Last Thursday, on
October 9th,
Alona had plans to take me on another cooling
adventure. I don't know if I mentioned this before,
but it is amazing that even though it sometimes looks
like we are making a buffet, this stuff costs maybe
$3 or $4 to do. Even eating out you can't get so much
so cheap. So we returned to Metro Ayala and into the
supermarket to get the goods for her next cooking
attempt. She wanted to do some kind of soup this
time. We got the vegetables pictured above. One was a
huge squash for a few peso and another was some type
of cabbage I guess. It was also 20 peso or so. She
also got some nasty root looking thing called gabi,
which after she skinned it and chopped it seemed
kinda like a potato.
We then went on to the meat section where we decided
to get some pork. They had every kind you could
imagine. We got pork adobo, which is pictured left,
in cubes. She also decided, at that time, she wanted
to try some pork chops using her special technique of
marinating in soy sauce and lemon. So we got the pork
chops pictured in the center in the image above.
So when we got back, unlike last time, I
remembered to get the rice going first. This way,
since it takes its time to cook, we wouldn't have to
wait for it. Alona chopped up all her ingredients and
set to work to make her soup. She started by frying
up the pork adobo. She likes to cook things on a high
fire with a lot of oil, but that's another story. For
some reason, I always have this expectation that the
meat would turn red or brown upon cooking, like beef,
but it doesn't. It turns white. Anyway, After some
time, seeing as we have a somewhat traditional style
wok, she moved the pork up to the sides and added the
onion and garlic she had chopped up earlier. Of
course, she also added quite a bit more oil for this.
Still, things were really starting to smell pretty
appetizing at this point.
The next step was to get the rest of her vegetables
in there. Her weird gabi root and the orange squash
thing. At this point she found herself wishing we had
a lid for the large wok, but she made do by taking
the lid off the rice cooker, which was done with the
rice at this point, and making the best of it.
All that was left now was to add her broth, and
then wait and let it cook. Or so I thought anyway.
She actually hadn't added the cabbage like thing at
this point. Still she claimed to know what she was
doing so I just enjoyed the show. From the beginning
she was worried about it all fitting in that wok. As
the soup grew, I must say I started to wonder myself.
Looking at the size of that pile of cabbage type
stuff on the plate made me wonder how it was ever
going to end up in that wok. I started to think that
maybe she was right about getting a real pot with a
lid. The thing is, when we first went shopping for
supplies for this new place, I don't think either of
us ever considered soup being on the menu. As things
were going, she also cut the end off some chiles and
threw them in to spice it up a bit.
The next great task was adding the cabbage type
thing. Somehow she managed to get almost all of it in
there. I guess it was added last so as not to get too
soggy or something. Anyway, now it was all in the wok
and surprisingly not flowing over the edges. There
was, however, yet another problem which plagued us.
Aside from not having a pot with a real lid to cook
something like the soup in, we also only had one
burner to cook on at all. The pork chops still
remained. The question became, where do we put the
finished soup so she can cook the pork chops, which
have been nicely marinating all this time? The answer
came in the form of taking the rice cooker and
emptying its contents onto a plate. She was then able
to put the soup in the rice container, clean the wok
and have it ready for the pork chops.
And so the time came for me to try the soup. I
have to say it was amazing. I already knew she could
cook, of course, but this was a cut above. She even
seemed surprised herself when she tried it. I kept
joking with her about opening a restaurant called
Alona's Kitchen, but she doesn't
seem to believe in herself too much. She doesn't even
cook like this for her family! I asked her why she
doesn't cook like this for her mother or her brothers
and she said she would be embarrassed and worried
that they wouldn't like it. She didn't seem to think
I was being all that honest about how good her soup
was either. I think if she hadn't tried it herself,
she might think I was making it up. She seemed
extremely happy with the results though. Still she
wasn't finished yet. There remained the pork chops
that had to go in the fire.
So the pork chops went deep into a wok full of oil
and later came out very nice. Her special mix of soy
sauce and lemon marinade really has an interesting
taste. It worked for the fried chicken too. Not the
healthiest thing to eat, of course, and even she knew
about the risks of high cholesterol, but it was very
good. I don't know if she would ever consider really
doing
Alona's Kitchen. Unlike in the
west, restaurants are easily one of the quickest and
most profitable businesses to have here. She could
sell
one bowl of soup for half the
price of what we paid for all the ingredients for the
night. She could make ten times her money back on
those ingredients in no time. Also, here you have
advantage that a local can open up a roadside stand
anywhere there's free space. I know this much, if she
does decide to do it, I will definitely be eating
there!
