Beef Empanada

The empanada is a hearty snack that's sure to please. With the beef-veggie filling encased in lightly browned pastry, this dish looks time-consuming to make, but my version is, well, easy as pie!

I find making the dough from scratch daunting, so I'm using pre-made pastry sheets instead. That said, the shape of the empanada are not the traditional half-circle, but rather triangles or rectangles as I do not want wasteage.  Also, the veggie filling comes from the pre-cut, frozen pack. That's a substantial part of preparation time cut down, and the best part is, the result tastes just as amazing (tested on friends and kids!).

One comment made by a friend was that we can add some hard boiled eggs too, but I'm keeping to the recipe I used below.  You can add hard boiled eggs to the filling if you wish.

The yield is 18-20 pieces empanada easily.  But we just used 4 pieces pastry sheets so we came up with 16 (4 per sheet) - we ate the leftover filling with rice :-).

Beef Corned Silverside Caldereta

My wife decided to try using beef corned silverside for caldereta and it turned out really good.  When you bite on the meat, you get that texture and flavour of corned beef, but the tomato-based sauce, sweet raisins, and creamy cheese all combine for that yummy caldereta taste.  Perfect with hot, steaming rice!

Nilagang baka (beef stew)

I am simply amazed at how my Nanay and my Ate cook.  It's like they just chop and toss stuff into the pot or pan, give it a good mix, and out comes a wonderful dish.  Take this nilagang baka, for example.  My Nanay must have seen the odd look on my face when I saw her dump the potatoes along with the beef.  "Hindi malalamog yang patatas (the potatoes will not turn into mash)", she said before I could ask.  And sure enough, the potatoes were perfectly cooked.  Amazing.

There's something about nilaga that's very comforting.  I guess the mere ritual of sipping hot soup makes us feel all nice and warm inside, especially on a cold and rainy day.  I love my nilagang baka with a soy sauce and calamansi (and a little chilli) dip.

Herby Beef Stir Fry

We had some surprise guests last night, and they were the kind of guests we like because they cooked us dinner!  Pinkee proceeded to describe this beef recipe that they cooked recently and they loved it so much they were making some for us.  She was right, it was a lovely dish.

Baked Mac

Baked Macaroni

I love baked mac simply because I love minced beef and pasta. This dish is the perfect combination. If you have cooked minced beef with tomato sauce for spaghetti, then you can easily do this. The additional step of baking with a cheese-based topping makes this a favourite. We brought this to a party and it was a hit! We still have quite a lot of pasta shells so we used that instead, but the traditional pasta used is - obviously - elbow macaroni.

Kare-Kare

In a nutshell, Kare Kare is a traditional Filipino stew made from ox tail and tripe and vegetables, enriched with peanut sauce and alamang (fish paste).  I do not know the origin of the name but this dish is as unique as it is called.

My first kare-kare was cooked by my Nanay for a celebration (indeed, this dish does take a bit of time to cook so it's made when a guest is expected, or we are celebrating something).  I was intrigued at why peanut butter was being used.  In addition to this, it was also interesting how she toasted a handful of rice grains, ground it, then added it to the pot.  At meal time, I had a taste of Kare-Kare, which had a subtle peanut taste.  I though that was all there was to it, when Nanay told me to add a bit of alamang (shrimp paste), and the dish burst into flavour!  What an amazing dish.

Picadillo (Giniling) Recipe

I have a hilarious story about this dish.  We cooked Beef Giniling a couple of weekends ago because we had friends coming over.  And as is the custom here in New Zealand, visitors "bring a plate", meaning they cook or buy something to bring along for their share of the meal.  We were surprised that one of our guests brought a dish similar to ours, but they called it Picadillo.  So we then had our dinner and ate some of our Giniling and their Picadillo thinking that we were eating different dishes that tasted similar with each other.

Hearty beef soup

Hot soup is a truly wonderful thing to have on a cold winter afternoon (or, in the case of the Philippines' rainy season, a stormy day!) It's a soothing respite from the weather, and soup made "from scratch" (short of making the noodles from flour) makes it all the more special.

This beef soup has the goodness of... um... beef, and ginger gives it that extra warmth. This takes more than an hour to make, however, so I reserve this special brew for weekends.

Beef broccoli

Different aromas waft from the kitchen while cooking beef broccoli. First, there's the garlic and onion, then the beef, and finally the sweet broccoli. Truly enticing. Best of all, it's easy to cook. I also love my broccoli crunchy and half-cooked in this dish.

This version is rather different, in that we are using minced instead of sliced beef. This is so because minced beef is the only thing readily available :-). But it also worked rather nicely.

Rufo's Famous Tapa

And so another late night found us at the office in Makati, and at times like this we need Juicy Fruit gum. Errr... make that dinner. We were cruising aimlessly by, our minds as blank as our tummies as we searched for a place to have dinner. And this was how we came to Rufo's Famous Tapa at Kalayaan Avenue.

Rodic's Tapsilog

Filipinos have a knack at naming their food with catchy names, especially those sold on the streets. There is one dish, however, that is so well known that it can be found not only on food stands, but in fastfood stores and in restaurants as well. Ladies and gentlemen: the tapsilog.

Tapsilog is actually a combination of three words: tapa (beef), sinangag (fried rice), and itlog (egg). It sounds a lot like breakfast food but it's available any time of the day. This quick-fry food item has become so popular that there are even varieties that has the fried rice and egg (usually sunny side-up, but you may also request for scrambled, which I prefer) combo is partnered with hotdog (hotsilog), bangus (bangsilog), danggit (dangsilog), and so on... variety, it seems, is only limited by imagination!

Bistek (Filipino beef steak)

Bistek is the Filipino version of beef steak. It consists of small strips of beef with onion rings. Bistek is one of the easier meals to prepare, but to have really tasty beef, it needs to be marinaded (is there such a word?) overnight. I like the white onion rings to be uncooked and crunchy, but the regular (and more flavorful) variety will also do nicely. My Nanay usually adds it before turning off the stove, so it gets cooked somewhat as well.

Roast Beef in Camiguin

The final few days of March was special for my family and friends because we went on vacation in the mysterious and far-off Mindanao region. Since our drop-off point was at Cagayan de Oro, Bukidnon was just about an hour away and so it became part of our itinerary. And that part of the trip was special because we were eagerly anticipating the popular roast beef of the Del Monte Golf and Country Club!

The moment we saw pineapples as far as the eye could see, we knew that we were already in the Del Monte pineapple farm. It was such a wondrous sight! I think we could opt for a tour and see how pineapples are processed and canned but we were a bit tight on schedule so we just stopped by for some amazing photo ops and of course, the food!


We arrived at the Clubhouse soon enough. And because we all wanted a taste of the famous roast beef, we ordered for each one of us.

Bad decision! Each order was more than enough for one person. The order came salad and soup. The soup was good, but I was not so keen on the sweet sauce that came with the salad.

But the roast beef! Wow. It was amazing. Tender and beefy! (no pun intended). I wonder when I can have another meal like that.

The roast beef meal set us off at around 250 pesos each. But I'm sure it would have cost around three times more here in Manila.

Look at that goodness!

Having filled our tummies, we headed off for our next destination, while feeling that our vehicle must have considerably slowed down because of our additional weight.

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