Freshness @ Home: Grilled Garlic Butter Maya Maya with spinach and mushrooms

I love going to the Palengke buying fresh fish. I bought these Maya Maya fillets and decided that for tonight I'm serving it with spinach and mushrooms. I've cooked the whole fish Maya Maya as Sarsaido and it definitely the best fish for sweet and sour.

Ingredients

4 fillets of Maya Maya (or other fillets of fish you wish to have)

3 garlic cloves (finely chopped)

1 tbs of butter

salt and pepper

Method

1. Mix the garlic and butter into a bowl
2. Get the fillets and rub the garlic butter into them
3. Place the fillets in a baking tray lined with foil and cook in the oven (set to grill) on 200F
4. Take out the fish once it is slightly brown
5. Serve with vegetables you desire

Freshness @ Home: Strip Loin Steak with Chillie and Garlic rub with vegetables

Getting really good steak that is fresh here in Manila is very hard! I'm an Aussie so I like everything fresh. Anyhow after sourcing so many places I finally found a really good place to get my steak, albeit a little expensive but it was a really good piece of steak. After holy week, we've been craving really good steak.

I cheated a bit with this recipe because I opted to buy my spice rub from the same place that was selling the steak so there's nothing really to it except to ensure you coat the steak with your spice rub, leave it for a couple of hours and then get a griller or even better yet place on the BBQ and cook your steak as you like it.

You can choose any vegetables to serve with your steak. I chose carrots, asparagus and mushrooms and just simply cooked with a little garlic butter and voila!

Rom really enjoyed it and so did I...we both preferred to BBQ this but as we are in a very snobbish place who doesn't beleive in BBQ I bought a griller and grilled it instead.

Freshness @ Home: Poached egg with spinach and holandaise sauce

One of Rom's favourite things that he's been missing - poached eggs. I must admit I haven't yet mastered how to poach the perfect egg but this was as good as it got on the day.

How to poach an egg

1. Get a pan and fill it with 3 inches of water and boil
2. Once it is boiling add a tbs of vinegar (you could add cider vinegar to give it taste), the vinegar helps the egg stick together.
3. Crack the egg close to the pan and carefully place it in the centre. Turn down the heat and put the lid on and come back in 2 mins
4. With a slotted spoon remove from the pan and allow the water to drip from the egg and then place it on the plate to serve.

Hollandaise sauce
Ingredients
1 egg
1 lemon (juiced)
1 cup of milk
salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. In a bowl combine egg, lemon juice and beat together
2. In a saucepan place the milk and allow to simmer
3. Once the milk is simmering add the combined egg and lemon juice into the pan (turn the heat down) and continue to stir so that the egg doesn't coagulate
4. Add salt and pepper to taste (you can replace the pepper with cayanne pepper if you wish)

Freshness @ Home: Chorizo & Bacon Pasta

Bacon is such a versatile ingredient in any dish and taking leave on one of my fave shows on Asian Food Channel I decided to have a go and put something together without a recipe.

Ingredients (serves 4)
Pasta (Angel hair) 1 pkt
5 pcs of bacon (cut into rough slices)
1 Chorizo Sausage
2 cloves garlic (chopped)
1 red onion (chopped)
English spinach (optional)
Olive Oil

Method
1. Heat a pan with a little bit of olive oil and add bacon, cook until crispy brown and then put chorizo and cook until crispy as well. Take out and set aside.

2. In the same pan add garlic, onion and saute until onions are cooked, add your spinach, chorizo and bacon and add salt to taste

3. Add your already drained and cooked pasta into the mix and toss through and then serve.

Isn't it just so easy? The whole thing only takes about 30 mins to cook :)