Monday 17 September 2012

Week 9 - Agahan - The Philippines

LONGSILOG

Dear readers, due to an extremely hectic couple of weeks this entry is over two weeks late!  My apologies....

For our second breakfast this weekend we tried some Filipino Agahan (breakfast).  I have many awesome Filipino friends and was especially eager for this breakfast.  I'd like to say a huge thank-you to everyone who helped me with their input for this blog entry.

Breakfast in the Philippines seems like a bigger deal than many of the countries I've researched.  While most entries feature foods that people have on Sundays or special occasions, today's food is something people seem to recall their mothers making on any normal day of the week (and that's awesome!).

Longsilog is really a portmanteau made up of three foods:  Longganisa, a garlicky breakfast sausage; Sinangog, garlic fried rice, and Itlog, fried egg.  How interesting is that?  Points to the Philippines for the best breakfast name.

The food itself smelled awesome cooking up.  Mmmmm, does anything beat fried garlic?



The Longganisa I purchased was garlicky and slightly sweet.  Apparently these sausages can feature different flavourings depending on the province (some are sour, spicy, sweet, etc).  Unfortunately the store I purchased these at only had one kind.

The star of the show, and the feature of this breakfast that gave it that distinct Asian twist was the Sinangog (or garlic fried rice).  You have to plan ahead to make great Sinangog by making sure you have plenty of left-over rice from the meal before.  The overnight time in the fridge allows the rice to dry out and helps you to achieve that delightful fried, but not mushy texture.  Our Sinangog was extremely garlicky with just a bit of crunch from the fried bits.  Masarap!



The Verdict:

For Ease of Preparation:






Not difficult, but it does take some planning ahead.

For Degrees of Separation:







It's just like Sausage and Eggs but the garlic fried rice factor pushes it to a solid three.

For Guestability:






This would bring a thoughtful twist to an old hospitality favourite.

For Sustainability:






Although not quite as hearty as the Full English, this one still satisfies.

Overall Appeal:






I really enjoyed Longganisa and particularly the Sinangog.  I would caution that this is a breakfast for garlic lovers only, no part-time garlic eaters need apply, it is a lot of glorious, stinky garlic to face in the morning.

Where will we go next?  How about does an all-expense paid trip to Mexico sound....





Thursday 6 September 2012

Week 9 - Kopitiam - Singapore


KAYA TOAST

Our breakfast voyage this week-end took us to South-Asia where we delighted in trying two breakfasts both "out of the box" and yet strangely familiar.

Kaya Toast is the ubiquitous breakfast snack of the city-state of Singapore (it is also commonly enjoyed in Malaysia).  In the morning, residents find their way to a Kopitiam (coffee shop) where they enjoy this simple meal:  coffee, a toasted sandwich of kaya and butter, and a soft-boiled egg mixed with soy sauce for dipping.

Kaya is one of those new food discoveries we'll be eating long after our breakfast experiment is over.  Basically it's a curd made from coconut and flavoured with pandan leaf.  You can quite easily make it at home, but we cheated and bought a jar from our local T & T Supermarket.


For some reason I was extremely wary of trying kaya, (perhaps it was the slight greenish hue caused by the pandan leaf juice).  However I was relieved to discover that it is extremely tasty.  Think of a smooth coconut jam and you can start to imagine it (but I do encourage you to try this one for yourself!)

At first this breakfast seemed deceptively simple.  Get some bread, slap on some kaya and butter and you're ready to go.  But once we dug a little deeper we discovered a few surprising details.  For starters, the toast used for Kaya Toast should be thin.  In fact, following a video we saw online of a Kopitiam in action we used just one (quite thick) slice of bread for each sandwich.  We toasted it whole and then cut it into two very thin pieces.  This created a nice soft surface for spreading the kaya and butter while retaining the crunchy toast exterior.   Another thing I found very surprising is that Kaya Toast appears to always be eaten with the crusts cut off.  I can only speculate that perhaps this preference dates back to the British period of Singapore's history. (cucumber sandwiches anyone?)






























Generally, the thought of sopping your toast in runny egg yolk makes me want to head back to bed, but for the sake of this blog project I persevered and you know what?  It wasn't that bad.  (I feel like the character at the end of Green Eggs and Ham)  Despite a copious amount of salted butter, the Kaya Toast on it's own was too sweet and the egg/soy sauce mixture really helped to add balance to this breakfast.



The Verdict:

For Ease of Preparation:







It's toast, what could be easier?

For Degrees of Separation:







Eggs and toast - familiar, coconut jam and soy sauce - not so much.

For Guestability:







I'm on the fence, would you like this served at your next trip to our apartment?  Let us know.

For Sustainability:






This was a pretty sugary breakfast but the butter and eggs got me through to lunch.

Overall Appeal:






A surprising total for a surprising dish.  While this one wasn't groundbreakingly delicious, it is the only breakfast from this project we've had repeatedly since.  It was sweet, tropical, salty and used items just familiar enough to make it seem like breakfast.  We left the table satisfied.

Don't miss the next post as we finally get to try a typical Filipino breakfast!