Turbo Broiled Sweet and Spicy Chicken Lollipop with Jufran

I got curious about buffalo wings so I went to one of my favorite cooking blogs, Ang Sarap, to see how it was done. I found out that chicken wings were first deep-fried in oil before it was coated with hot sauce. Unfortunately, I try to avoid deep-fried foods as much as possible so I thought to make a different version… a turbo broiled sweet and spicy chicken wings using Jufran sauce.

Ingredients:
500 grams chicken lollipop at 155 pesos/kilo (2.7 Euro / kilo)
Salt, Pepper, Onion Powder, Granulated Garlic
Jufran sweet and spicy sauce
butter

Directions:
Wash chicken lollipop before coating it generously with salt, pepper, onion powder and granulated garlic. Refrigerate for a few hours. Then I put them on aluminum foil and cook it using turbo broiler for 15 minutes at 220 C.

For the sauce, I got the idea from Ang Sarap again by heating butter and Jufran together. When one side of the chicken lollipop was cooked, I spread some of the buttered sauce before flipping the chicken to allow the other side to be cooked at 220 C still for 15 minutes. I spread buttered sauce also on the other side and just leave it to cook for 5 minutes.

This is my finished product:

There are several brands of sweet and spicy sauce but although Del Monte was sort of the most advertised brand in the local television, it’s also the cheapest compared to Jufrans and Mommy’s. I chose Jufran because I thought that it would taste much better compared to Del Monte because its more expensive after all. Nyahaha.

I thought to serve my lollipop with potatoes. I wanted french fries actually but instead of oil, I decided to boil sliced potatoes in water with salt and pepper. When potatoes were tender, I turbo broiled them for a few minutes just to make them a bit less soggy before mixing it with cheese powder.

Potatoes cost 80 pesos per kilo (1.4 Euro / kilo).

As to its taste, I love it but of course, I’m biased.

Lost in the Paradise of Bohol

For such a small island, Bohol is packed with so many delightful things to occupy even locals like me. There’s the musical river cruise, going eye to eye with the smallest primate in the world, the not-so-delicious chocolate hills, the unvirginized virgin islands and so many more.

But since I’m quite a cheapo too, the best thing I’ve ever done was… drum roll please!!

GET LOST.

Just take a hike, one step at a time, and head for nowhere in particular. Of course it would be a plus if you are doing it while holding hands with the love of your life but not all of us is lucky all the time.

Here are a few pictures I took and thanks to Picnik.com (I super love this site), I was able to tweak and shower my pictures with effects like 1960s for that vintage look.

Local Bakeshop

Bakeshops are all over Philippines but I have never actually been to where breads were made until now…

At first, I didn’t really know what the place was for until I hear another friend says: “WOW, so this is where they make the bread”.

Then I was able to really look at the place and just can’t help but take pictures with my camera. Haha.

So what do you think about the place? Will I still buy bread from local bakeshops after seeing this? Absolutely. After all, in my 30 years of existence in Philippines, I have never been sick due to “dirty bread”. At least not yet!

Jollibee’s Hash Brown Burger

I have no problem avoiding fast food place like Jollibee and McDonald but things got a bit difficult with the advent of Jollibee’s Hash Brown Burger. I’m not sure if its because I’ve learned to love potatoes but I really love the combination of BAKED hash brown potatoes as bun with beef patty, cheese and ketchup in the middle.

So one fine pay day, people decided to eat hash brown for snacks and I was in charged of making the order. Calling Jollibee delivery Cebu hotline at 238-7000 was easy enough and the operator was very nice except that I really don’t like it when people can’t deliver their promises. Operator informed me that our order will arrive in 30 minutes and I also specifically requested to include extra tomato ketchup. But we waited for almost an hour before our order arrived and guess what? ZERO KETCHUP. I called the hotline again just so they could get direct feedback of what customers think of their services and they apologized of course. I hope to see some improvements next time.

Ala carte hash brown in Jollibee store cost only 64 pesos but there’s an additional 10% for delivery charge so each of us pay 70.4 pesos (1.2 Euro). Ketchup cost 0.50 Euro in Europe and Filipinos are a bit spoiled I think because they provide this for FREE in Philippines.

Alona Beach, Panglao, Bohol

Dumaluan beach and Alona Beach are two of the famous beach areas in Panglao, Bohol.  I don’t like Dumaluan because it’s a private resort and I didn’t really travel 2 hours on 800-pesos fast boat (14 Euro) + 250-pesos (4.4 Euro) tricycle ride just to get into another private beach when Mactan, Cebu is already loaded with one.

I love Alona Beach because it’s a beautiful public beach.

It was 180 degrees different from what I remember it to be a couple of years ago but it was just to be expected I guess. Of course I can’t really complain with so many restaurants to choose from now.

The locals thrive with the influx of tourists so can’t walk far without being urged for either motorbike rent (400 pesos/day), dolphin watching and island hopping to balicasag and virgin island (1200 pesos per trip), island tour, massage, etc. Business is definitely booming.

There’s a night life in Bohol too but I don’t think the party stays up all night long unlike Boracay because it went pretty quiet by midnight with barangay tanod (police assistant) walking around to check if everything remains safe and peaceful as it always was.

Have you been to Panglao, Bohol, Philippines already?