Tocino, Sinangag, at iba pa

This is another one of my cooking basics for my kids. They often confuse sinangag with sinigang. Sinangag is Filipino for fried rice while sinigang is meat sour soup.

When you say sinangag it implies the traditional Filipino fried rice which is comprised of left over cooked rice fried in oil and garlic. Quite an enjoyable comfort food whether eaten for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. The usual application (sounds like a software) of this is in the ubiquitous meals suffixed with 'silog' in fast foods and eateries in the Philippines. These are meals with a variety of fried meat and always paired with sinangag and itlog (egg) - all fried. I likened it to the all-day English breakfast. Usually eaten in the morning but taken as well any time of the day. Varieties of the 'silog' are numerous: Tapsilog - tapa (thinly sliced cured beef); Tocilog - tocino (cured pork); Lonsilog - sausage; and others. Your nearest Filipino or oriental store will surely have these. Another similar brekkie meal that brings me a smile whenever I hear it is the 'pakaplog' - pandesal (breakfast roll), kape (coffee), itlog (fried egg).

I cooked a tocilog one night (see below), guess what is missing. That's right I forgot the egg!



Oh well, use your imagination and picture a nice fried sunny side up egg in there. ;-) On the top left hand side of the plate is a little mound of achara (pickled green papaya). It's a regular accompaniment for all the 'silog' meals. I also like to have suka at patis (vinegar and fish sauce) dip to balance things up.


How To Prepare For Fried Rice:

• Keep the cooked rice in the fridge to chill. This will make the rice easier to separate since they are less sticky in that state.

Put the chilled rice in a bowl and mash them with your hands to separate the grains. While separating them, dip your hand in a bowl of water or stand by an open tap (faucet) and wet your hands from time to time. This will remove the stickiness from your hands and at the same time sprinkling the rice with water. You need the rice to be wet and soft because it will lose a lot of its moisture in the frying process. If not wet enough the resulting fried rice would be on the brittle side. However, if your rice is already 'malata' (soggy) then you do not need to wet it.

• Set aside for a few minutes to let the sprinkled water to seep in the rice.

Sinangag
(Garlic Fried Rice)

5 cups cooked rice - chilled and separated
1 1/2 Tbsp minced garlic
2 - 3 Tbsp oil
sea salt

1. Heat oil in a wok or big pan. Saute garlic in low heat - do not burn it!
2. Add in rice and season generously with salt. Mix from time to time.
3. Cook for about 5 - 10 minutes. Serve hot.

How To Cook Tocino

1. Make sure that the tocino meats are sliced thinly.
2. Put the meat in a pan (preferably non-stick) and add about 1 cup of water for every kilo of tocino.
3. Cover (optional), bring to boil and then simmer for 30 minutes. Add more hot water if it's drying up too soon.
4. After 30 minutes, remove cover, add about 1 Tbsp oil then let the remaining sauce to dry up. Keep this at low heat to prevent the tocino from burning. This happens easily because of the sugar content.
5. Add more oil if needed and fry until meat is well caramelised. Serve warm.