My mother taught me another recipe from our family’s archives the last time we visited her in Everett. It was an instant hit in our household, not only for its economy but for its amazing versatility. I’ve been tweaking and perfecting these variations for my non-Filipino and vegetarian guinea pigs; they insist that it’s time to share the details with them (and the world).

Since this recipe can make two different dishes, I’ve separated the ingredient lists and steps below into the base sautée, the green bean variation, and the potato variation.

Our favourite way to take advantage of this? We make the base, use a third of it for the green bean stir-fry to serve immediately, and use the same pan to make the potato variation from the remaining base, which is reserved in the fridge and then finished for a hearty breakfast the following morning.

When you try it out, let me know how you vary the recipe to suit your household’s palate.

The base sautée

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 lb lean ground pork [vegetarian: omit or substitute diced extra firm tofu]
• 2 tablespoons a) fish sauce, b) tamari soy sauce, or c) light soy sauce
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 medium tomatoes, diced

Directions

1. In a large wok or skillet, sweat garlic and onion in oil over low heat until onions are translucent. Don’t burn the garlic.
2. Increase heat to med/high and add pork, fish sauce, and water. Stir to break the pork into tiny chunks. Cover and boil for 20 minutes until pork is cooked and liquid is completely absorbed.  [Vegetarian: skip step or use tofu and soy instead.]
3. Reduce heat to medium. Stir in tomatoes and cook until soft and thoroughly incorporated.

Dish #1: Ginisang Bitsuelas (sautéed green beans)

Ingredients

• 1/3 of the base sautée, above
• 1/2 lb green beans, thinly sliced on the oblique
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• Freshly cracked ground pepper to taste

Directions

1. Using a sharp knife or mandolin, thinly slice your stash of green beans at a steep 20 degree angle. (That’s about as steep as the slant of a sandwich board.) If you’re really handy with a razor blade or are as old-school as my mom is, take a razor like the one above and shave off the slices like you would peel a carrot. Just don’t catch your wrist in it…

Razor blade, by scottfeldstein on Flickr (Creative Commons)

2. Stir the green beans into the base sautée. Cover and cook on low/med heat until green beans soften and intensify their verdant colour. Don’t overcook – you want ‘em al dente for best mouthfeel results.
3. Add butter and pepper to taste. If it isn’t salty enough, reseason with fish or soy sauce. Serve on a mound of steamed rice.

Dish #2: Torta (Filipino frittata)

Ingredients

• 3/4 of the base sautée, above
• 1 medium Russet potato, cut into 1cm cubes
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil
• Freshly cracked ground pepper to taste

Directions

1. Add potato to base sautée. Cover and cook on low/med heat until potatoes are softened.
2. Transfer to a large bowl and cool mixture in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. At this point, you can also call it a night and do the rest in the morning.
3. Whisk eggs. Pour into cooled base and mix thoroughly.
4. Heat oil on low heat in non-stick skillet or wok. Pour in a circle of the egg batter – about 3 heaping tablespoons’ worth. Season with pepper if desired. Cook, covered, until egg is firmly set.
5. Flip over – using a plate if the torta is larger than your flipper – and cook reverse side for 1 minute or till lightly browned.
6. Served with steamed rice and a side of (banana) ketchup or sweet and sour sauce.

My husband doesn’t care much for eggplant.  Unfortunately, this meant that one of my favourite vegetables became unwelcome in our home.  In the eight years that we’ve been together, the only times I could use it in the kitchen was during tax season (when my husband disappears into the void for 3 months) or on nights where I’m left to cook for myself.  What a terrible dietary restriction.

Since our trip to the Philippines, Kurt has happily relaxed his scorn.  His new interest in eggplant is thanks to a simple dish that most Filipinos know and love: tortang talong.   Below is a visual recipe of the dish that is no longer blacklisted from our household.

Tortang Talong (Eggplant Omelette)

Step 1 – Torch Eggplant

My favourite step. Using a gas stove, roast eggplant on all sides until skin is puffy and charred.  If you don’t have access to open flame (like our kitchen, sob) you can use your oven’s broiler, set on high. It’ll take a little longer to do.

Optional Step 1b – Steam Eggplant

If you are finding it difficult to peel the blackened skin off the eggplant, you can wrap said eggplant in foil and let steam a few minutes. The skin will peel off like panties at a Tom Jones concert.

Step 2 – Peel Eggplant

Remove the skin from your roasted eggplant. It should look like this.  Having trouble? Try Step 1b above.

Step 3 – Egg eggplant

Scramble an egg in a bowl and submerge your eggplant into it. Fan out the eggplant fully with a fork. Season with salt and pepper if desired.

Step 4 – Fry Eggplant

Heat a frying pan with a smidgeon of olive oil (low-med heat).  When the oil is ready, use the stem of your eggplant to lay it onto the pan. Make sure to fan the body of the eggplant out and use extra egg to fill in any gaps. Fry for 1-2 mins on each side or until each side is a toasty golden brown.

If you have extra egg left over, you can fry that up separately. It’ll taste like the eggplant omelette but without the veggie bits.

Step 5 – Eat Eggplant

Blot excess oil off the omelette with paper towel if desired and you are done!

In my family, these omelettes are served over steamed rice and accompanied with some sort of pork. I usually eat it with pork chops but have been known to eat it with (gasp) Spam as well. If you want to be truly Filipino about it, create a dipping sauce of equal parts bagoong and white vinegar and spoon a little over each bite.

Did you know that the Tiny Bites sidebar displays micro blog posts using Twitter?

If you haven’t noticed it before, pay attention now, because I’m nearing my 1000th Twitter message (or “tweet”) and I’ve baked some goodies to mark the occasion.  They’ve *just* come out of the oven:

Would you like a dozen of these muffins this weekend? Do you live / work / play in downtown Vancouver, or will you be in the vicinity in the next few days? If you’re nodding, drooling, or both, here’s what to do:

Tiny Bites’ 1000th Tweet Contest Details

1. The publication of this blog post will auto-generate my 999th tweet. That’s when the fun begins.
2. Send me a message through Twitter between now (8pm) and midnight. Tell me why you’d like muffins this weekend. Don’t forget to include @tinybites in your message or I won’t see it!
3. Out of the responses I get between the contest period, I’ll randomly draw the winner of the muffin giveaway and announce it as my 1000th tweet.

Contest Conditions

1. You’ll probably need a Twitter account. =)
2. Your message must include @tinybites and have a timestamp between 8pm and 11:59pm on Saturday, February, 7, 2009 to be eligible for the draw.
3. You need to be available between now and Monday evening to have your muffins delivered to you. No one likes stale muffins.
4. Your meeting place to receive said muffins needs to be within Vancouver proper (downtown Vancouver, ideally).  Sorry suburbia, but my feet can only take me so far from my Yaletown abode.

Prize Details

The winner of the 1000th Tweet Muffin Giveaway will receive 6 blueberry and 6 Buddhaberry* muffins topped with streusel, baked by yours truly and stuffed to the brim with TLC.

Contest Update – midnight

7 Twitterers responded and the winner was announced.

Click to read each candidate’s qualifying entry:  @nolwennp, @carolbrowne, @eagranieyuh, @christinachoung, @jedmarc, @cecilialu, @fuzzydave.

The Base Muffin Recipe

• Recipe source: adapted from Betty Crocker Cookbook: Everything You Need to Know to Cook Today
• Prep time: 10 minutes
• Baking time: 20-25 minutes
• Yield: 12 muffins

For the streusel topping

• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons butter, firm

For the muffin batter

• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 large egg
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

For blueberry muffins

• 1 cup fresh, canned (drained), or frozen blueberries

For cranberry & citrus muffins

• 1 tablespoon grated citrus peel
• 1 cup cranberry halves or 1/2 cup dried cranberries

Baking directions

1. Grease bottoms only of 12 medium muffin cups or line your muffin tray with baking cups.
2. Pulse all streusel topping ingredients in a food processor until crumbly.  No processor? Use a pastry blender or criss-cross with 2 knives until you achieve the same effect. Set streusel aside.
3. Beat egg in a large bowl with a fork or wire whisk. Whisk in the milk and the oil. [If you're adding citrus peel, whisk it in here.]
4. Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl. Dump the mixture all at once into the bowl of wet ingredients and fold until the batter is just moistened. It’ll still be lumpy. That’s a good sign.
5. Fold in your blueberries, cranberries, or preferred fruit into the batter.
6. Heat your oven to 400F.
7. Using an ice cream scoop or large spoon, divide batter evenly among muffin cups. Sprinkle each with about 1 tablespoon of streusel.
8. Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.
9. If baked in greased pan, let stand about 5 mins in pan, then transfer muffins to wire rack to cool.  If baked in baking cups, immediately remove from pan to wire rack.

Good luck, everyone!

*What the heck is Buddhaberry?

It’s a term I made up to describe the ingredients I chose for this muffin variation.  Rather than do the typical cranberry and orange peel combo, I used the peel of a Buddha’s Hand, which is an unusual citrus I came across today at Choices and Urban Fare. I wanted to taste test it – if you win, you’ll get to as well!

Happy Easter from the Hamilton household! How did you spend the weekend? My husband and I like to celebrate every year with an Easter egg hunt for two. This year, I also took advantage of the long weekend to try a bunch of recipes that have been on my radar for some time.

Pan-Seared Sesame-Crusted Ahi Tuna

Source: Cook’s Illustrated: The New Best Recipe

A Hamilton household favourite. This is technically a new recipe for me because this one comes from my husband’s repertoire. He was more than happy to let me try my hand at it on Friday while he took in the second night of March Madness. This dish is so quick: a few minutes of prep and a few minutes to sear. My only regret was that the tuna steaks I had to work with were triangular and a little thin. If you can find it, select steaks that are rectangular blocks at least 1.5 inches high, like these ones that we’ve used in the past.

Ingredients:

For the Tuna

• 3/4 cup sesame seeds
• 4 8oz tuna steaks, at least 1.5 inches thick
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Ginger-Soy Sauce with Scallions

• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup rice vinegar
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 1/2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 medium scallion (green onion), sliced thin
• 2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
• 1 1/2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes [we use a tiny bit of shichimi instead]

Directions:

1. Combine all of the ginger-soy sauce ingredients together in a small bowl, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
2. Spread the sesame seeds on a shallow plate. Pat the tuna dry. Use 1 tablespoon of the oil to rub both sides of the steaks. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Press both sides of each steak in the seeds to coat [we do all 4 sides for good measure].
3. Heat the remaining oil in a nonstick skillet over high heat until the oil begins to smoke. Swirl to coat the pan. Add the tuna and sear 30 seconds with moving them around the pan. Reduce heat to medium-high and continue to cook until the seeds are golden brown, about 1.5 minutes. Using tongs, flip the steaks carefully and cook, without moving, until seeds are golden brown on the other side. It’ll take about 1.5 minutes for rare to 3 minutes for medium-rare.
4. To serve, cut into 1/4-inch slices. Serve with ginger-soy sauce.

Braised Peas with Spring Onions and Lettuce

Source: Cook with Jamie

Kurt usually serves his sesame tuna with a side of steamed asparagus. Ho hum. Now that I was in charge of the meal, I cracked open the Cook with Jamie cookbook that we got for Christmas and zeroed in on something with peas. It’s still too early for fresh peas, but the frozen organic peas we found did just fine. We substituted red pearl onions for the spring onions only because I was too lazy to figure out what it was. It isn’t a term used very often in Canada; green onion is what I’m more used to.

The dish complemented the ahi tuna and the pinot grigio that we had for dinner. It was much soupier than I expected (note to self: inspect cookbook photo first). Next time, I’ll serve it in a bowl or on top of the rice to absorb its flavours.

Ingredients:

• A pat of butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 heaped teaspoon of flour
• 1 cup vegetable stock [substitute with chicken stock if necessary]
• 6 spring onions, trimmed, outer leaves discarded, and finely sliced
• 14oz fresh or frozen peas
• 1 butter lettuce, sliced
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO—splurge for the good stuff)

Directions:

1. Slowly heat the butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large saucepan. Add the flour and stire around, then slowly pour in the stock.
2. Turn up the heat and add the onion, peas, and lettuce with a pinch of salt and pepper. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes or until tender.
3. Taste, correct the seasoning and squeeze in a little lemon juice. Serve drizzled with a splash of EVOO.

Nutella Banana Muffins

Source: Delicious Days

Fellow food blogger ChichaJo, whose Philippine culinary adventures I am duly noting for our Christmas vacation in Northern Luzon, tried an irresistible nutella and banana muffin recipe that she found on Delicious Days. It was just the thing to bake for my family’s Easter dinner on Saturday night. Following in ChichaJo’s footsteps, I likewise used Nutella to frost the finished goods along with a sprinkling of silver cola balls. It was a hit at the family party. My lola (grandmother) doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth but she made room for several of these.

Mushroom and Saffron Soufflé

Source: La Tartine Gourmande

Breakfast has never been a meal that I eat on time. Brunch is much more to my liking; Sunday brunch especially. Wanting to try something other than the usual soft-boiled egg for this Easter morning, I flipped to the bookmark of a savoury soufflé recipe on La Tartine Gourmande. The original recipe called for crab, which wasn’t available at our grocer, nor was it an ingredient that we felt like having so early in the day. Instead, I tossed in few brown mushrooms, shallots, and smoked applewood cheddar. Kept the saffron in for the pop of colour.

Verdict: puffy, golden, and deeeelish. You have less than 30 seconds after the oven opens to capture the soufflé at its airy peak. I missed my chance to capture it towering 2 inches above the lip of the ramekin. Happily, this is definitely a recipe that warrants a repeat. Hope to have photo evidence of the heights it can achieve before Easter comes again next year.