Meatless Fridays

We, and presumably a lot of home cooks as well, have what we call our “traditional” Lenten dishes.

Lent has started. Homemakers like us are now planning meatless Fridays. To start, we checked our cookbooks and started going through various seafood recipes. We, and presumably a lot of home cooks as well, have what we can call our “traditional” Lenten dishes.

So a few days before Ash Wednesday, we set off for the Sta. Rosa wet market where fresh seafood can always be found. It is also a pleasure to shop in this place because it is clean and comparatively dry. It was early when we got there and the fishmongers were just starting to unload. It being a family favorite, we got a kilo of medium-sized squid for P380. Note that when cooking squid, for adobo or any other dish for that matter, you must not put salt because this is already naturally salty.

Fish escabeche is among the dishes we serve during this time. We thought the lapu-lapu, which sold at P380, would be ideal for this. We saw what we thought were murang bawang (young garlic) with stalks, but when we got home, we discovered they were young onions. No wonder our basket was not smelling of this pungent cooking element. Anyway, it was priced at P5 per.

The following week, we went for more seafood at the South Supermarket in Alabang where they are also always fresh. Our suki, Venus, always tells us what are the best buys. That time we asked for half a kilo of jumbo prawns (nearly P400), a salmon head which we always combine with the former for a more flavorful sinigang. Try this combination, your family will be hooked! We got panga, which can easily be prepared by marinating in garlic, Worcestershire sauce, olive oil and grilled. Serve with a good achara. We got two medium size bangus for relleno. The staff, under instruction of Venus, are very careful not to take away the tiyan (belly) for its fat. We also found alacaac, a fish that looks like ayungin, for paksiw with bitter gourd.  Our first two weeks of Lent, then, have been taken care of.

Susan Carino Lontok sent us an email after reading our piece on leche flan. She said her mother would cook this including the whites. But she would go through the tedious process of straining the egg whites in cheese cloth so many times to get the right consistency. Susan said her mom’s leche flan is the pride of the family. We must try her method one day.

Now young aspiring bakers and cooks – even those as young as four years old – can realize their dream of being active in the kitchen. Vicky Veloso Barrera has announced her new courses offered in her Tiny Kitchen, for those aged 4 to 19.  We must say that starting at age 4, a youngster may and can show interest in kitchen chores. Sessions – held Saturdays and Sundays – will start in March. Tiny Kitchen is located on 31 Scout Tobias, Quezon City. Call 410-2279 or 0917-395940. Train your young early, encouage them.

Have a reflective Passion Season.

E-mail me at [email protected].