A Helper’s Favourite Recipes From A Helping Hand Cookbook

New recipes for your or your helper to try at home!

In May we celebrate Helper Appreciation month to recognise the women (and sometimes men!) who work tirelessly ensuring that our homes are running smoothly. So this month I asked my helper her favourite dishes to cook from A Helping Hand: Delicious Recipes in English and Tagalog.  

Published three years ago in both English and Tagalog, it’s a great source of inspiration for your kitchen. A Helping Hand not only allows your helper to shop for all the ingredients easily, thanks to its picture glossary for tricky ingredients in the back of the book (saving you from going out), but with its classic recipes comprehensively explained in Filipino, it consistently allows for a pretty perfect delivery too. Want more recipes for your helper? You can consider buying “A Helping Hand” by Frog Michaels.

This month we’re whipping up a delicious roast pork belly, hearty chicken pie and crisp and fresh homemade granola. Yum!

Read more: Family Recipes In English And Tagalong From A Helping Hand

I promise that the title is absolutely accurate: this pie is one of the easiest, and thanks to ready-made puff pastry, one of the most rewarding things to cook. A great weekend lunch option!

Ingredients:
1 chicken (around 1.8kg) or 2 small ones

Poaching ingredients:
1 onion, peeled 4 cloves
1 carrot, peeled and cut into chunks
1 bay leaf
4 black peppercorns
2 whole cardamom pods

For the pie:
1 packet of ready-rolled puff pastry, frozen
1½ to 2 tins of Campbell’s Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup
20g parsley, chopped salt and pepper
1 egg, beaten

1 buong manok (nasa 1.8kg) o 2 maliit na manok

Para sa pakukuluang manok:
1 carrot
1 sibuyas
4 piraso ng cloves
1 dahon ng laurel (bay leaf )
4 pirasong pamintang buo
2 buto ng cardamom (cardamom seeds)

Para sa pie:
1 pakete ng ready-rolled puff pastry, frozen
1½ – 2 lata ng ‘Campbell’s Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup’
20g ng parsley (English o Italian parsley, hindi Chinese parsley)
tig-1 kurot ng asin at durog na paminta
1 itlog

Method:

1. Poach the chicken by placing it in a large pan and cover with water. Stud the onion with 4 cloves and add it, plus the carrot, bay leaf, peppercorns and cardamom to the pot.
2. Bring it to the boil. Once it is boiling, turn the heat down to a simmer, cover it and cook it for one hour – or until the chicken’s juices run clear when the thigh is cut with a knife. Remove the chicken from the water and set it aside to cool. If you are organised you can poach your chicken the night before.
3. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
4. Take the box of ready-rolled puff pastry out of the freezer. Give it five minutes (10 minutes if you’re in Hong Kong and it’s wintertime), by which time the top piece should be nice and easy to prise from the rest with a long knife. Put the packet back into the freezer immediately, as well as the one you have just separated (strangely it’s easier to use slightly frozen rather than slightly defrosted), keeping it apart from its friends in the box.
5. Remove the skin from the cooked chicken and shred it into chunks – you don’t want to be eating tiny scraps of meat, but you equally don’t want enormous bits either. Place them in a medium-sized ovenproof dish (I have an old oval one that is 28cm long by 20cm wide and it’s perfect).
6. Pour 1½-2 cans of soup over the chicken (depending on the amount of meat your chicken has yielded). Turn the chicken pieces in the soup so that the meat is well coated. Add the chopped parsley, salt and pepper.

For the pastry:

1. Take your lone sheet of frozen ready-rolled puff pastry from the freezer (give it a minute to slightly soften) and lay it on top of the chicken mixture. Pinch the sides of the pastry to seal the dish closed and stop the pie drying out. Do not leave any gaps even if this means using another piece of pastry and slightly overlapping it. You can also cut off and reuse any pastry that is hanging down over the sides of the dish. Fix any reused pastry scraps down with a dab of water to help them stick. The pinching and patching needn’t look perfect as once everything’s cooked you won’t really be able to see the joins.
2. Trim any remaining pastry from around the edge of the dish and discard.
3. Brush the top of the pie with a beaten egg and cook for 20 minutes or until the pastry is risen and golden. Serve at once.

Paraan:

I’ve given this a personality change by presenting it in chic little rectangular portions with an obligatory blob of apple sauce. I like to keep sides simple: unctuous mashed potato and Creamed Spinach both contrast nicely with the salty crunch of the crackling. Not serving it with roast potatoes also helps create some distance from any lingering lunchtime connotations, and besides, there is plenty of crispiness on your plate already. One last hurrah for this dish is that it is almost impossible to overcook thanks to pork belly being such a fatty, forgiving cut. Decent crackling never fails to impress and it is easy to create if you follow the simple steps below:

Ingredient:
1 pork belly (about 2.5kg), skin scored
¼ to ½ tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper

2.5kg liempo (pork belly), paguhitan ang balat
¼–½ kutsaritang asin durog na paminta

Method:

1. Do not forget to ask the butcher to score the skin for you as it’s hellish to do yourself and my knives are never sharp enough to make a good job of it.
2. Preheat the oven to 220°C and at the same time, take the meat out of the fridge to let it get to room temperature.
3. Place it in a roasting tray (and ideally on top of a rack if you have one) and blot off any excess water from the skin with a tea towel; don’t use kitchen towel as it will stick to it.
4. Just before putting the pork in the oven, rub the scored skin with salt and pepper, making sure to get it right into the cracks and crevices.
5. Roast the pork for 30 minutes. After half an hour, turn the oven down to 180°C and cook it for another two hours, until the crackling has crackled and is a golden brown: when the crackling is cooked, the meat is too.
6. If the crackling doesn’t seem to have risen up impressively (see tip overleaf on how to check if your crackling has worked), turn the oven up again to around 200°C, checking it every five minutes until it has puffed up.
7. Allow the meat to rest for 10 minutes before serving. Cut it into neat 5cm by 10cm rectangles.

Paraan:

Painitin ang oven sa 220°C | ihanda ang mga sangkap | panukat ng mga sangkap ‘measuring spoons’ | tea towel o Good Morning towel | bandehado para sa pag- iihaw (roasting tray) | rack tray o wire rack | matalas na kutsilyo | sangkalan | malaking plato

1. Huwag kalimutang sabihin sa pinagbilhan ng baboy na guhitan ang balat dahil mahirap gawin ito lalo na kung walang matalas na kutsilyong gagamitin.
2. Ilabas nang maaga ang karne mula sa ref para hindi masyadong malamig ito kapag niluto.
3. Dampian ng tea towel ang baboy para matanggal ang tubig. Huwag gumamit ng kitchen tissue para hindi didikit.
4. Kapag handa na ang oven, pahiran ng asin at paminta ang mga guhit guhit sa balat ng baboy. Kung masyadong maaga ang pag-aasin, matutunaw ito agad.
5. Ipatong ito sa roasting tray (at kung meron kayo rack tray ipatong sa ibabaw nito sa loob ng roasting tray) at ipasok sa pinainit na oven at lutuin nang hanggang 30 minuto. Siguraduhing uminit ang oven sa 220°C. Kung ilalagay ang liempo sa roasting tray dapat ang balat ay nasa ibabaw.
6. Pagkatapos nang 30 minuto, hinaan ang init ng oven sa 180°C. Patuloy na lutuin ito nang dagdag na 2 oras. Masasabing luto na ito kung malutong na ang balat ng baboy at medyo brown ang kulay. Basahin ang tip kung paano malalaman ito.
7. Itaas ang init ng oven ng 200°C kung kinakailangan hanggang maluto ang baboy. Tandaan lamang na laging suriin para hindi masunog ng kada 5 minuto.
8. Tanggalin sa oven at palamigin ito nang kaunti hanggang 10 minuto.
9. Bago ihain, hiwain nang pahaba ang baboy sa sukat na 5cm x 10cm.

Tips:

• If you aren’t sure what constitutes perfectly crackled crackling, tap the top of the skin with a metal knife or spoon: it should sound hollow and should be golden brown and bubbly.
• Kung hindi kayo sigurado kung sapat na ba ang pagkakaluto ng balat ng baboy, tapikin ang balat ng baboy gamit ang kutsilyo o kutsarang bakal. Maririnig na malalim ang tunog nito, golden brown ang kulay, at may bula-bula ang balat.