Reviving old family recipes

During the past holiday, our family celebrations were held in our respective homes. No catered food, no dine outs. This is a family tradition kept  through the decades, since we were young. We served dishes culled from old family recipe files and executed by each of the branches of the family. Considering we were all trained early in our life to be adept in the kitchen – from sourcing food stuff from wet markets and supermarkets to personally cooking – this has always done us good. An adage by our late Inay was “you can not depend on help when you say ‘bahala ka na’ as there is no such dish called ‘bahala ka na’.” Admittedly we all became efficient at preparing food, including fiesta dishes. Even the boys in our family cook well. This way, we have fostered a very strong bond among all of us.

Among the dishes served this year were fabada noodles (using flat egg noodles instead of fava beans to avoid increasing uric acid count) with beef. We also had the institutionalized (our classification) fried chicken traced to the original by our late Ate. It is well seasoned and  coated then fried, literally swimming in boiling oil (never  mind the cholesterol), resulting in very crunchy chicken. This has always been a mainstay of our tables.

Then we had beef lasagna served with grilled chicken accompanied by a Filipino dip and the festive Chicken Pastel Al Fresco, so named because we don’t cover it with puff pastry. It is rich with multi-flavors of butter, Worcestershire sauce, liver paté, grated cheese, pitted prunes…

We also did the much requested pork kilawen, a dish that approximates paksiw na lechon. This is a Laguna specialty dish traditionally served with puto (rice cake). We use pork kasim (shoulder) for this. The lard from the pork is first extracted. The remaining meat is sliced into thin squares and marinated with half-cooked pounded liver, vinegar, water, brown sugar, salt and peppercorns. Sauté a large head of native garlic and onion in the lard. Transfer to a casserole, pour in the meat mixture and let it boil, without stirring, until it comes to a full boil. Reduce the liquid and when nearly done, add grated green papaya and cook to desired consistency. Super!

Desserts were a-plenty, including our brother Larrie’s authentic leche flan, JuD’s super fruit cake and Razon’s (of Conchita’s) perfect pound cake.

Have more family bonding meals. They warm the tummy and the heart.

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