Summer is long gone from this part of the hemisphere but frying is here to stay, especially in the Philippines, or Asia for that matter where a good fraction of what we eat goes through a form of frying. When At Our Table hostess Linda announced the theme for this month’s IMBB, I was both eager and yet petrified. What would I cook?

As the date drew near I had to be decisive because I told myself last time that I should stop cramming. And so this entry is just almost-crammed, hehehe! I took my inspiration from my university days, from the finger food we had in student organisations. Each time we had to serve something edible to both members and guests, decent but inexpensive food had to be purchased. Resourceful students would usually buy the ingredients and cook the food into something a bit fancy-looking. Cheese sticks were one of my favourites because first I’m a cheese lover and second because they were really inexpensive. I had other plans for the money we’d be saving such as for killer workshops (read: members required without fail) I was notorious for organising.

It amused me no end later, when as a junior government bureaucrat, I found these same cheese sticks served during expensive cocktails, the only variation was to include a few bits of ham. How far it has gone, the tasty morsel of my student years!

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It’s interesting how people get to this blog. Time and again, I get referrals for searches looking for a salabat recipe (ginger brew or tea). I didn’t bother to write down the instructions since all it takes is a pot of water, some ginger and brown sugar. As far as I know, in Manila salabat is that plain and I assumed this was the standard. They even sell it bottled and powdered in groceries nowadays and that has become the standard. It is all very convenient but the real thing for me is when one can taste bits of fresh ginger with every gulp, as I remember from days not too long ago.

A good part of my childhood memories are of Lola brewing salabat for us. It was perfect for cold weather, as ginger warms the body. It is also perfect for hot days as there is no better way to release heat than by sweating. We had to take the brew very strong if we had colds and if we were singing or reciting poems during school programmes. I wonder how many generations of children are made to do the same.
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Having spent my childhood in the province and in Pampanga at that, I took for granted that everyone knew how to cook. It seemed to me that it was something instinctive, something naturally learnt, like speaking. In our family, even those who were not considered excellent cooks had very passable culinary skills. And even then, they also had excellent taste in food. My grandfather was probably one of them.

My maternal grandmother would always tell us stories about our grandfather’s slapdash cooking skills albeit in jest. One incident was when he was left at home with their very young children. Lola laughingly related how she was still on the street in front of the house when her children regaled her with how Lolo dropped a live fish into a boiling pot of soup. Lolo was also extravagant with spices, and I probably took after him, based on the number of times I was reprimanded for using a lot of cloves, oregano and laurel. Fortunately for Lola, I was born after my grandfather passed away, otherwise she’d have run out of spices very often.

Aside from Lolo’s more down-to-earth cooking and his penchant for spices, he also loved to replicate dishes they had in expensive restaurants. He also experimented with original recipes. Below is one of them, which he called lutong Bombay, perhaps due to its curry-like flavour. Our clan never tires of this recipe. It is very simple to cook and most of the ingredients are usually available in any pantry.

Chicken, being the versatile meat that it is, soaks up the flavour of the spices. Garlic and ginger compliment each other, and gives it the decidedly Oriental aroma even from afar. The tomatoes lend some sourness that balance the hot-spicy flavour of ginger and garlic while the potato gives the sauce some body, even as it absorbs the flavours of the other ingredients.
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