"Magic Sarap" and Chefs

Ok, time for something different. I just wanted to make a long winded comment about Maggi's "Magic Sarap" seasoning granules.

I am by no means a chef, but I'm a student of cooking and cooking things right. If there's one thing I learned, if you intend to be a "real" chef, you create everything from scratch as much as possible. If you're making sinigang, you don't buy a sinigang mix. You make that sinigang from scratch with fresh tamarinds.

If you're making something something simple, even something like adobo, you don't buy a ready made adobo marinade mix. You just use soy sauce, vinegar and garlic.

I think that's a great way of cooking because you are aware of and are in control of everything that goes into the food that you serve.

"Magic Sarap" replaces salt in that it provides sodium and many other flavor enhancers like monosodium glutamate (MSG), iodized salt, spices and stuff like "meat powder". It's a flavor enhancer that's supposed to enhance the taste of food.

Chefs are not supposed to need "flavor enhancers" because they can do all of this from scratch. Because as chefs, that's what they're supposed to do. That's what they have studied to do and have trained to do. It's what they're supposed to be proud to do. They don't take shortcuts.

So this is why I'm puzzled why a lot of local chefs, even one I've respected for years, go and peddle "Magic Sarap". There's Judy Ann Santos, and there's even Sandy Daza. I mean, SANDY DAZA?

What really drives me to a rage is this Marvin Agustin ad that seems to show Knorr's Ginataang Gulay mix tastes better than one made from scratch. I mean wtf. Peddle that shit all you want, but when you start to say shit like this is better than one made with real ingredients, then you're out of your God damned mind.

I believe chefs cannot separate their training and what they do in their own restaurants, and the persona they present to us in commercials. They're professionals in that what they practice in their cooking is what the should practice when they try to sell us "products". Is Sandy Daza trying to tell me that he uses Magic Sarap in the food that he serves at his restaurant? And is he happily telling me to don't cook from scratch, just use these shortcuts? Is that the kind of cooking knowledge he wants to pass on to me? To all of us? How does that reflect on him as a chef?

What do I have against Magic Sarap? Not too much, actually. It's just that I had this idealized idea of what a chef is like, and they would never and should never use something like this.

But additionally, Magic Sarap contains MSG, which can exacerbate allergic reactions from susceptible people. READ THIS FOR MORE.

Magic Sarap also includes vaguely described elements like "meat powder". What is that? What kind of meat are we talking here? This means anything cooked with Magic Sarap, even if they're vegetables, cannot be considered meat free. Vegetarians beware.

Gourmet Oven Roasted Spam

Spam? YES, Spam. In this case, Turkey Spam. We have it for breakfast every once in a while. We usually just fry it and eat it with bread or rice, but once in a while, I would try and do something different.

In a baking dish I poured a tablespoon of melted butter and spooned it around in the center where I'll be placing the spam, straight out of the can. I made slightly deep cuts on the top surface of the spam and poured 2 tablespoons of melted butter on that.

I placed the baking dish in an oven at 150 degrees C for 30 minutes, and another 30 minutes at 200 degrees C. I let that cool for a few minutes.

Roasting spam in this way in the oven makes the skin awesomely crispy!

I then sliced the spam and placed it on a serving tray.

I then took the baking dish and placed it on a stovetop. Keep all that nice droppings, melted butter and browned spam material there! That's what you want. I then set the stove to medium, added half a cup of water, 1/4 cup of red wine, half a chicken cube and then allow to boil for a few minutes as you stir. I then dissolved a heaping tablespoon of flour in 1/3 cup water and added that to the pan. Stir very well, bring back to a boil, and allow the flour to cook for a few minutes.

Pour that sauce over the sliced spam.

It made for a nice Spamsilog!

Once You Pop, You Can Stop

I saw this potato chip brand LIGO on the shelves not too long ago and I was intrigued. The people doing the  canned sardines are now doing potato chips? Apparently, they are, based on their website.

I have tried their sardines many times in the past and it's OK. I don't see any big difference compared to other sardines brands out there like 555 or Toyo or Master. Someone out there might take issue to that, but I guess when it comes to canned sardines, my taste buds aren't really that particular.

But I did want to try out their potato chips. I bought three right away, I don't know why.

I barely got past one before I realized one thing. Once you pop, you can stop.

Sad to say, I didn't like it very much, although I really wanted to. I thought I might have just opened a bad cylinder, but all three tasted the same. So it must really taste like that. How to describe it? It tastes kind of old. It's as if the oil they were using was old. Now I don't know that for a fact, but that's how it tastes to me. The saltiness also seems kind of off. It's as if the kind of salt they're using is kind of off.

I could finish a tall cylinder of Pringles in one sitting, but this one, I can't even finish one small cylinder.

Perhaps it's just not for me. There are people out there who most probably love this, so I guess it's just a matter of taste.