Our family's heirloom Recipe: Cream of Chicken

Every family has a food dish that identifies them,
a food that symbolizes their bond. For my family, that
honor goes to Cream of Chicken.

My Dad who was a cook in the US Navy for 25 years,
introduced this dish to the family and it was only made
on special occasions such as Birthdays, Christmas Noche Buena.
During his career, he must have cooked and prepared this dish
on ships and military base Galleys.

Dad never formally passed down the dish to his children
as a heirloom recipe. Well, I was lucky enough to get
the dish from him firsthand. One vacation day in 2007, while in
Baguio City, I stood at his Kitchen , pen and paper in hand
and started taking notes on how he made his Cream of Chicken.

The recipe in Word format sat on my Laptop for years, gave a printed copy
of the recipe to my siblings. One day, my laptop was stolen
along with my Cream of Chicken recipe.

I prepared Cream of Chicken for our Thanksgiving dinner
and I am rewriting the Cream of Chicken recipe again
based from memory. This time, I'm uploading
the recipe to my Cooking Blog website so it doesn't get lost again
and for everyone who is willing to make it follow along.

I hope you take time to make the dish and enjoy it.

So, what is your family's special Recipe?

Cream of Chicken


Ingredients:

1 whole poultry chicken, cleaned
5 eggs
3 ribs of celery cut into strips
2 green bell peppers cut into squares
2 red bell peppers cut into squares
1/2 cup butter in room temperature
1 cup button mushroom cur longitudinally
1-1/2 cups all-purpose four
~ 6 cups of water
2 cups of fresh or a can condensed milk
salt and pepper to taste



Serving: 6


Cooking Procedure:

1. In a Dutch oven or large pot, put in the whole chicken.
2. Put in the eggs in the pot being careful not to crack them.
3. Fill the Pot with water until the chicken is submerged.
4. Cover pot with lid and bring to a boil.
5. Refill pot with water as they evaporate.
6. Cook the chicken in boiling water to soften it for a good 20 minutes.
7. Use a kitchen tong tool to transfer chicken to a plate or pan to catch the drippings.
8. Patiently tear off  chicken meat strips from the carcass and place in bowl. Discard the chicken skin. Set it aside. 

    9.  Blanche the vegetables by putting them into the boiling Chicken broth mixture.

    10. Use a colander to strain and remove vegetables from chicken broth and cool down with ice cold

          water. Place in bowl and set aside.

     11.  Use the colander to remove hard boiled eggs from Chicken broth and peel off shell. Chop the eggs.

  12.  Transfer Chicken broth to a bow and set aside.

  13. In the same Cooking Pot, under low heat, melt butter.

  14. Make a rue by doing the following:

      A. Gradually introduce the flour to the pot with the left hand while

           stirring the mixture using a wire whisk with the right hand.

          Reverse the order if you're left handed ;-)  

        B. Keep stirring until the mixture has a nutty aroma and color turns golden brown in color.

        C. Adjust heat to medium level.

        D. Use a ladle or measuring cup to gradually introduce chicken broth to the rue until you attain a thick consistency. Keep stirring the rue with a wire whisk.

 15. Add the chicken strips to the rue.

  16. Add the chopped eggs followed by cut mushrooms.

    17.  Add in the blanched vegetables.

    18. Gradually introduce the condensed milk being careful to maintain that thick cream consistency. Stir the mixture with a wire whisk.

    19.  You should have a Cream of Chicken consistency as shown below.

    20. Season the Cream of Chicken with salt and pepper to taste.

    21 Serve Cream of Chicken while its piping  hot.

Cooking comfort food for an Autumn night sleepover

Its a Sunday Autumn evening, and although I have work Monday, the following day, my eldest son Justin decided to have a sleepover with his friends at home or one of those late night stay-in house to play video games, watch videos in YouTube and everything else that teenagers like to do or play for their generation.

Its Thanksgiving Break after all and they don't have school for the week. I've grown accustomed to these kids' sleepovers through the years, and I've cooked my culinary creations for their sleepovers on numerous times.

My two other younger kids are at home as well.

So to cook up a special dinner for the occasion, I decided to do a rerun of that Bistek Tagalog with soy-lemon fried rice in a sizzling plate dish that I posted in an earlier blog entry.

This time I decided to pair the dish it with Chicken Sopas suitable for the colder weathers.
Nothing's more comforting than a warm soup on a cold Autumn or winter evening.

Try this combination out sometime specially that the colder months are upon us.

Beef and Eggs bowl

I made Beef and Eggs bowl for the kids' Brunch on
a cold Autumn morning.

I didn't make this dish up.Its based on a Cooking demonstration video
that Foodtrip28 uploaded in YouTube. According to Foodtrip28, he came upon this dish while eating at a Japanese Restaurant in Hong Kong.So I am assuming it has Japanese origins.

Click on the link below to view his video demonstration on how
to cook Beef and Eggs bowl.

Foodtrip28's Beef and Eggs bowl

Try cooking this dish sometime.

Pininyahang Manok (Chicken with Pineapple stew)

I cooked Pininyahang Manok (Chicken with Pineapple  stew) for dinner.

I let the kids and my nephew Calvin go ahead eat dinner while I enjoyed a Persimmon fruit. By the time I finished eating my Persimmon, there were two itty bitty pieces of Pininyahang Manok left for me. Goes to show that the dish was good, he he.

There's two versions online that I had at my disposal to cook this dish:
Click on the two link below to see two different versions of cooking this dish.

Panlasang Pinoy's  Pininyahang Manok

and

FoodTrip28  Pininyahang Manok

Their versions are pretty close but I chose
Panlasang Pinoy's  version.

try cooking this sometime for dinner on a cold winter night.

Thai Rice with Tortang Giniling

I made Foodtrip28's version of Thai Fried Rice and his Tortang Giniling for the kid's breakfast.
Who's Foodtrip28, you might ask. He owns one of my favorite YouTube channels
and he specialized in Filipino Cooking and other Asian cuisines he encountered during his trip to 
Hong Kong.


I'm surprised to realize he didn't upload Thai Fried Rice recipe  in his YouTube28
Foodtrip28 channel. His Totrtang giniling however is available for viewing in his Youtube channel.


To view his Tortang Giniling cooking video, click on the link below.

home made V8 Juice

Here a vegetable juice Recipe that I make at home all the time.

Its refreshing, healthy, high in nutrients such as Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Thiamine,
Vitamin B6, Folic Acid, and Potassium yet low in calories.

Ingredients in this juice has properties that can help support
a healthy blood pressure and blood vessels and at the same
time taste great. Try it!

Energy  ***
Detox   *****
Immunity *****
Digestion ***
Skin  ****

Equipment needed: Juicer Machine

Ingredients:

2 carrots
Spinach, handful
2 tomatoes, halfed
3 celery ribs
1/2 cucumber
1/2 green or red bell pepper
1/2 Lemon

Preparation procedure:
1. Thoroughly wash all vegetables.
2. Feed ll the vegetables into the juicer machine to extract the juice from the pulp of the vegetables.
3. Transfer juice in a glass.
4. Season with a dash of Tabasco.
5. Stir juice with a teaspoon.
6. Drink juice as soon as possible for best results.

Reference: The Complete Book of Juicing, by Michael Murray, page 227.

My Breakfast Burrito with a Filipino flair

I love Saturday mornings. I can take my take to cook a
well thought-out breakfast without having to worry about
hushing kids to school or that I might be late
to jump on the morning rush traffic to make it to work in time.

This morning, I made Breakfast Burrito with a Filipino
flair for my kids. What makes it Filipino you might ask?
I used Longanisa, which is a sweet smoky flavored sausage
mainly found in the Philippines. You could use any smoky flavored
sausage or Chorizo I suppose. I also used garlic
fried rice which is common in Filipino breakfast.

Well, I hope you could try this out sometime.
Here's my recipe:

Servings: 4

Ingredients:

6 Longanisa Sausage cut across to make strips
2 peices of ham, chopped
2 cups cold left over rice
2 stalks spring onions chopped
1 tablespoon minced garlic
5 eggs
Shredded Cheddar Cheese
Sour Cream
1 medium tomato cubed
4 flour tortillas
A jar of Salsa Sauce or Tabasco (optional)

Cooking Procedure:
1. Heat a wok pan, heat 2 teaspoons of cooking oil and
     saute garlic till light brown.
2. Stir fry the cold rice, add spring onions.
3. Set aside the fried rice in a plate.
4. Place eggs in a bowl, beat with a fork. Season with table salt.
5. In the same wok pan, heat 2 teaspoons of cooking oil
    and pour beaten egg mixture into pan.
6. Constantly stir the egg mixture with a fork or spatula to make scrambled eggs.
    Set the scrmbled eggs aside in a plate.

7. In the same wok pan, heat the flour tortilla on both sides one at a time.

8.  Transfer tortilla to a serving plate.
9. Assemble the Breakfast Burrito:
    a. First place 2 tablespoon on fried rice on the Tortilla.
    b. Place scrambled eggs on top of the rice followed by longanisa sausage and ham.
    c. Put a layer of chopped tomatoes on the Burrito.
    d. Put a layer of cheese followed by sour cream.

    e. Gently flap the sides of the Tortilla wrap to make a roll.
    f. You can sprinkle the Burrito with Tabasco Hot Sauce or Salsa