Vitasoy soya milk in Coffee, Original and Chocolate flavors
A VERY interesting package arrived in the house recently. It came in the form of a brown, cardboard, handbag-type package that simply said ‘Vitasoy: The Soy Experts’ on one side and scribble-font ‘Real Good Surprise Inside’ on the other side.
I took off the round sticker that held the ‘bag handles’ together, and the package revealed three 330ml. plastic bottles of Vitasoy soya milk—in Original, Chocolate and Coffee flavors—to announce that, from Hong Kong, China, Australia and New Zealand, Vitasoy has arrived in the Philippines.
Yes, Vitasoy in the 330ml. plastic bottle form now comes in these three classic flavors. Made with non-GMO (genetically modified organism) soybeans and only the finest ingredients to create a delicious and nutritious soya milk blend, Vitasoy is backed by over 75 years of experience in providing consumers with the best soya milk and is guided by the three pillars of taste, nutrition and sustainability. All three variants—Original, Chocolate and Coffee—are low in saturated fat, lactose-free, cholesterol-free and packed with protein.
The popular soya milk brand also comes in Vitasoy 1L Plus form, in Original and Oat flavors. Vitasoy 1L Plus is high in Calcium and Vitamin D, so it is a very nutritious drink.
WASABI, which is Japanese horseradish, is an essential ingredient in Japanese cuisine. The stem of the plant is used in paste form to add flavor and a spicy kick to sashimi, sushi, maki, temaki and other Japanese rolls. It is rubbed on to sushi rice that has already been pressed onto nori (seaweed) strips and then rolled with other ingredients, such as crabstick, shrimp or tuna. For more kick, a small amount of wasabi paste is mixed into Kikkoman sauce, and each piece of sushi or sashimi is lightly dipped into the mixture and then popped into the mouth.
That is the traditional use for wasabi. These days, however, wasabi has become a favorite flavor for such interesting bites as popcorn and potato chips, and it is mixed into mayonnaise to make a nice wasabi mayonnaise dressing for salad or sauce for main entrées. Hip and innovative chef Gene Gonzalez of Café Ysabel and the Center for Asian Culinary Studies (CACS) even came up with Wasabi Ice Cream and served it in one of the events that took place in the restaurant several years before ‘revolutionary’ flavors of ice cream were introduced by other restaurants and hotels.
I like wasabi, and I like trying out food products that have wasabi in them. One of my newest ‘discoveries’ is Tats Peanut Crunch Shrimp Wasabi flavor. I found it on the shelves of SM Hypermarket when I was looking for healthy munchies in the nuts section of the supermarket. The 80-gram pack is quite attractive, as it bears a cartoon character face while other brands of nut snacks look so serious and show photos of nuts on the label. Well, this one changes color depending on what flavor it is. Shrimp Wasabi is apple green in color and, being a Green Archer, green happens to be my favorite color.
Tats Peanut Crunch is like the traditional cracker nuts, which means roasted peanuts wrapped in a crunchy coating made with a combination of cake flour, modified starch and glucose syrup. It is manufactured by TMI Food Processing & Development Inc., a snack food manufacturing company established in 2000 and has Tobi as its mother company.
Distributed by Not Just Nuts Inc. (NJN), Tats Peanut Crunch comes in four flavors—Shrimp Wasabi, Garlic Fried Chicken, Garlic Chili, and BBQ with Black Pepper. I have not tried the other flavors, because Shrimp Wasabi happens to have the most attractive packaging, although the others also have the same playful cartoon character face on the label but in a different color. Shrimp Wasabi was the flavor I picked the first time I saw it, and it did not disappoint. I like the powdery green wasabi layer on the cracker nut coating. When you bite into each nut, it is just like a crunchy cracker nut but with a spicy kick that titillates the tongue and palate. Once you start, you will find it difficult to stop until the whole 80-gram packaging is empty.
The other flavors may be good, too, but my vote goes to Shrimp Wasabi.
SINANGLAY is a Bicolano dish that has fish wrapped in pechay or gabi leaves and cooked in coconut milk with minced onion and ginger, diced tomatoes and chopped shrimps. It is a very flavorful dish which I recently ‘discovered’ when I was searching for new ways to cook fish for my husband Raff. He had a stroke last year and is in the process of recovery, and since I personally take care of his needs, I am also the one who cooks and prepares his meals, so everything has to be delicious but healthy and nutritious at the same time. This is why I keep searching for new recipes to try. I google, flip the pages of cookbooks and food magazines, ask my elder sisters and my chef-friends and do my own experiments in the kitchen.
The sinanglay happens to be one of my best recipe finds. I first tried it with hasa-hasa and it turned out to be so good I decided to try doing the sauce with lightly grilled tanigue steak. It works! Perhaps if I wrap the tanigue steak with pechay and then cook it in the sauce like regular hasa-hasa, it would also work. That will have to wait till the next time because I prefer grilling fish on a cooktop grill pan, as grilling gives the fish a lightly smoky flavor that makes the fish even more delectable.
This is the recipe. Let me know how it turns out when you try it in your own kitchen.
For the tanigue steak:
2 pcs. tanigue steak slices
2-3 pcs. calamansi, juiced and seeds removed
salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp. olive oil
extra olive oil for grilling
1. Season tanigue steaks with calamansi juice, salt, pepper, garlic and 1 Tbsp. olive oil.
2. Brush cooktop grill pan with olive oil, heat up, then grill fish steaks. Position tanigue fillet at an angle, grill for 5 minutes, then turn to the other angle to form diamond-shaped grill marks. Cook for another 3 minutes. Flip fish over and do the same to effect diamond-shaped grill marks.
3. Arrange on a plate, and spoon sinanglay sauce generously over the fish steaks.
For the sinanglay sauce:
1-2 Tbsps. vegetable oil
3-4 slices ginger, peeled and minced
1 pc. small red onion, minced
3 pcs. native tomatoes, deseeded and diced
1/3 cup peeled and chopped shrimps
1-1/2 cups coconut milk
1 tsp. ground turmeric
salt, pepper and patis (fish sauce) to taste
liquid seasoning to taste
1. Heat oil in pan. Sauté ginger, onion, tomatoes and shrimps until cooked.
2. Mix ground turmeric into the coconut milk. Pour into the sautéed mixture.
3. Season with salt, pepper and fish sauce. Sprinkle with a little liquid seasoning.
4. Let boil, then lower flame to a simmer.
5. Ladle or spoon sauce over the fish steaks and serve with hot, freshly cooked rice.
Celebrity chefs featured in Maya Kitchen’s Culinary Elite Series, clockwise from top left: Chef Myke ‘Tatung’ Sarthou, Chef Gene Gonzalez, Chef Claude Tayag and Chef Jessie Sincioco
WE often look at celebrity chefs are some kind of culinary demigods who are up there, unreachable, and their dishes so complicated that only they can prepare and serve them. But some of the country’s top chefs have proven that this is not so—and that they are human, down-to-earth and willing to share their recipes and cooking techniques with anyone who is interested—via The Maya Kitchen’s Culinary Elite Series. The cooking class series has also allowed them to show how classic Filipino dishes can be tweaked to transform them from ordinary to extraordinary contemporary creations.
Chef Gene Gonzalez
Chef Gene Gonzalez’s Adobo Diablo
Imagine Chef Gene Gonzalez of Café Ysabel and Center for Asian Culinary Studies (CACS) dishing out a unique adobo dish which he calls Adobo Diablo. While adobo can be cooked in many different ways, with different regions adding their own flair and flavor to the iconic national dish, Chef Gene, through his Culinary Elite Series: Culinary Gems from Old Pampanga, prepared it the Capampangan way. Adobo is usually prepared by adding soy sauce to flavor and darken the broth, but this very practice is considered a culinary crime in many Capampangan households, where a cook who puts soy sauce in his (or her) adobo becomes the subject of gossips. The Capampangan Adobo Diablo is prepared by constant simmering of various meats and deglazing of the pan with stock to come up with a tasty caramelized liquid that gives the meat a deep reddish-brown hue, and the meats are served with the sauce on the side.
Chef Jessie Sincioco
Chef Jessie Sincioco’s Tiger Prawns with Laing
Then there’s Chef Jessie Sincioco, who runs her own Chef Jessie Rockwell Club and Top of the Citi and who served His Holiness Pope Francis during the Pontiff’s most recent Papal Visit to the Philippines. She presented Tiger Prawns with Laing during her Culinary Elite Series: Chef Jessie’s Christmas Menu, basing it on the traditional Bicolano vegetable dish made with dried taro leaves, coconut milk, shrimp paste, pork belly fat and chili peppers. The prawns are cut through the back and grilled until half-cooked before being stuffed with laing, then baked and finished off with parsley and sili.
Chef Myke ‘Tatung’ Sarthou
Chef Tatung Sarthou’s Pancit Pusit
Another celebrity chef who has starred in his own Maya Kitchen Culinary Elite Series happens to be Chef Michael Giovan Sarthou III, also known as Chef Myke ‘Tatung’ Sarthou, who plays around with another big Pinoy favorite—pancit (noodles)! He prepares it the way Caviteños do, making Pancit Pusit by bathing rice noodles in rich squid ink sauce, topping the noodles with vegetables, crushed chicharon, squid rings and kamias slices in his Culinary Elite Series: Chef Tatung Revisits Pinoy Classics. Stressing the importance of using native ingredients, the culinary heritage advocate and Agos chef-owner first sautés the squid over high fire before adding vinegar, soy sauce, fish sauce and then the squid ink to the pan. Once it boils, a cup of water is added and the noodles are mixed in. Finally, he sprinkles crushed chicharon and garlic on the noodles for garnish.
Chef Claude Tayag
Chef Claude Tayag’s Lumpiang Sariwa
Chef Claude Tayag is another culinary heritage advocate and showed this in his Culinary Elite Series: From Kapampangan Palate to an Artist’s Palette—An Update on Four Pampango Dishes. He put a spin on Lumpiang Sariwa by using green papaya as base and also including sautéed tokwa strips and garbanzos to go with the carrots, beans and shrimps in achuete oil. Topped with beansprouts, crushed peanuts, cilantro and a sauce made from sugar, soy sauce, water and cornstarch, the filling is served on fresh lettuce leaves (like lumpiang hubad) or wrapped in lumpia wrapper and fried like traditional pritong lumpia.
To learn from culinary masters such as Chefs Gene Gonzalez, Jessie Sincioco, Myke Sarthou and Claude Tayag, sign up for The Maya Kitchen’s Culinary Elite Series. For more information on the Culinary Elite Series and other course offerings, log on to www.themayakitchen.com, email contactus@themayakitchen.com or call 892-1185, 892-5011 local 108 or +639296796102.
MARCO Polo Ortigas Manila redefines the nightlife scene in the metro by taking the pre-dinner drinks and appetizers at the hotel’s Vu’s Sky Bar and Lounge, located at the 45th Floor, to new heights with an Italian ritual to enjoy.
Vu’s Sky Bar and Lounge now features a wide array of Italian appetizers, paired with a free flow of local draft beer or house wine. Inspired by the Antipasti Misto Buffet, the after-office menu includes a mix of starters—from seafood to cold cuts and bread—that are specifically curated and prepared by the hotel’s kitchen team. It is available in a la carte from Monday to Wednesday and in buffet from Thursday to Saturday, from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. at Php899. As a bonus, guests even get to enjoy an unobstructed view of the metro, as Vu’s Sky Bar and Lounge provides a panoramic view of the cityscape. The view is awe-inspiring, and the mood is relaxing.
Vu’s Sky Bar and Lounge also invites guests to enjoy its Happy Hour from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. with its vast selection of cocktails, wines and other spirits, together with a well-curated lineup of dishes that provide a good mix of Filipino, Spanish and other Mediterranean favorites. The bar offers 50% off on its wide variety of beverages during Happy Hour so get-togethers with friends and colleagues are sure to be fun, relaxing and enjoyable.
(Marco Polo Ortigas Manila is located at Meralco Ave. corner Sapphire St., Ortigas Center, Pasig City; with telephone number 720-7777. Book online via www.marcopolohotels.com or email manila@marcopolohotels.com.)
