Morisqueta Tostada con Chorizo (Fried Rice with Chinese Sausage)

Ahhh...it has been a while since I last posted anything on this blog. I have been cooking and taking pictures though but have been really busy that I have not had found the time to post. I went back to work and school in the same week so my schedule has really been crazy but I promise to try to find balance and time to post all the dishes that I have cooked and recipes that I am working on.

Morisqueta tostada con chorizo is nothing more than fried rice with Chinese sausage...simple and easy to make but really taste great. A complete meal by itself. I just used some leftover rice that I cooked the night before then added Chinese sausage. The sausage not only gives it a nice flavor but also makes it smell really good. Chinese sausage are sold in plastic packages and are readily available at most Asian supermarket. It is firm and looks dehydrated so I usually boil it in a little water to rehydrate it and make it fork-tender. The rest of the ingredients that I used are pretty much standard ingredients for Filipino-style fried rice- salt, soy sauce, onions, and garlic. I served this with pickled mangoes (burong mangga) to go with it...yummy!


Ingredients:

4 cups day-old steamed rice
3-4 Chinese sausage
1 shallot, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 Tbsp soy sauce
salt and pepper to taste
2 Tbsp oil
2 tsp fried garlic as garnish

1. Slice Chinese sausage thinly and diagonally.
2. Heat pan over medium heat. Add oil then saute shallot and garlic until translucent.
3. Add Chinese sausage and saute for about 1-2 minutes then add about 1/2 a cup of water. Simmer until Chinese sausage is tender and all the fluids has been absorbed. Saute sausage for another 2-3 minutes.
4. Add rice and cook until slightly toasted. Make sure to stir frequently to prevent bottom from burning.
5. Add soy sauce and season with salt and pepper according to taste. Cook for another 1-2 minutes then remove from heat.
6. Transfer to a serving dish and top with fried garlic. Serve warm.

Ground Beef Fried Rice

The past two days has been an emotional roller coaster...it is that time of the year so it should be understandable...

I cooked some fried rice with ground beef, corn, and peas. It is a simple recipe which was even made simpler because I used ingredients that are already cooked. I cooked the ground beef, corn, and peas the night before. It is actually a complete dish which I just added to the fried rice. The result is a complete, easy to make, one-bowl dish that taste really good.

Fried rice is actually an easy dish to make because there is no limit to what one can add to the dish. It can be served as a side dish or a main course depending on the ingredients that has been added into the dish. The seasoning can vary as well. It can just be seasoned with salt or whatever seasoning that you prefer. I prefer to add soy sauce on mine because that is what I have been accustomed to :) The most important thing with fried rice, in my opinion, is using day old steamed rice or rice that was cooked the day before. It is a little drier than freshly steamed rice which makes it perfect for the recipe.


Ingredients

1 cup Sauteed Beef with Corn and Peas (recipe here; just substitute ground beef for ground pork)
3 cups (day old) steamed rice
2 tsp soy sauce
1 shallot, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
1 Tbsp oil

1. Heat pan over medium heat. Add oil then saute shallot and garlic until translucent and fragrant.
2. Add rice and stir fry until warmed through.
3. Add prepared sauteed beef with corn and peas. Mix well and continue to cook. Make sure you stir the rice frequently to prevent burning the bottom.
4. Add soy sauce and mix well. Season with salt and pepper according to taste.
5. Cook for another 4-5 minutes then remove from heat and serve warm.

Garlic Fried Rice (Sinangag sa Bawang)

Ingredients:
Rice is a staple in the Filipino diet so it is no surprise that we have a lot of rice dishes which range from plain old steamed rice to sweet as well as savory dishes. In the Philippines, most people eat rice three times a day (breakfast, lunch, and dinner). If you go to any household around meal time, the possibility of seeing rice at the dinner table is very high. To a Filipino, a meal without rice isn't really a meal but rather a snack...that is how much we love rice :) There is a running joke about spotting a Filipino in a dimsum place. Just look for someone who eats dimsum with steamed rice...hehehe.


Aside from steamed rice, another favorite rice dish is fried rice. This is a staple in almost all of the restaurants - from the neighborhood turo-turo (hole in the wall resto) to the fanciest digs - in the Philippines. There are so many variation to this simple dish but the most common is garlic fried rice. The reason is probably because it is cheap as it only involves a few ingredients but taste so good. Although it is served on all three main meals, it is famously associated with breakfast as part of several traditional breakfast combination such as longsilog (long for longganisa = Philippine sausage; si for sinangag= fried rice; log for itlog = eggs), tapsilog (tap for tapa = cured beef slices), and tuyosilog (tuyo = dried fish)to name a few. The garlic rice that I made was served as a breakfast combo hotsilog which uses Philippine style hotdog, garlic fried rice, and sunny side up egg. Hotdog is cooked according to direction and eggs are lightly fried. Together they taste really yummy and delicious. For a more authentic Filipino breakfast, you can serve this combo with a combination of sliced onions, tomatoes, and salted eggs splashed with a little vinegar.



1 tbsp cooking oil for sauteeing
3-4 cups of day old cooked rice
1 - 2 shallot, finely minced
4 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 tsp soy sauce
sea salt, to taste

1. Heat pan over medium heat. Add oil and let it heat up a little bit
2. Add garlic and shallot. Cook until fragrant and translucent.
3. Add rice and mix with garlic/shallot mixture. Saute for about 2 minutes.
4. Add soy sauce and mix well.
5. Season with salt according to taste
7. Continue to cook for another 4-5 minutes then remove from heat and transfer to a serving dish. Serve warm.