experience ( kids, do not try that at home! )
 3-Quickly get rid of the liver in a different pan ( menudo ingredient)- Yuuuuuuuuuuk !  Brown it !
4-At the same time in a 3rd pan ( I know right, master-chef here!) golden onion garlic and some hotdogs because it's a national day, OOOOOooooo....drink some more beer. Caaanadaaaa.. hiccup. Noooww, we shall mix the golden brown and yellow together to get so much pretty colors! hiccup.. OOooooooo..
5-Caaa-naaaaaa-daaaaaa!Ok, beer is over. Now let's get cooking. Oh wait we are already cooking! what were we cooking again? Doesn't matter, let your primordial instincts take over and just listen to your heart. We are all born chefs, we cook since the early matriarchal age when a man's place was in the kitchen's corner of the open space tribal cave. Chop potatoes and try really hard to cook them in the 2 drops of oil we got left. Now that's a real man challenge! Keep 2 potatoes for later. Actually no, slice them also and trow them in the pan! Gently.Turn off the fire alarm for a few minutes.
6-Take out the sliced potatoes and mix them with cheese and ketchup to create a great Canada dish! Poutine! Oh wait, that's not what we were preparing.. doesn't matter , it's delicious! Sarap. Ooooooo Caaaa...
7-Right, retracing our steps to the potatoes part ( naa - Daaaaaaa...!) it's time to add in the professor's secret ingredient X: Mamacita's Menudo Afritada mix!( see i'm not the first to think it's the same dish). Combine it with water and the all famous canadian spiced tomatoes paste, mmmMMMMmmm!

8-Now mix the red mix together with the other mix to create a colorful and joyful looking pot. We add in the last ingredients: the biggest bell pepper you have ever seen and 1 kilo of our famous macedonia mix of green peas and stuff ( this is the second altered ingredient, but in my honest opinion as long as it's green it can be anything you want). Carefully observe that the pot is almost full and panic a bit .

9- 3 bears later, ( hiccups) Everything is unffronzeen and cooked property, I hoPe, in a nuice mixture of nice colors that are soooo niice..
10- just kidding, real canadians don't get drunk. But anyway, that's the menudo-afritada for you, so call all your family and friends you didn't see in 3 years because it's a huge pot of food! Transmit Sarap, halo, and all my best wishes to them!

Edit: while cooking all this pots at the same time I failed to acknowledge the fact that I forgot one of the burners on, so moving the rice from one burner to the other (I thought it was off) didn't prove to be a good idea, resulting in a very sticky burnt rice 20 minutes later.It's all good as long as you still got beer!
Edit 2: tasting proved that we've omitted a small step, adding condiments. As we all know, the secret ingredient X it's all spice and everything nice, but in our particular case mamacita didn't really compensate for the quantity of things we've put in the pot. So what can we do now? easy, grind your pepper with a pinch of salt and have it ready for each serving or guest request! Sarap! 

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