Christmas midnight feast made from corner store ingredients

By Don Baldosano

Here’s a scenario: It’s just a few hours away from Christmas Eve and the groceries and malls are already closed. You have no food in the fridge or on your kitchen shelves. For some reason, you were too busy to do your last-minute grocery shopping. Then you remember, just a few blocks away from your house is a local convenience store. If you take a hard, good look around, there are a few possibilities for a real meal, made of real food.

Taking the essence of classic Filipino Christmas dishes, making it simpler, and more approachable, are these three recipes you could try for the ultimate last-minute Noche Buena.

Sardinas Bread Salad

An everyday Filipino fare that can usually be bought in any tindahan or corner store is the canned sardines. Vamp it up into something a little more elegant for your Christmas dinner. It’s packed with flavor and health benefits too!

Ingredients:

1 pack             Bread

1 pack             Local Cheddar cheese

1 can               Sardines

1 can               Garbanzos

1 can               Pimiento

1/2 tsp             Fish sauce

3 tsp                Oil

1 tsp                Vinegar

1 stem             Lettuce

Procedure:

Cut bread into eight slices then deep fry in oil until golden and crispy. Make a dressing with vinegar, patis (fish sauce), sugar, and oil. Rinse sardines of the sauce and remove the center bone. Mix the fried bread, sardines, pimiento, and garbanzos then dress with vinaigrette. Finish with small cubes of cheese and romaine lettuce or any greens you have.

Faux Pinoy Hamon

Arguably the highlight of the holiday dinner is the Christmas ham. What is thought to be a Pinoy classic stems from Germanic tradition, as well as western influences. For a budget-friendly and easy-to-pull-off centerpiece for your Noche Buena lineup, why not try this variation of cured pork.

Ingredients:

2 cans              Spam

8 oz                 Canned pineapple

1/4 cup            White sugar

1 tbsp              White vinegar

3 tbsp              Soy sauce

3 tbsp              Butter

1 pc                 Egg

Procedure:

Mix sugar, vinegar, half of the soy sauce, and the juice from the canned pineapples together. Spread it over the whole Spam. Bake the meat in an oven while basting for 20 minutes at 200C until it caramelizes and browns. Serve with the remaining pineapples that you can sauté lightly in oil.

For the sauce, cook the egg in the melted butter very slowly while stirring constantly until it slightly thickens.

Grilled Bibingka Pancake and Nilupak spread

No need for a terracotta oven lined with banana leaves or clay pots and charcoals for this bibingka. All you need is a small frying pan and ingredients readily available even in sari-sari stores. This version of the Filipino Christmas staple uses all-purpose flour instead of glutinous rice. Just as good as the traditional bibingka, only with less hassle.

Ingredients:

5 tbsp              Flour

2 pcs                Egg

45g pack         Local Cheddar cheese

2 tbsp              Condensed milk

1 pc                 Banana (preferably Lacatan)

5 tbsp              White sugar

1/4 cup            Oil

1 pc                 Salted egg

3 tbsp              Coconut milk powder

Procedure:

Beat the egg white with four tablespoons of sugar until you get hard peaks. Slowly mix in your flour, egg yolks, and half of the coconut milk powder. Fry the bibingka batter in oil, making circular shapes, and then fill it with salted egg and cheese before flipping. Once cooked lightly char the pancake directly over your stove. Finish with condensed milk, coconut milk powder, sugar, and cheese on top.

For the nilupak spread, cook banana directly over flames until black. Peel it, then mash the banana with sugar and condensed milk until smooth. Serve together with the bibingka.