Foot and Fire

For this beef soup, use beef with bones which carry the marrow. This is a no-sweat beef soup. The trick is to quickly boil the beef and remove the froths and sediments forming above the water. Put more water and bring to boil until the meat is tender (This is the waiting part especially if there is no pressure cooker in the house). While boiling, put the Chinese Five Spice (Please see earlier post ). I have Cinnamon sticks and star anise in the house, so aside from the powder, I put some of it as I love the woody and earthy aroma of these two spices.  If the meat is tender, adjust taste with pepper and salt. When done with the taste, put the trimmed native pechay  and let vegetable cook covered for one to two minutes . Serve piping hot.   

Chicken: One whole chicken, cleaned (rub salt if desired) Pu erh tea steeped in boiling water, drained Star Anise Pinches of Chinese five-spice In a soup pan, put the whole chicken. Pour tea, just enough to cover the chicken. Put the Star Anise and Chinese Five spice. Bring to boil for 15 minutes, then heat in medium heat for 1 hour and 45 mins. Remove the chicken and place in the serving dish. Reserve stock for gravy. Gravy: 3 cups of stock starch, dissolved in water salt soy sauce black pepper Chicken bouillon (if desired) Strain two to three cups of chicken-tea stock to remove solids. Let boil in a sauce pan, add starch and adjust according to desired consistency. Adjust taste with salt, soy sauce and black pepper. Vegetables: olive oil onion, cubed carrots, cubed potato, cubed Bits and pieces of Mushroom in can, drained raisins or pickles Saute onion in olive oil, add carrots and potato. let cook and add mushrooms and raisins/pickles. Put a little liquid by using the stock. Serve t...

By GERLIE M. UY Linaga nga Baka with Langka... Weekends are best as we have time to slow-cook like this linaga. Beef soup are best with slow cook so that one can get the real beef stock. It is always a treat! Once in a while, it is great to have meat protein for this vegetable girl. 1 kilo Beef (Cuts with bones) 3 liter water batuan (sour fruit popular in Visayas) 3 thumbs of ginger 1 knot of lemongrass leaves Jalapeno Chili Salt 1 T of Chinese Five Spice (optional) Slices of unripe jackfruit Wash the beef cuts and place in a cauldron with water. Bring to boil until meat is tender. At least 2 hours in charcoal fire. But this must be shorter in pressure cookers. Add crushed batuan, crushed ginger, and lemongrass. Bring to boil until the spices are in the soup. Add salt. Add jalapeno, more salt if needed, Chinese five spice and the unripe jackfruit. Let boil until jackfruit is cooked. Where we cooked it... Whole fresh batuan, crushed. Sliced unripe jackfruit.

This is the cappuccino my friend ordered in NO Joke Cofee, a coffeeshop in Tianjin, China. Please note the cigar-like cinnamon stick on the side...  We don’t use cinnamon at home for daily cooking, and so I believed that cinnamon is only for glazing breads. This belief remained had I not bought Chinese Five Spice in Thailand. And so, I learned that cinnamon is one of the five ingredients and the five-spice can throw one’s braised beef in a whole new light considering we only use the usual salt and pepper. I rub five-spice in my chicken, fish and favorite vegetables before grilling or frying. I fell in love with five-spice and its fragrant component, cinnamon. Long after that and long before I headed to China for a vacation, I read an interesting note on cinnamon in the book of compiled columns of Filipino historian Ambeth Ocampo entitled, Chulalongkorn’s Elephants (The Philippines in Asian History, Looking Back 4). In one column entitled Walang Cuenta (No Value), Miguel Lopez de Le...