What's for Noche Buena? New Years Eve Menu

Our Christmas holidays menu remains basically the same every year. It always has these three standard fares:

Bone in Ham (commercially available)
Queso de Bola (commercially available as well)
Frozen Fruit Salad





Variations are provided by:
Ceasar's or Chef's Salad with
Paella or
Morcon or
Embutido or
Lechon with
Chinese inspired Noodles or
Pasta with
Filipino Kakanin (Desserts)

Of course, the round fruits. We never go without the round shaped eats like, tikoy (chinese glutinous cake), the small round oranges, apples, pears, grapes, strawberries, ripe mangoes, chico (local fruit), and kastanyas (nuts) and the fruit cake. (Because it's laden with sweet, round and glazed fruits).

This year, our Noche Buena shall include:

Pink Chicken Potato Salad
(Mine becomes pink because I use beets instead of carrots)
Seafood Chowder



Spring Rolls cooked with Red Wine








My Clam and Seafood Chowder concoction is as follows:


2 cups chopped clams and mussels (simmered, removed from shells, drained. Save juice)
2 cups clam/mussel juice
2 cups chicken stock (or water, if there’s no choice)
1 cup squid cut in rings (cleaned free of ink)
1 cup bacon bits (4-5 bacon strips)
2 small white onions chopped fine
2 medium potatoes, chopped
2 cups light cream (or cream/milk mixture)
Salt and Pepper (white pepper preferred)

Allow bacon to render fat. Fry till almost crisp. Remove from pan, leaving fat behind. Add onion to remaining fat. Wait till it turns translucent. Add potatoes. Add clam and mussel juice together with chicken stock. Liquid should almost cover all the potatoes.

Cook over low heat till potatoes are tender. And then add squid rings. Cook for 1 minute, followed by clams and mussels. Cook another two minutes after water returns to boil. Add heated, not boiled, cream. Season to taste. Stir, let stand a few minutes and serve in heated bowls. May be frozen or reheated, but do not boil. Cream curdle when boiled.

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