Treasure Jar

The Maya Kitchen presents the chefs of Manila Hotel’s Mabuhay Palace on July 27, 2013.

Executive Chinese Chef Sun Bing and Chinese Operations Manager/Executive Chinese Sous Chef Josephine Yu Tanganco-Candelaria will demonstrate the following recipes:

• Vegetarian ‘Peking Duck
• Shrimp Laced with Almonds
• Anchovies with Water Chestnuts Fried Rice
• Stir Fried Chicken Glazed with Soya Sauce
• West Lake Fish Soup
• Chinese Red Bean Pancake

Chef Sun Bing graduated from Beijing Culinary School and joined the Beijing Hotel after graduation.  He came to the Philippines in 1988 and for over 20 years has been delighting local diners at the Aloha Hotel, Mandarin Oriental Hotel and The Manila Hotel.

Chef Tanganco-Candelaria has been with Manila Hotel since 2009. She was previously with Mandarin Oriental Hotel and intercontinental Manila.

For more information on other courses offerings, log on to www.themayakitchen.com  or e-mailcontactus@themayakitchen.com  or visit The Maya Kitchen Culinary Center every Tuesday to Saturday at 8F  Liberty Building, 835 A. Arnaiz Avenue (Pasay Road), Makati City or call 8921185 / 892-5011 local 108 / Mobile No. +63947 835 2290

Tags: Chef Sun Bing, cooking lessons Tha Maya Kitchen, Executive Chinese Chef Sun Bing, Executive Chinese Sous Chef Josephine Yu Tanganco-Candelaria, Mabuhay Palace Chinese Feast, Mabuhay Palace Manila Hotel, new recipes The Maya Kitchen, The Maya Kitchen Culinary Center

On May 25, Saturday, 10am-1pm  renowned Chef J. Gamboa of Cirkulo Restaurant takes on Thai cuisine as guest chef of The Maya Kitchen.

Tags: Chef J. Gamboa, Chef Malichat of Azuthai Restaurant, The Maya Kitchen, The Maya Kitchen cooking classes, The Maya Kitchen Culinary Center

I’d like to think that I am a practical person, at least most of the time (at least most of the time? errr…).

How and why?

I’d rather bring packed food than buy whenever we are going somewhere.

I’d rather school children do “textbook rental” than buy 6-8 books that will just gather dust after the school year is over. If it was me, I’d rather they use digital books than real books because I am an early adapter for reading ebooks way back when I still use a Palm Pilot. Yeah,  like circa very 2000’s.

I’d rather learn to cook recipes that catch the fancy of the family than dine out to order.

For example: A pack of these green chili fingers costs around Php10-15 and it has around 15 pieces. It doesn’t take a lot of cheese to put inside the chili. It doesn’t take a lot of “lumpia” wrapper to wrap each chili. At the nearby restaurant, these Cheese Sticks Dynamite are Php85/5 pieces. Now, why would I buy when I can make it at home? The practical thing here is to make these in big batches and freeze so you can just get some to fry if you want to have them.

I’d rather spend a great deal of time taking care of the laundry and folding carefully the clothes rather than have these ironed at the laundry shop. If the clothes are well cared for, these can be given to others who might need them. Is it practical for me to have the clothes brought to the laundry shop for ironing? I think so because I am not fond of the task and second, we don’t pay too much which saves me time and effort to do other things. We don’t add electricity to the cost too.

Anyway…

For school supplies, we have two big plastic boxes for school supplies where the children can “shop” for unexpected things like folder, art paper, illustration boards, paint brush, envelopes, bond paper, pens, pencils, erasers, among other things.

I don’t want to ask the hubby or make myself go to the nearest bookstore for a 1/8 illustration board.

Are you a practical person?

Tags: be practical, cheese sticks dynamite, green chili fingers, practicality rules, some practical tips to save money

The Maya Kitchen will feature Sandy Daza on November 24, 2012. He will be sharing his home cooked favorite recipes as the guest chef.

The following recipes will be featured:

• Shepherd’s Pie
• Crispy Fish with Garlic Sauce
• Shrimp Puttanesca
• Spam Fried Rice
• Coq Au Vin
• Bread Pudding

Tags: Chef Sandy Daza at The Maya Kitchen, home cooking with Sandy Daza, http://www.themayakitchen.com/, Kitchen Confidence with Sandy Daza, Maya Kitchen Culinary Center, Sandy Daza, The Maya Kitchen features home cooking with Sandy Daza

Fettucine, fresh homemade Pasta with Classical Tomato and Basil Sauce

Pasta dough

400 gm Maya all purpose flour

100 gm semolina flour (optional)

4 medium eggs plus 1 yolk if necessary

A dash of salt and extra virgin olive oil

Pasta Sauce:

Tomato sauce 2 small can of canned peeled tomato sauce,

crushed with a fork Half garlic head, peeled and crushed

A handful of fresh basil

Extra virgin olive oil

Rock salt and pepper

Handful of parmesan

Method For the pasta dough:

• Mix well the 2 flour, put on the table and make a well in the center, add the egg, the salt and the extra virgin olive oil.
• With a fork, incorporate the egg into the flour beginning from the center, when possible, start to work with the hand in the classical way, work on the table for about 10 minutes.
• Cover with a towel and let rest, prepare the tomato sauce in the meantime.
• In a pot add a good amount of extra virgin olive oil, add the garlic and the basil, add the tomato and put on medium high heat, simmer, once start simmering, cook for 10 minutes and take off the heat. Cool down and season to taste.
• Take the pasta dough, it can be worked well with a roller or a pasta machine, fettuccine should be about 2.5 cm wide and 0.3 mm thick.
• Cook in boiling salty water and toss in tomato sauce. Sprinkle with a good handful of parmesan and basil.



Cooked by Chef Robert Cimmino who recently visited The Maya Kitchen.

Recipe serves 4

Tags: Chef Robert Cimmino, fresh pasta, fresh pasta recipe, homemade Pasta with Classical Tomato and Basil Sauce, Italian chef, Italian food, pasta, pasta recipe, The Maya Kitchen, tomato and basil recipe

I know gushing about having a PR is sooo like a noob blogger *insert rolls eyes emoticon here*

My food blog recently got PR’ed, if there’s such a word. This happening came as a surprise and inspired me to cook more, never mind if a glowing neon “buyphenphedrine.com” sign is making it’s way to me. LOL.

Right now, the boiled potatoes (with grated cheese and butter) are sitting in the blue silicon baking pan, inside the fridge waiting for 4:30am. I’m gonna bake this for a bit for the kids’ breakfast.

The spring rolls are also waiting for their turn to get fried in the morning.

The cooked rice is in the fridge too, to be cooked as fried rice.

And best of all, the coconut jam warmed with butter and “cooked” with scrambled egg is cooling down. This will be for tomorrow morning’s toast.

Now, on to budget management… 😀

Tags: lunchbox, packed food, packed lunch