YAY!!! Sassy Lawyer and MarketMan made it to Saveur's Worldwide Feast: 55 Great Global Food Blogs!!!

On September 18, 2011, I wrote a tribute blog to MarketMan and The Sassy Lawyer a.k.a. Connie Santiago-Veneracion, two Filipino blogs that I read and admire. 


Yesterday, Saveur Magazine, which describes itself as "a magazine for people who experience the world food first," featured the same two bloggers on its annual list of global blogs that they like, saying, 


"Here at SAVEUR.com, we spend lots of time reading food blogs — and it's no surprise that we've found smart, gastronomically-inclined bloggers in virtually every country on earth. These writers are committed to celebrating regional recipes, restaurants, techniques, and ingredients; we draw on their sites as culinary guides to everyday life in specific places all over the globe. (We're also moved by how many region-specific sites are written by expats who maintain a connection with their homeland through food: Korean cooks living in Australia, Greek cooks living in the Netherlands, Indian cooks living in Peru, and more.) 

"These 55 blogs comprise our must-read list in the international food blogging community, but surely there are more. Share your favorites with us in the comments. — The SAVEUR.com Editors."


I am so happy for Market Man and Connie (sorry guys, we are on first-name basis. We went to law school together, after all, Connie being a year younger than me). They deserve this added accolade: they write well, they know what they write about, and you can read from their blogs that they have an unmatched passion for life, expressed through food.


And kudos to me, for one-upping Saveur by two weeks!


Yeah. You know it. I'm gloating ;-)

GLEE - NOW ON IT'S 3RD SEASON X SESAME STREET - NOW ON ITS NTH SEASON

Been a fan of GLEE and SESAME STREET for the longest time. GLEE came out when I was 47 and scouring the 'net for upcoming shows. The first trailer was just so engrossing that when the show finally premiered, I just had to watch it and have been following it since. I like its take on the underdog, a theme that is universal and especially close to the Pinoy heart, and of course the actors are all good.


SESAME STREET came out when I was in college. I had no business watching it but learning about those letters and numbers and values through those muppets was really fun to do. Many from my generation still can sing the "IT'S A LOVELY ELEVEN MORNING" song. Then there was the MUPPET SHOW. What's not to like, right?


Which is why I couldn't resist sharing with you this video:

GREAT GANI!

TRIBUTE TO THE SASSY LAWYER AND MARKET MAN: THRICE-COOKED LIEMPO

Two of my favorite food blogs are Market Man and Sassy Lawyer's. Market Man knows serious stuff about food. Plus he got featured in Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. Plus he's Bisaya. And Sassy Lawyer? She’s that and more: mother, blogger, foodie, photographer and law school friend. But the last is not the reason why I like her blog.

One of the best things about their blogs is that they feature recipes that they themselves have developed, with methodology meticulously described. Plus illustrated with the most tempting photos. I'll never be anywhere near them, but I can try.

Today's blog is all about one of my favorite food items: pork, and my take on one of my favorite pork dishes, pata tim, which is cooked by first steaming the pork leg, then frying it, then finally braising it. Steaming is preferred over boiling because this will keep the meat from coming apart.

I chanced upon a nice slab of pork belly at Cherry Foodarama on Shaw and I thought: I'll do a liempo tim, my way, and document my cooking journey ala Market Man and Sassy Lawyer.

Along with the pork, I bought red Chinese cooking wine, good oyster sauce (check the ingredients and get the brand that has oyster juice as the first ingredient), tengang daga and canned mushroom.

This dish takes time and perseverance but the praises you will get at eating time will be worth every effort you will have put into the preparation of this dish.

FIRST STEP – MARINATION: I rubbed the slab of liempo with freshly-ground black pepper and sea salt. I then prepared a marinade of 1 cup Chinese wine and ½ cup oyster sauce, and in it I placed the liempo’s top half for one hour and the bottom half for another hour.

Marinating the liempo

SECOND STEP – STEAMING: I mixed the marinade with an equal quantity of water and used this as my steaming liquid. Every 15 minutes or so of the steaming process, I poured the steaming liquid over the meat. I didn’t let the water run out in the 90 minutes that I steamed the liempo. At the end of the steaming process, I collected the water with the rendered fat. Check out the amount of fat that I collected.

I used a bigger steamer than what's in the picture.
See how good to eat the liempo is after the steaming?

THIRD STEP – BROILING: The third step is supposed to be to fry the pork, but I wanted to take the less sinful route so I used my turbo broiler. I popped the steamed liempo, set the turbo broiler at its lowest setting for 45 minutes, and another 10 at its highest. Tip: to make cleaning easy, put in about 2 cups in the broiler to keep the drippings from cooking into the metal. Again, I collected the fat from the broiling process and boy, was there a lot!

The liempo in the steaming liquid, after refrigeration and the fat collected. And thrown away.

FOURTH STEP – BRAISING: I placed the broiled liempo in a good-sized pot with 2 cups red Chinese wine, 2 cups oyster sauce, 2 cups water, the tengang daga, a mid-sized can of mushroom and set the stove on low, and let the everything braise for about an hour. I don’t know what I did right but the meat never fell apart during the braising. I occasionally added water to the braising liquid to keep it from burning. About 45 minutes after the braising, I added a cup of sesame oil and let the liquid reduce further.

Good enough to eat after the
broiling, but...And again, more fat!

FIFTH STEP – PLATING: What to match with this rich dish? Recalling how many cooks marry two cooking styles, I thought: why not prepare a pancit base for this dish in the Italian style? I got some white pechay, sliced it and some pancit canton. I took the meat out of braising liquid, added about a cup of water, let it simmer, then tossed the pancit canton in. I corrected the taste with oyster sauce and sesame oil. When the pancit canton was nearly done, I put in the pechay, covered the pot for about 3 minutes and served the pancit on a platter, and placed the Thrice-Cooked Liempo on top.

The final product had a nice sheen to it, and when cut, the meat was tender and juicy. Must try again!

If I had any decent knife skills, I would have sliced the bones away from the meat and sliced the liempo. Maybe next time.

NOTE: The cooking process could take more than a day. After the steaming, I refrigerated the meat so I could continue the cooking the next day.

This recipe is by no means perfect but it was hit at our Sunday lunch and my cousin, herself a formidable cook and foodie, asked for the recipe, so yeah. It is good!

UP NAMING MAHAL

I'm proud and privileged to have had my college and graduate studies at the University of the Philippines, Diliman campus. Until now, I still have - good and bad - images of Ikot, blue books, laid-back days and bad food. And to my dying days, I think I will still remember what my student number is.


And this song will forever be embedded in my mind:


UP Naming Mahal

Now will someone make a video of UP Beloved?

OVERWHELMED!!!

This has nothing to do with food, but a lot with one of the many hats that I wear, which is that of a lawyer, and by extension, as an alumnus of the UP College of Law. Our batch is celebrating our Silver Year and our college its Centennial. By tradition, the Silver Jubilarians are the ones who organize the homecoming and its related celebrations.

Part of our Batch's plan is to establish a scholarship and non-academic staff endowment fund. This is a tall order, considering that it takes upwards of P700,000 per annum to send one student through one year in law school. To raise the amount needed to get us to this goal, our Batch thought up a Hollywood Walk of Fame-type of UP Law Alumni called the Centennial Walk Project, and to launch the project, the hard-working and clever co-Chairpersons of the Project, Fe Concepcion and Fortune Balasbas, thought of doing a fun run around the academic circle, which will be called RUN FOR THE WALK. Didn't I tell you they were clever? And smart?

The tough part was looking for sponsors, so each of us went our own way to find some. Ms. Diane Rosales of Via Mare generously donated money for our breakfast, Ida Ramos and Jamie Sanico of Beiersdorf gave us a full line of Nivea products - which is also celebrating its Centennial, my bloggerina friend Candy Dizon gave a loot bag of kikay items for the lady runners, and Randy Manaloto and Olivia Dizon of PEP Group gave us PEP Publications and gift certificates. The response to our call for support has been overwhelming: from the UP College of Law leadership headed by Dean Danilo L. Concepcion, the University, and our media partner GMA News. And the Dragon Boat Team that did us proud in Tampa, Florida agreed to grace the Run, with no connections. Our Batch President, Grace Quevedo-Panagsagan, just made a cold call on the Team's leader. And they were in. 


And this is just a partial list.


As of this morning, 126 runners have pre-registered to run tomorrow. We expect to see so much more. I am happy to see a lot of UP Alumni pooling their resources to help us help future generations of UP lawyers, and the administrative staff that will be supporting them.


See you all!