TBK Cooks Inihaw

Back in 2018 Mama Jam gave me a series of these little recipe books that he had been given in 2000

For the non Pinoys Inihaw means grilling food over charcoal and it is very popular here. Most street corners have a barbecue stand cooking chicken ( manok) or Pork ( Liempo) on a big rotisserie over a bed of charcoal. Its really cheap ( around 250 pesos or £3.50) for a whole chicken and it tastes delicious. They stuff the chicken with lemongrass, onion etc and baste it regularly , and the smell is amazing as you walk past. Luckily there is one very closed to where I live called "Wow Davao" and another called "Haim Chicken" and a third called "Chocks to go"

They all deliver and there are food delivery companies like Food Panda that will collect the food for you. 

You can buy a family platter for 700 pesos (£10) with chicken and pork - note the calamansi and red chills, you also get a small bag of soy sauce with a takeaway to dip the meat in.

There is often a queue outside at lunch or dinner. In the Malls there is a chain of restaurants called Inasal selling the grilled meats with unlimited rice ( the Pinoys love rice so they come around with a heated container filling peoples plates with more rice for free as they eat. 

Finally when you go to the beach there is usually a barbecue for rent and families take cool boxes of marinated chicken, pork or fish and grill it at the table ( you rent what is called a cottage by the sea which has a covered table and benches to seat even the biggest Pinoy family and then out comes the cold meats, salads, beer , and of course the Karaoke!) 

When I bought my oven it even contained a rotisserie as this method of cooking is so common here. I have, 16 months on , yet to read the instructions and work out how to use it!. I just read, in the introduction to the recipe book , that grilled foods are considered very healthy and contain less calories. 

I have mentioned before that there are many regional cuisines here in the Philippines and the book informed me that whilst Adobo and Sinigang are popular in Luzon ( the island where the capital Manila is) in the south ( The Visayas, Mindanao ) the charcoal grilling is the main cooking method. 

I know my American Neighbour, Benny, will be salivating as he reads this as he has a big barbecue outside his door and loves marinading and grilling or smoking ribs and steaks. I read hat the word Barbecue was a term adopted from America (many Americans served here in the war at Subic, Angeles , Baguio, Corregidor) .However Inihaw uses a mixture of cultures and cuisines such as the skewer from Malay and the marinades often have a mixture of Chinese , American and Malay influences. the recipe book has 21 recipes together with 2 sauces and 12 side dishes. There are even 10 tips for a good barbecue. I selected 8 dishes for my inihaw week , as usual a mixture of chicken, pork and sweetcorn. No Beef this week to be more healthy and to keep the costs down. Virtually all the dishes have to be marinaded overnight to bring out the flavour, so allow plenty of time to prepare your food. The recipe book has no pictures so I will illustrate the blog with pictures of me preparing the various dishes. I hope you will give some a try. 

Once again special thanks to Chef Jam Fernandez for giving me these wonderful recipe books. If you enjoy reading the blog let me know and I will dig out some more of them and cook them for you!

The really good news is that I bought all the ingredients for a weeks food ( about 7 dishes) for 5000 peso (£69) which is the least I have spent all year on one weeks shopping!

First up was Inihaw na Tadyang ( Barbecued Pork Ribs) which I had on Monday. So on Sunday I marinaded my ribs overnight in 7 up, ginger, garlic, honey, coconut vinegar and Hoisin sauce, soy sauce and chilli powder. 

I bought the Hoisin sauce ages ago and it has been patiently waiting in my fridge ! I also had a gift of Coconut vinegar from Kit and his family last year so I am going to try and use that up this week as well. 

It is very easy to make. You just leave the ribs to marinade in the sauce overnight and then grill them! Here is the recipe:

This is what it looked like once it was cooked:

It tasted delicious and Chester loved the bones. I manged to make it last for 3 meals having the second two portions cold with apple sauce. While that was cooking I started Marinading Tuesday's dish which used pork belly. This was also marinated for 24 hours in soy sauce, coconut vinegar, garlic. pepper and Seven up.

This one was called Inihaw na liempo or Barbecue Pork Belly . I forgot to serve it with Cucumber salad ( as the Chef recommended!)

Chester sat patiently waiting for both dishes to be ready! He still does not get the "marinade for 24 hours" bit and I have to make sure the meat is in the fridge so he cannot eat it!

It tasted absolutely delicious, and Chester was happy to finally get the bits with bones in. This portion was so large that it lasted for 4 meals and I cut up the last pieces to make them more suitable for Pinoys and Noel and Fry had them on Friday night when they finally turned up to clean the house!

                                            Chester loved the pork bones

Opps , I forgot the cucumber salad- but there was plenty left for the rest of the week

The next day I made Inasal na Manok ( Grilled Chicken) for Joven and I for lunch. This is just a chicken stuffed with lemongrass and onion and roasted for 90 minutes. Before roasting you cover it with the marinade ( Patis, pepper, red chilli flakes). It was delicious and very easy to make.

                    The roasted chicken - the marinade gave it an orange glow

For those of you, like me , cooking in centigrade, you roast the chicken at 177 degrees centigrade

Whilst Joven was washing and vacuuming the car I made my dinner which used up another chicken ( as I doubled the recipe) - Manok Sa Itum . This is a grilled braised chicken. You cut the chicken into 8 pieces and marinade it for one hour. Then you grill the chicken for 20 minutes while you make the braising sauce. Finally you put the marinaded grilled chicken in the pan with the cooked garlic and shallots ( I used red onions) , then you add the coconut vinegar, garlic, shallots, ginger, soy sauce, and coconut milk and braise the chicken until the sauce is thick and creamy. 

This is what it looks like in the final stage of cooking:

      Of course if you were Pinoy you would have rice with all of these dishes!

This one was , again, delicious. Quite tangy with the vinegar. I finished this on Thursday when another friend dropped by for lunch.

As we approach the weekend from my Original 5000 pesos I have had 5 meals and I still have 2 chickens and some pork left. On Thursday I marinaded the last chicken overnight for the Chicken Barbecue on Friday night. For Friday lunch I was going to give Frythy and Noel a buffet lunch of the 4 remaining dishes. However they cancelled again at the last minute to celebrate 400 years of Christianity in Palawan and so we had it on Friday night. That just left the Pork Barbecue and a Roast Chicken for Saturday.

This is what it looked like in the fridge marinading

                         My Chicken Barbecue marinading in the fridge

                        The finished Chicken Barbecue- very sweet

The observant of my readers will note the lack of charcoal, smoke and barbecues in the preparation of my Inihaw. My OCD does not permit! So I roasted , fried or grilled everything.

The Pork Barbecue introduced me to more new Pinoy terminology- the first ingredient was 1 kg of Pigue, which I easily found on the pork counter at Robinsons. It was a single slab of pork with the meat on one side and the fat on the edge. According to the internet Pigue is the back leg of the Pig. "The pigue is actually one of two primal pork cuts (The other is the kasim). The pigue is taken from the back leg area. The pigue is also known as the leg or ham cut because joints of ham, including the spiral ham which is the boneless version, are made from this cut."

Source: https://www.yummy.ph/lessons/cooking/what-is-pork-pigue-and-how-to-cook-it-a00249-20210919-lfrm ( accessed 25.08.23)

This is supposed to be cut, paced on skewers and cooked over the BBQ. As I have run out of skewers I just cut it, marinaded it in Seven Up for an hour and then overnight in the marinade ingredients. These included Banana Catsup which Johanna introduced me to last Christmas for our Gambas, and brown sugar and pineapple juice. This gave it a sweet taste and an orange colour.

You may have noticed that several of the Inihaw dishes are marinaded in Seven Up so I decided to research why. Apparently:

"The acid in the 7UP helps tenderize the meat and the sugar in the soda creates a little caramelization when it is grilled. It turns out 7UP is the perfect way to infuse a little flavor into a chicken breast"

Source: https://www.homemadeinterest.com/7up-marinade-for-steak/#:~:text=The%20acid%20in%20the%207UP,flavor%20into%20a%20chicken%20breast.  

    mmmmmm sarap- delicious. I think I have had a pork overdose this week!

Here is the recipe for the pork barbecue:

The final dish of the week was the Lechon Manok ( Roast Chicken). As I had used all the Pineapple juice I decided just to Roast the Chicken normally and have it hot for Saturday lunch and then cold on Saturday night. I will do the shopping on Sunday this week- Next is Tapas week!

I will add a photo of the chicken once it's cooked, its in the oven now!

So overall a very successful and cheap weeks cooking with some very tasty pork and chicken dishes ( I was going to BBQ Corn on the cob as well but I could not find any) . I had to plan ahead as almost every dish had to be marinaded overnight and sometimes I had two dishes marinading and a third cooking. The recipes do not say how many people they are for but most gave me 3 or 4 portions so the 5000n pesos made about 30 meals! Now I know how the pinoys live so cheaply!

Chester loved eating all the bones too!

Well that's all from Chester and I this week- we will be back next week. I hope you enjoyed this blog featuring Pinoy food and if you have any comments, questions or suggestions for future blogs let me know. I will end by thanking Jam Fernandez for this wonderful recipe book!