Chicken Inasal and Lumpia

Its a Sunday, a day of rest before the start the coming work week. I woke up early this typical Sunday morning for what reason, I don't know. Early, meaning at 5:30 am. Anyway I woke up on the right side of the bed this morning and as usual I started my day by brewing my coffee, sweeping the floor and mopping it right after. After feeding both pets, I had my morning ritual of using the rest room and showering right after (never tried it the other way around).

Contemplating of whether doing my daily walk that early in the morning or in my usual afternoon walk I chose the latter and decided to just lie around and read a book. A little past 6:00 am, a friend send a text message bragging that she was on her way to the track and field and explaining how glad she was that the road going to the track and field was all her own at that time of the day. But later send another message that she was almost attacked by street dogs. Well I was to warn her earlier about the possibility of being attacked by dogs along the way especially she's walking alone but I don't want to spoil her fun. Anyway, she later text me that she survived.

I continued my day passing the hours reading my novel when a little past 8 am my phone rang. It was another friend (and neighbor) on the line. She reminded me that we are to have lunch at their house today and I would help her pick up some ingredients for her recipes' for today's lunch. I asked her what was she planning to cook for lunch and she said she learned new recipes and would like to try it. She mentioned a chicken recipe which she said is popular in Southern Philippines and it is a grilled one. What came to mind immediately was Chicken Inasal and she said that's it. Then she added she also remember a dish she tried in Guam that is a combination of vermicelli (sotanghon) papaya and carrots wrapped in lumpia wrapper with lettuce. Having had an early and light breakfast made me say YES without any hesitation.

She picked me up at around 9 am and we went around buying the ingredients for both recipes and were at their house a little before 10 am.

Lumpia, are dishes of Chinese origin which is similar to spring rolls. Variation of the dish would depend on the ingredients being wrapped by the thin pastry made of flour and egg (that is why it is sometimes known as egg roll). I have tried a lot of varieties of this dish from Lumpiang shanghai (with ground pork, minced onion, carrots, and spices with the mixture held together by beaten eggs), lumpiang sariwa (minced ubod, flaked chicken, crushed peanuts and turnips) and its "naked" variety, Lumpiang Hubad; Lumpiang prito (fried and filled with bean sprouts and other various vegetables), to Banana Lumpia or Turon (wrapped sliced banana).

Anyway, this particular lumpia is somewhat different for the filling consists of sotanghon, grated papaya and carrots, deep fried and after frying, wrapped again in fresh romaine lettuce. The dipping sauce preferably is sweet and sour sauce. It was good and tasty and apparently a good meal for people on diet, like me (ahem). It was really good and it gave me an idea to make some for me to store in my ref and cook some as needed. Try it folks....

My friend then asked me to de-bone the chicken leg quarters that we bought earlier to prepare it for the next dish. After which I also minced some garlic (actually crushed) while she steeped some achuete in olive oil. After this she mixed the chicken fillet, achuete oil, garlic, vinegar, salt, pepper and some chili together and let it stand for an hour. This is the Chicken Insal dish.

Chicken inasal is another Filipino dish, this time one for the grill. This is an Ilonggo dish, or more specifically, Bacolod dish. The chicken pieces, imbued with a reddish hue from achuete or annatto seeds, is nothing but appealing to your sight, but it’s the smell of inasal cooking that always brings about rumblings in the stomach, and you can’t wait to sink your teeth into it. Different variations in preparation and cooking are known but this is the simpliest I ever learned (actually this is the first for me). And so after an hour of soaking the chicken in the mixture, I started barbequing it.

While doing so my friend also prepared some tuna sphagetti as an addition to the menu she had. It was a warm Sunday afternoon but it was a good and satisfying one with the food we had for lunch and later followed by a freshly brewed coffee.

Now I am ready for the new week coming...