New Eggs and Mushrooms Adobo

I am fortunate to have a good friend who works for a huge poultry farm. Catherine, a poultry vet, is married to the son of a poultry farm magnate. They have about 200,000 to 300,000 chickens at their farms every month. They sell chicks to little poultry farms everywhere in Korea. Once in a while, Catherine comes over to give me two trays of new eggs. What are new eggs? They are eggs laid for the very first time by young hens. They are quite tiny and the yolks are rich and utterly delicious.

So after countless omelets and egg dishes, I thought of making eggs adobo. Then, in a brilliant after thought, I remembered I had a bunch of button mushrooms in the vegetable bin in the fridge. How about adding that too? I've always loved Adobo Mushrooms as an appetizer. Let's go to recipe, shall we?

Ingredients:

6 new eggs (or 12 quail eggs as substitute)
20 pieces button mushrooms
1 whole head of garlic (yes a whole head, peeled and minced)
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2-3 tablespoons oil

1. In a saucepan, put the eggs and add cold water. Heat up until the water boils and turn off the heat. Cover and set aside for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, drain the hot water and dunk the eggs in cold water to stop the cooking. Crack and peel the eggs and set aside.

2. Wash the mushrooms (trust me, its ok even though the other sites tell you not to do it) and cut the ends off if necessary.

3. In a large wok or pan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the minced garlic and stir-fry until golden brown. How do you know that the garlic is nearly done? You can start to smell the fragrant garlic. And it is easy to burn it so once you smell it, add the next ingredient right away.

4. Add the button mushrooms and stirfry for about 3-4 minutes (or when the mushrooms begin to exude liquid). Add the cooked eggs.

5. Add the soy sauce, vinegar, salt & pepper. Let it simmer for about 5 minutes. Make sure to stir every once in a while to make sure the eggs get thoroughly coated.

6. Serve hot as a side dish or as a main dish with freshly cooked rice.





For my lunch, I had it as a side dish with meat torta patties. It was wonderful!

Making Flied Lice

Ok, ok I am just kidding. I really mean Fried Rice, specifically Chinese Fried Rice or more commonly known as Shanghai Rice in the Philippines. The neat thing about rice is that leftover rice is great recycled into a new dish - fried rice. One very important thing to remember is that to make fried rice you would need cold, leftover rice. Freshly cooked rice just won't do.

To make Chinese Fried Rice, you would need: chinese sausages (the ones with whole fatty pieces in them), dried scallops (or dried fish), small shrimps, eggs, spring onions, soy sauce and cooking oil.

Ingredients:

3 or cups of cooked, leftover rice
1 chinese sausage, diced
dried scallops, (soaked, squeezed dry, and minced)
small shrimps, peeled
eggs, beaten lightly
spring onions, cut into small circles
1 teaspoon soy sauce
4 tablespoons corn oil

1. In a large bowl, dump the rice. Wet hands and mash the rice until the grains are separated and not clumped up.

2. In a large wok, heat up 1 tablespoon of oil and cook the eggs (scrambled style). Take it out and set aside in a bowl.

3. Put the rest of the oil in the wok and fry the chinese sausage. Add the scallops, shrimps and fry for a minute. Dump all the rice and begin to stir-fry for 5 minutes. Make sure the rice is evenly mixed and keep stirring all the time.

4. After about 2 minutes more of stirring, add the scrambled eggs and continue stirring for a minute and then the soy sauce. Stir some more.

5. Take out the rice and put in a large platter. Sprinkle the chopped spring onions over it and serve hot.

*TIP: Fried rice is not limited to the above ingredients alone. It can be a clean-out-your-fridge type of fried rice. You can add carrots, leeks, cabbages, ham, mushrooms, etc. Anything you find delicious you can add to your rice, make sure that the ingredients are diced or chopped up small. It will make for even cooking when you add it to the rice.