Join us on a Food Trip around the Philippines and experience Filipino cuisine from the comfort of your home. Taking us on this epic foodie adventure are four UK-based Filipino Chefs who will be showing YOU how to recreate a popular Filipino dish.
Cook-along and share with us your Filipino creations by tagging @Philippines_UK and #eatsmorefuninthephilippines
Budgie, Sarap London – Cassava Cheesecake
Growing up we always had cassava cake, it was my mothers go to dish. We have always had a take on my mum’s cassava cake at our pop ups, for me it is a fitting way to pay tribute to my mum and to how Sarap got started in the first place. Our cassava tart has been a firm favourite amongst our diners but as we’ve been holed up in our homes there was a desire for me to do something a little different and I had just happened to see a basque cheesecake on Instagram and thought why not marry the two? A few tests later, here we are.
Ingredients:
- 450g Grated frozen Cassava
- 340g Philadelphia original cream cheese
- 140g Caster sugar
- 400ml Coconut milk
- 397g Sweetened condensed milk
- 2 Medium sized eggs
- Parchment/baking paper
Method:
- Turn your oven to 220c fan forced
- Place the cream cheese and sugar into the large mixing bowl. Mix together with a spatula (or wooden spoon) until well combined and mixture is smooth
- Add grated cassava into the mixing bowl and mix together until well combined
- Add coconut milk into the mixing bowl and mix together until well combined
- Add condensed milk into the mixing bowl and mix together until well combined
- Add eggs one at a time into the mixing bowl and mix together until well combined
- At this stage, the mixture should be quite runny but should be well combined so that it is one homogenous colour i.e. no streaks of the different ingredients should be visible
- Cut a large piece of parchment paper (enough to cover the base and the side of the cake tin right up to the top). Scrunch up the parchment paper into a ball (this helps with lining the tin) then unravel it and place into the cake tin
- Take the cake mix and mix well one more time to ensure the cassava hasn’t settled to the bottom then pour entire mixture into the lined cake tin
- Place the cake tin onto the middle rack of the oven and bake 35-40 mins. There should be a slight wobble at the centre of the cake when you take it out of the oven
- Place the cake tin onto a rack and allow to cool for a minimum of 4 hours, ideally 6-8hrs.
- DO NOT REMOVE CAKE FROM THE TIN OR SLICE UNTIL THE CAKE HAS FULLY COOLED!
About Budgie: Ferdinand “Budgie” Montoya swapped his suit and tie for an apron and never looked back. Sarap London was born out of a craving for chicken adobo and a means of rediscovering his Filipino roots. Centred around the mantra of authentic Filipino flavours delivered proudly inauthentically. Sarap aims to marry traditional recipes and reinterpret them with a modern and local narrative and opened their first stand-alone site at Brixton Village in January this year after winning the Brixton Kitchen competition.
Mae, Food with Mae – Easy No Churn Ube Ice Cream
No Churn Ube Ice Cream is a delicious, easy and perfect treat. Purple Yam (Ube) is a popular dessert flavour in the Philippines, from cakes, ice cream, candy, steamed cakes, sweet sauces and many more! Filipinos are obsessed with Ube sometimes written as ‘ooh bae’.
Ingredients:
- 600ml Double Cream
- 350ml Condensed Milk
- 2tsp Ube Essence
Method:
- Put all the ingredients in a large bowl. Beat the mixture using an electric whisk until thicken but not stiff
- Scrape the mixture into a container or a loaf tin and cover it. Freeze for 8 hours or overnight
About Mae: Mae Williams is the Founder and Chef of Food With Mae, a Virtual Kitchen offering Filipino recipes, videos, regular supperclubs and dining experiences. Mae has been at the forefront in promoting Filipino Food in the UK from appearing on UKTV Food with John Torode, BBC2 with Mary Berry and one of the founders of the Filipino Food Movement in the UK.
Mark, The Adobros – Bistek Tagalog
Drawing influence from the Hispanic Bistec Encebollado, this Tagalog version consists of tenderised beef marinated in soy sauce, calamansi (lemon), and cooked with onions. It is a dish which makes the most of its ingredients and gets those taste buds dancing!
Ingredients:
- 2 cups jasmine rice
- 500g steak e.g. rib-eye
- 6 garlic cloves, minced
- 75ml calamansi or lemon juice
- 75ml light soy sauce
- 50ml water
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- 2 white onions, sliced into rings
- Vegetable oil
- 20g unsalted butter
- Black pepper, to taste
Method:
- Thinly slice the steak. Freezing the steak for 30 minutes beforehand can help with this
- Mince the garlic cloves, and slice the onions horizontally to produce rings
- In a bowl, combine the garlic, calamansi juice, soy sauce, water and brown sugar and mix well
- Add the steak and the onions to the bowl, and marinade for at least 20 minutes
- Once ready, take out the onions and fry in a pan on a high heat until they start to char. Remove and set aside
- Add the steak slices to the pan, and cook until they start to char. Remove and set aside
- In the same pan, pour in the rest of the marinade; once it starts to boil, whisk in the unsalted butter until it is fully-incorporated. Take off the heat
- Arrange your steak slices on a serving dish, followed by the onion rings. Spoon over the marinade sauce
About Mark: Mark has been running The Adobros since 2013, serving up his take on the Filipino food he grew up with – but he’s been in the kitchen for a lot longer than that, having learnt how to cook (and eat!) from his mum. He grew up in Hong Kong and Singapore before moving to the UK, but has always maintained his link with his Filipino heritage through food. He now loves to share that heritage with Londoners through The Adobros, the popular southeast London Filipino supper club that has been described as “a dinner with friends you haven’t met yet”.
Rex, TURO TURO – Chicken Inasal
Chicken Inasal–Bacolod’s famous chargrilled chicken marinated in garlic, lemongrass, calamansi, and ginger. Perfect for those summer BBQs!
Ingredients:
- ½ Red onion
- 1 Ginger
- 2 Limes
- 1 Red chilli (optional)
- 1 Garlic
- 1 Lemongrass
- 250ml Coconut vinegar (use cider vinegar as an alternative)
- 250ml Sprite
- Unsalted butter
- Sugar
- Chicken thighs
Method:
- Slice up red onion, ginger, garlic, red chilli and lemongrass
- Mix coconut vinegar, sprite and lime juice with chopped ingredients
- Debone chicken thighs
- Place chicken thighs in marinade for minimum of 4 hours in the fridge
- To create basting butter; add minced garlic, lime juice and sugar to melted butter
- Pat dry the chicken thigh and drain off the excess moisture
- Rub chicken in oil
- Heat up pan and place chicken skin side down in pan, once caramelised flip over
- Use butter on the top plus salt to season
- Use sauce to baste and cook the chicken
- Rest on chopping board for at least half the time you cooked it for
About Rex: Chef Rex has made it his mission to pioneer and popularise Filipino cuisine in the UK since 2014. He established his following by running a series of successful popup restaurants to show case his interpretation of Filipino cuisine. In 2016, the British born Filipino chef embarked on a 3 month culinary research expedition to the Philippines, to gain an insight into the many regional specialities that the Philippines has to offer and to share that knowledge back in the UK. The young chef and aspiring entrepreneur continues to popularise the cuisine through his own cooking show on YouTube and most recently through his street food business; ‘TURO TURO’ which specialises in Filipino BBQ and street food.
