Can the Azkals cook?

Two of them, team captain Aly Borromeo and Anton del Rosario, proved they can, with assistance from chef par excellence Jessie Sinsioco.

It was when Purefoods launched their new line, Premuim Deli Selection, at Jessie’s in Rockwell, that the two athletes were joined by other celebrities in showcasing the versatility of the new franks and sausages by creating their own master recipes.

The event launched the Purefoods Premiere Deli club with the slogan “Meaty indulgence made easy.” True enough, one would never have thought how versatile a sausage and cold cuts could be. The celebrities’ dishes were multi-textured and attractively plated, fit for any sophisticated gourmet table.

China Cojuangco’s beef franks risotto, done with butter, had sautéed onions and bits of franks, enhanced by the addition of wine, beef stock and evaporated milk. The rice was firm, the dish full of blended flavors.

The Azkals did smoked turkey franks on whole wheat bread. We detected mustard in its dressing and true enough it was made of that, combined with catsup and mayonnaise.

Turkey, being perhaps the healthiest fowl meat, was the finale of the presentation. Rather simple, it focused on the meat, which rested on a piece of bread garnished with julliened carrots and snow peas. It is an ideal snack for both athletes and non-athletes. 

To the group gathered, the biggest surprise showed how ingenious Chef Jessie is. She produced a heavenly cream dessert topped with crispy shreds of salami! It is incredible that the saltiness and the sweetness went very well together. Great!

Follow Purefoods’ lead in developing new ways to serve franks and sausages to your brood so they won’t say “Hotdogs na naman?” 

For a long time, we did not want to brave the heavy traffic that is always in the vicinity of the Food Terminal (FTI) in Taguig.

Last Saturday, good company enticed us to ask a friend if we could hitch a ride with her and check out the market. She graciously agreed.

We left our base early – shortly after 5 a.m. and reached the place in about 25 minutes. The day was young, thus the usual crowd of palengkeras had not gathered yet. It was raining and we had to walk through some puddles.

Anyway, our first stop was a vegetable stall managed by a young lady. We were happy to see French beans selling at P300 a kilo and fresh shitake mushrooms, three big pieces at P50. The latter gives a lot of flavors to our dish of flat pasta cooked in olive oil with a lot of garlic, plus a tablespoon of pesto sauce.

There is great advantage in shopping with someone who knows where to get the best merchandise at a reasonable price. Our friend Vivien knows her way around the market, so in less than one hour and thirty minutes, we were done.

She led me to her meat suki, a busy duo of butchers who were nonetheless attentive. There’s nothing like seeing freshly butchered meat to encourage one to buy. Their sirloin is at P280 a kilo, pork spareribs for P170, beef soft bones (very good for pochero) at P270.

Our next stop was at the fishmongers where we got frying-sized lapu-lapu at P230 a kilo, salay-salay for paksiw at P160 and prawns for tempura at P400 a kilo. We moved on to search for crabs for binabayasan (since we saw guavas around at P40 a kilo) and got them at P350 a kilo. From another suki (Vivien knows all of them by name), we purchased Dagupan bangus at P130.

The rest that filled our basket were – lacatan bananas, P90 plus per piling; saba at P46; daing na buya (which we often have for simple lunch with tomato and onion salad) at P65 for one fourth kilo; celery and leeks, each at P80 a kilo; native garlic for P200 a kilo; and suman sa ibos, P25 for a bunch of four.

There was longganiza and tapa, including tapang baboy damo for P500, with small packs priced at P150. The man selling this said it was tender, but we preferred to stay away from it this time. Nening’s barbecue stand offers tocino at P25 a stick and longganiza at P45.

The mangoes looked good at P90 a kilo, but we decided not to get any since we had some Dizon pomelos at home.                   

That was our very productive morning at the FTI.

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