a little more ludo love.

i recently had a very memorable meal at an event called ludobites in los angeles; i highly recommend it to any readers in the area, as chef ludo lefebvre's stint at breadbar ends in a mere four weeks. one of the highlights of the meal was an apple cake with mashta ice cream--a cool wedge of slowly cooked, beautifully layered apples slices served alongside a snowy white quenelle of ice cream barely flavoured with mastic, a resin from a mediterranean evergreen. i knew i couldn't go back to have this again, but needs must when the devil drives, so one way or another i had to recreate this dessert myself. [rant] because of an ongoing battle with the post office, i have yet to receive my copy of lefebvre's cookbook "crave: the feast of the five senses". i would complain louder and longer about it arriving on island not once but twice, yet never making it to my office directly across the street and instead returning to some random book returns warehouse in ohio. however, the postal workers know where i live and frankly, some of them scare me. so, i've made do with a borrowed copy whilst i await a third try. [/rant]

i suspected the apple confit cake found on soul fusion kitchen was what i wanted; it is from lefebvre's cookbook, as adapted by the la times. 8.5 pounds of granny smiths sliced on a mandoline, and five hours of cooking time. um, sure, i can do that. i followed the recipe as written, only to find that it didn't quite match up to the dessert in my experience. it was much paler, and not as compact and yielding as i recalled. the flavour was very close, but i wanted the texture--soft but not mushy--as well. it only took a little bit of tweaking to get it right--actually, all it really took was a lot more time. i kept the ingredients the same and borrowed time from both pierre herme's 24 hour apples and jean-georges vongerichten(ichtenichten)'s own apple confit recipes: after coating the pan in a sugar caramel then layering 1/8"-sliced apples with sugar and a citrus confit, i covered the 17-18 layers of apples and left it to sit in the refrigerator for 12 hours. after baking it in a bain-marie water bath at 250˚F for 12 hours, i covered it again, weighted it down with heavy dish, then refrigerated it for another 12 hours. seriously, if you think about it, there is very little work involved, considering 36+ hours go into it-- just a lot of slicing (disguising obscene gesturing) and a little crafty arrangement. the apples, despite the baking time, still manage to retain a freshness of fragrance and texture i do not expect from preserved foods; the flavour is still subtle, despite its concentration.

the mastic needed for the ice cream is native to greece, and is still an uncommon ingredient. i thought procuring it would be difficult, esp. considering my usps troubles; but no, two minutes on ebay and ten days later, i received the pale golden crystal nuggets in the mail. i could not find an ice cream recipe from chef ludo on the 'nets, but stumbled across harold mcgee's article that featured dondurma, a turkish ice cream which relies heavily on mastic, which led me to a concurrent article by mark bittman on cornstarch ice cream. bittman says that ice cream made with cornstarch as a thickener instead of eggs is lighter, and the eggs do not impede the flavours added in--exactly what i was looking for. i didn't really know how much mastic to add, so i tried a scant 1/2 teaspoonful, ground in a food processor with some sugar. perhaps it was too much; i think the mastic added some elasticity to the ice cream that wouldn't have been there otherwise, but it bordered on tasting like exterior latex paint. although i have yet to try it again, i suspect 1/4 teaspoonful of the mastic crystals (before grinding) should be enough to get a that lovely greeny taste without going overboard.

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the online recipe for the confit described does not match the grapefruit one tried in the restaurant, nor does it quite match the confit in the book either. i went with the one in the book, which calls for more fruit and bigger pieces of zest, but is basically the same. it is far less "jammy" than i expected--less a jelly and more like a syrup--and not particularly sweet, yet not very bitter either. i can't imagine eating this on its own, but it makes a fine ingredient in both sweet and savoury dishes.

and the recipe makes a lot of confit. i used some of the leftover for another lefebvre recipe, this one for a citrus marmalade. again, not as congealed, bitter nor sweet as one normally expects. this is a marmalade for marmalade haters: lots of fresh grapefruit, orange, and lemon segments mixed in with the citrus confit, a spoonful of good, fruity olive oil and a sprinkling of fleur de sel and freshly cracked black pepper to taste, then served warm. the olive oil seemed an unlikely yet obvious pairing with the citrus--the fruitiness obvs complemented the citrus, and also added extra depth. seriously, you could eat spoonfuls of this stuff--i did.

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you can purchase the book from the usual suspect.

i have too many onions anyway.

how to charge an iPod using electrolytes and an onion

mangan keni!: abé in serendra.

typically when we go to the province, there's really not much to do except eat; however, we do that exceptionally well. most of my relatives are very good cooks, and the region we're from, pampanga, is considered the "culinary center of the philippines" (at least according to wiki, ha!). you say chukchak, i say chenes! whether you consider this to be true or not, pampanga has a varied cuisine, mainly due to the fact that in the pre-spanish and early colonial times, pampanga bay used to be a major route for commercial vessels from other countries; as the center of trade, many nationalities would pass through and bring not only their various wares and foodstuff, but their culinary expertise as well. this, along with the abundance of native comestibles from the land and sea created a rich and varied cuisine.

having said all that, it is somewhat surprising to me that there weren't many restaurants that specialized in kapampangan cuisine until recently. even those that did exist were...well, not necessarily bad, but mostly if you wanted to eat kapampangan food, it was better to just get it at home. or a friend's house. so, it was quite nice to find abé (ah-beh) restaurant in the serendra complex at fort bonifacio. not only does it specialize in the provincial cuisine, but it also doesn't suck. huzzah! abé means "friend", so it's like going to your friend's house for a lovely dinner. your friend will a really, really nice house and an incredibly well-stocked pantry, that is. and a full-time staff.

the food is more refined and maybe a little modernized than what you would actually find in the province, but the taste generally remains the same. there is a nice mix of vegetables, seafood, and meat on the menu; there is also a good mix of filipino standards, dishes for people who are trying filipino cuisine for the first time, and those for diners with a more...adventurous palate.

some of my most favourite items on the menu are the vegetables. the pako rainforest fern salad with tomatoes and salted eggs are every-so-lightly dressed in a palm vinegar dressing and garnished with a just as lightly pickled red shallot. crunchy, salty, fresh. the bicol express is a mix of various vegetables--okra, long beans, sweet peppers and chili peppers sautéed with onion and garlic and simmered in coconut milk. the vegetables were just south of al dente, with the tiniest bit of give without being overcooked. bicol express is considered to be a spicy dish, but i have yet to find a restaurant version in the philippines that registers as such to me. adobong puso ng saging is shredded banana blossom stewed in palm vinegar; it tastes not too much unlike a freshly marinated artichoke or a palm heart. the lumpiang picapica is not a regional speciality but a family recipe from the author gilda cordero; it is a fried spring roll with a lightly spiced, cooked garbanzo bean/chickpea filling which, truthfully is a little bland, but not as heavy as one would think. i don't know exactly what flavours it, but i reckon it's a little onion, garlic and turmeric--combined with the vinegar dipping sauce that is sharp with raw garlic and fresh chilis, it makes an interesting appetizer.

most of the seafood dishes are very simply prepared: the tiniest of squid (squidlets!) are stewed in its own ink and a little onion and garlic, just enough for it to cook through without losing its tenderness, the hito are baby catfish, fried, and served with fresh mustard greens and balo balo, a condiment made with small shrimp and fermented rice. the pla-pla (a sort of large, flat tilapia) comes simply deep-fried and butterflied. probably the star of the seafood menu is tiger prawns cooked in a deep, earthy, rich sauce made with aligue/taba ng talangka, or the roe and fat from tiny mud crabs. i don't really know how to describe the taste of it, but it's like the perfect cross of caviar and foie gras. rich, fatty, fabulous. the prawns are merely a vehicle for the sauce, although they do provide a nice sweetness.

i like the adobo at abé's a lot; it is made with lamb, stewed in a rich vinegar, garlic and onion sauce, and covered in deep-fried and cracked cloves of garlic. this along with mounds of white rice could sustain me for months. i don't know about my blood pressure, but i'd die happy, i reckon. and thirsty.

the thing is, i could probably make that at home if i thought about it and took a little care. there are a couple of things on the menu that i know i couldn't make, and of these, i give big love to the camaru (káh-mah-roo), or mole crickets (Gryllotalpa orientalis Burmeister). the crickets live in rice paddies and feast on the young grasses and rice husks (okay, okay, and probably the occasional larvae). they are collected from the fields, cleaned, then sautéed with tomatoes, onion, and olive oil. abé's are great because they are still quite small and some unlucky sod in the kitchen has already removed the head, legs and wings--no woody exoskeletons and furry barbed forewings to deal with. heeee.

desserts are quite traditional, so happily, always exoskeleton free (no chance of it, really). i haven't actually tried many of them because there is rarely any room, but i have tried their halo-halo, which tops shaved ice with preserved fruit, ube, sweetened red beans, pandan gulaman gelatin, a creamy chunk of leche flan, and evaporated milk. it is generous in both quality and quantity, which distances it from the middling norm.

so, there's definitely room for the adventurous palate here, but should you be looking for a more traditional meal, certainly abé's can accommodate you. it may not quite be like home, but then again, you don't have to do the dishes!


abé
g/f serendra circle,
fort bonifacio, taguig
856.0526.

oh noes! no mo' jojo's

sad news for all the folks who got to enjoy one of my favourite food places on island, jojo's adobo. owner jojo santo tomas has decided to go back to work at the local paper, so he's closed up shop. no more sage-rubbed adobo or green fish or even the infamous man meals in the near future, but he says he might consider taking catering jobs one day. let's hope that day comes soon!