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Published
by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. CLICK FOR NEWSPAPER DELIVERY
Wednesday, August 1, 2001
A burst of island flavor
Papayas, pepper leaf and bananas make the menu for a Filipino feast
By Leanne Libby
Caller-Times
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| Michelle Christenson/Caller-Times |
| Susan Acut places a vegetable and meat mixture on top of the lettuce leaf and the lumpia wrapper before rolling it up. Acut said fresh lumpia is traditionally an appetizer but can be served as a main course. She said the key to good lumpia is taking care not to overcook the vegetables. |
Step into Susan Acut's Flour Bluff home on a sweltering summer afternoon and you might just be greeted with a crispy cold treat. Late Thursday afternoon, with temperatures reaching 95 degrees, Acut set to work concocting halo halo, which tickles the tongue with flavors from cream corn to cantaloupe, swished together in a parfait glass with crushed ice and milk.
Acut said there's no better way to beat the heat than with a snack found on nearly every street corner of her native Phillipines, sometimes blended with ice cream, usually topped with an expensive, high-grade milled rice. Acut said the rice is difficult to find here, so she laughs as she substitutes Frosted Flakes cereal, which she said is the next best thing. The result is a refreshing smoothie, something like a power drink before power drinks were in vogue.
Acut, 49, moved to America from the northern region of the Philippines in 1974. She didn't grow up cooking much, she said, but she missed foods from home. Little by little, she learned to make many of her favorites.
Food from home
Filipino food is bursting with fresh fruits and vegetables, Acut said. Many
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| Michelle Christenson/Caller-Times |
| Some of Susan Acut’s favorite Filipino recipes include fresh lumpia (clockwise from top right), chicken tinola and turon, which is a fried roll containing banana and jackfruit slices. |
are used in ways different from typical American fare. Avocados we might add to salads, for example, are used in Filipino desserts. Filipinos don't limit themselves to the customary produce of a plant, such as peppers or bananas; the leaves are central cooking tools as well.
"You know the top leaves of a yam?" she asked. "We eat that. We steam them for a few minutes and add them to tomatoes for a salad."
Banana leaves are used to line pans when steaming or boiling to add flavor to foods.
When Acut can't find ingredients from home, she has learned to substitute. Young coconuts are hard to find, she said, so she uses fruit from a jar. Good plantains are rare, too; Acut would just as soon use a banana.
It's a wrap
For lumpia, an appetizer, and turon, a dessert, Acut uses lumpia wrappers, found at Oriental markets and sometimes in grocery stores. The paper-thin wrapper, about the size of a flour tortilla, is similar to an egg roll wrapper, Acut said, but has a lighter flavor that is crispier when fried.
When Acut was choosing among her favorite native foods for this meal, she turned to her family for suggestions.
"When I asked my daughter what I should make, she said, 'Mom, you have to make the lumpia.'"
Lumpia is a crispy combination of lightly stir-fried vegetables and a touch of protein, anything from ground beef to shredded chicken to shrimp.
"Tofu is also good with it," Acut said. "You crumble the tofu over everything just before you wrap it."
Acut tests the mixture and declares it a little dry. She suggests adding water or chicken broth of add moisture. Not a problem-she cooked a chicken the night before for the tinola, a main course she will make momentarily, and scrapes off some congealed broth to add to the mix.
She has had some difficulty with the recipes this time, she said. She never measures, and trying to put numbers to ingredients has sent her flying to the pantry to touch things up a time or two.
She sets the mix aside. It's better to let it cool for a bit before putting it in the delicate wrapper, she said..
Other than the delightfully sinful fried dessert, turon, many Filipino meals are boiled, broiled or served fresh.
Her teen-age son and daughter's tastes run to American food, but Acut said they will eat the lumpia. Acut figures she cooks Filipino food at least once a week.
The key, she said, is not overcooking the vegetables.
"Here, often the broccoli, the carrots, the green beans...the nutrients are gone," she said. "It's all over-cooked."
One-pot wonder
While the lumpia cools, Acut turns her attention to tinola, which is served either as a main course or a side dish. The stew-like recipe includes cellophane noodles-a delicate soybean pasta-and green papaya. Acut has leaves from a young pepper plant that she took from a friend's garden the night before. Those of us not so lucky to have a gardener handy can substitute spinach leaves, she said.
 |
| Michelle Christenson/Caller-Times |
| Susan Acut’s halo halo includes food combinations new to most American tastebuds, such as cantaloupe mixed with creamed corn and avocado. |
"This needs a lot of ginger," she said, boldly sending slices of fresh ginger into the pot.
"It's like a complete meal," she said. "You have your meat and your vegetables. For many people back home, this is their main meal, served with rice. It's really good, especially in winter; you just add more to it to make it more of a soup."
While the pot bubbles, Acut decides the lumpia mixture is cool enough to wrap.
Acut is a blur of activity, her fingers deftly rolling the burrito-like lumpia and the turon, a dessert shaped like an egg roll. Soon she'll fry the turon and hand us a warm, sweet, crispy morsel. A bright turban around her head looks like a festive accessory; you would never guess the Bay Area Corpus Christi Medical Center recovery room nurse has just finished chemotherapy treatments for breast cancer.
Acut turns from the stove to face a sink full of dishes that have piled up during her cooking spree.
"This would drive him nuts," she said of her husband, who frequently helps out in the kitchen. "If he were in here, he would be trying to help me by cleaning up, and we would be in each other's way."
HALO HALO
3 tablespoons shredded cantaloupe
2 tablespoons cream-style corn
½ small avocado
2 tablespoons shredded young coconut
2 to 4 ounces fresh milk
1 to 1 ½ tablespoon sugar
11/2 to 2 cups shaved ice
¼ cup frosted flakes cereal
Mix above ingredients in a tall glass, adding frosted flakes cereal last. Top with a scoop of vanilla ice cream if desired. For an authentic tropical twist, add halo halo mix, available at many Oriental stores. One jar will supplement 4 servings.
Yield: 1 serving
FRESH LUMPIA
2 to 3 tablespoons canola oil
½ small onion, thinly sliced
½ cup meat (ground beef, pork strips, chicken strips or combination of the three)
1 cup julienned fresh green beans
1 small carrot, grated or cut into thin strips
1 cup cabbage, thinly shredded
salt to taste
½ to 1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 to 2 tablespoons hoison sauce, oyster sauce or both
1 small can water chestnuts or 1 jicama, thinly sliced
8 to 10 crepe or lumpia wrappers
8 to 10 romaine lettuce leaves
sweet and sour sauce
cornstarch as needed to thicken sweet and sour sauce
chicken broth or water to thin sauce if needed
¼ cup roasted peanuts, chopped or ground
Put oil in skillet and sauté onions on medium heat until they are translucent. Add meat and green beans and cook for approximately 3 minutes. Add carrots and cook for 2 minutes. Add cabbage, salt, garlic powder and hoison or oyster sauce. When cabbage is slightly limp, turn stove off. Add water chestnuts of jicama.Spread ½ to 1 lettuce leaf over upper 2/3 of crepe or lumpia wrapper, allowing leaf tip to protrude about ½ inch. Spoon lumpia mixture on top, centering about 2 to 3 tablespoons on top of the lettuce.
Fold lower 1/3 of wrapper up, and roll wrapper from left to right, encasing mixture as you roll, ending with roll seam face-down on serving platter.
Drizzle sweet and sour sauce over lumpia. Sprinkle with ground peanuts of desired. Yield: 8-10 servings
TINOLA
3-4 pound whole chicken, cut up
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2-3 tablespoons patis (fish sauce)
1 inch ginger sliced
fresh garlic or garlic powder, to taste
1 ½ cup green papaya, peeled, seeded and cubed
½ cup tender pepper leaves or fresh or frozen spinach
3-4 cups water
1 small package cellophane noodles, soaked until limp
salt to taste
Brown chicken on medium to medium high heat in stew pot. Add patis and ginger and continue cooking for another 3 to 5 minutes. Add garlic and water. Boil chicken on low heat until tender. Add green papaya and boil until color fades and fruit is almost translucent. Add noodles and pepper leaves and cook for 45 seconds. Yield: 4 to 6 main courses; 8 to 10 side dishes
TURON
1 package lumpia wrappers
5 medium bananas
1 can or jar jackfruit, drained
1 jar grated young coconut do not drain
1/8 teaspoon brown sugar for each turon
Cut banana in half, and cut each half into 3 pieces. Place on top of lumpia wrapper and top with 2-3 thin strips of jackfruit (to cover length of banana). Top jackfruit with coconut. Sprinkle 1/8 teaspoon of sugar over top of fruit. Roll into shape of eggroll and fry in canola oil until golden brown on each side. (Turon can be frozen and fried as desired.)
Yield: 30 servingsSource for all recipes: Susan Acut
Share your heritage
If you enjoy cooking foods from your native country or have mastered recipes passed down from faraway relatives, we'd like to hear about it. Please send us your name, address, daytime phone number and a brief description of how your cooking reflects your heritage. If you're selected, we'll send a reporter to join you for a meal and share their experience with Caller-Times readers.
Send your thoughts to:
Taste of the Town
c/o Leanne Libby
Corpus Christi Caller-Times
P.O. Box 9136
Corpus Christi, TX 78469 or e-mail libbyl@caller.com
Contact Leanne Libby at 886-3615 or libbyl@caller.com
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