Multigrain Kiampong!

Been cooking this dish for quite a while now :) It's been a main stay in our menu for a while as well ^_^. Kiampong is a Filipino-Chinese dish very similar to Paella but in an Oriental setting. Usually, Kiampong is made from combination of sticky rice and long grain rice.. with this version, I used Greenmax's Chinese Yam with Multigrain rice (combination of oats, job's tears, brown rice, sorghum rice, barley, buckwheat, pearl rice, gordon euryale seeds, and wheat). Relatively easy to prepare but will take a bit of time to cook :)

Some snapshots of the ingredients used:

Ingredients: 

2 chinese sausages, cut into quarter inch thick slices

6 dried squid (1 dried squid is about 4 inches long, cut into strips) 

6 shitake mushroom (soaked in hot water, remove stem, cut into 4 pcs, set aside the water used in soaking the mushroom)

3 cups of multigrain rice

1 can 256grams of Gulong stewed sliced pork

3.5 cups of water

fried onions flakes

roasted or fried peanuts

green onions

Steps: 

1. wash multigrain rice once, then soak the multigrain rice for 30minutes in 3.5 cups water

2. Add squid strips, shitake mushroom, and braised pork in the multigrain rice. 

3. Stir fry sausages until fragrant, add into the multigrain rice as well.

4. Mix everything well together.

5. Set rice cooker to cook for 1 hour (My rice cooker has a setting where you can set what type of rice you are cooking, so in this case, I just indicated that I'm cooking brown rice,it takes my rice cooker 2 hours to cook brown rice, so cooking time might actually depend of the type of rice cooker, regular rice cooker would probably take 1 hour to cook)

6. Stir the rice every few minutes to make sure the toppings float on top :)

7. When rice is done, garnish it with peanuts, fried onions, and green onions on top. 

Fin :)

Salmon, tomatoes, capers, and onions

In an attempt to eat healthier, the husband & I decided to get our hands to cooking at least one salmon dish every week. I came across Elise's SimplyRecipe site and chance upon this wonderful salmon dish. This dish requires fresh salmon fillet and here in Manila, a kilo of fresh salmon could cost as much as 750 pesos per kilo - so we used the cheaper variety instead, frozen salmon fillet (350 pesos per half kilo), less hassle as it is already vacuum sealed and frozen too, no need to worry on the freshness on the way back to our place. It took us approximately 30-40 minutes to cook and prepare this dish and about 15 minutes to eat everything in the pot! :) Because it was such a success, I was actually thinking of cooking this again sometime next week.

 

Here's Elise's recipe & my notes: 

Salmon with Tomato, Onions, and Capers Recipe

Ingredients

• 3 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and diced
• 2 large fresh tomatoes, diced
• 1 Tbsp fresh thyme leaves, chopped (Catz: if there's no available fresh thyme, you can also use 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves)
• 2 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest
• The juice of one meyer lemon, or half a regular lemon with a teaspoon of sugar (Catz: I used honey instead of sugar)
• 2 Tbsp of capers, drained
• 1 teaspoon of chopped jalapeño peppers (no seeds, no stem, no ribs) either fresh or pickled (Catz: used 2 tbsp of jalapeño peppers since we both love spicy food)
• 1/3 cup white wine (Catz: used some left over cabernet sauvignon)
• 1/4 cup water
• Salt and pepper
• 2 fresh salmon fillets, 1/2 lb each

Method

1 In a large, wide (at least 12 inches wide) saucepan (one that comes with a cover), heat olive oil on medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring regularly, until just beginning to brown, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Raise the heat to medium-high and add the tomatoes, thyme, lemon zest, lemon juice, capers, and jalapeño peppers. Simmer for 10 minutes, adding a little water if needed to prevent the sauce from getting too dry. Salt and pepper to taste. 

2 Add 1/3 a cup of white wine - a simple Chardonnay will work. Add 1/4 cup of water. Bring to a simmer. Place the fillets in the pan on top of the sauce, skin side down, if the fillets are still in their skin. Cover and reduce heat to medium-low. Cook for 5-10 minutes, depending on how thick the cuts of fish are. Poke the fish with a fork and look for doneness. The fish should still be somewhat rare in the middle, but not raw. Serve immediately, with tomato sauce generously applied.

Serves 4 (well,in our case, there were only 2 of us ^_^)