Lunch at LP: Mahirap pumayat

Lunch again at LP. This time, we are celebrating Tito Boy's discharge from the hospital. The family again congregated to our special home, LP. It's everyone's second home since we spend so much time there eating.




For this particular lunch, we decided to keep everything simple. We had inihaw sa uling (grilled in charcoal) na tilapia with tomato and onion filling, misua soup, pork barbecue (store bought) and I made tacos and leche flan.





My husband loves tacos. Particularly the one that I make. He always complains if he eats tacos somewhere else and it doesn't "measure up" to the one that I make at home. For our usual family sunday lunch/merienda (mid-afternoon snack) in LP, hubby requested that I make tacos. It takes a huge effort to make a big batch like this but it's worth it. After all, it's a special request of my hubby dovey :-) Upon his request also, I am not posting the recipe here. This one is reserved for the "family secret" file.



I can however give you the recipe for the leche flan. I found this recipe in maiden issue of Yummy magazine (I made some adjustments on the recipe). I baked mine bain marie style because I don't have a big steamer. I wasn't very happy with the way it looked, the custard took too long to set. But it was mucho delicioso. Here's the recipe as well as the correct way of baking it bain marie style.



Ingredients:
1/4 cup sugar (more if you want more caramel in your flan)
12 egg yolks (yes, 12)
2 300-ml cans condensed milk
1 370 ml evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
Zest of 1 Lime (optional but highly recommended)

Procedure:
1. Caramelize the sugar in a non-stick pan, using low heat, swirl the pan just until the sugar melts and have that golden color. Pour caramelized sugar in the custard baking dish.
2. Preheat oven to 350.
3. In a separate bowl, place yolks, condensed milk, evaporated milk, vanilla and lime (in that order) and gently mix (to avoid bubbles). Make sure that the yolks are fully broken up.
4. SLOWLY strain to the baking dish to remove "cooked" or undissolved eggs and lime zest.
5. Place boiling water into a separate square baking dish. This must be bigger than the custard dish. Place the custard dish w on top of the bain marie. Cover custard dish with foil.
6. Bake for 45 minutes or until the sides have set and the middle is still wobbly. (My mistake was that I waited for the center to be completely set, hence the browned sides of the flan)
7. Cool completely before refrigerating.

There isn't enough syrup on the photo because hubby ate the syrup from the mold when I unmolded it :-)

Mom's Misua with Meatballs is so good. I asked for her recipe. She doesn't measure anything so I'll make an approximation on her recipe. Here goes:




For the meatballs:
1 small onion minced
1 egg
Salt and pepper
1/2 kilo ground sirloin
Cornstarch
Vegetable oil for frying

For the misua:
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 small onion, minced
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
2 packs misua noodles (rice noodles)
Patola or upo (optional but highly recommended), sliced into disks

1. Combine all ingredients for the meatballs. Fry in vegetable oil until golden brown. Drain in paper towels and set aside.
2. In a separate pan, saute garlic and onions in the oil until fragrant but not brown. Add water until boiling.
3. Add meatballs, patola or upo (if using). Season with salt and pepper. Simmer until patola or upo is tender. Add misua and simmer for 2 minutes. Adjust seasoning if needed.

Everyone present loved ALL the food that was served. Each one had several helpings on everything. Too bad Tito Boy couldn't eat the food that we served since he's still on a special diet due to his operation. He kept asking if he can have some, sorry the warden was there (Tita Socky :-), he he he).

After having two servings of dessert, mom laments, "Hindi ka papayat sa pamilya na 'to!"

Update:

I tried the leche flan recipe again. Using one can of condensed milk instead of two. The change made a smoother and better flan :-)