Cooking with (California) raisins

All this while, I've known raisins to be good only as a cinema snack. They were - and perhaps, still are - sold in small, conveniently packed boxes to cinema patrons. I remember buying them occasionally. And once in a very long while, I added raisins to my salad or breakfast cereal. Not often, mind you, but only when I crave some sweetness. But it never occurred to me that raisins could be added to everyday food as well. Not until a few days ago, that is, at a food demonstration by a Filipino chef, Jackie Ang Po. Suddenly, it dawned on me that the simple raisin was quite versatile. When added to food as an ingredient, dishes took a different dimension. Instead of sweetening food with sugar, why not substitute sugar with raisins? They could be added whole or they could be mashed into a paste before being added during the cooking process. 

Someone asked whether raisins could be safely consumed by Type II diabetics. And the reply was that the sweetness from raisins was much healthier and diabetics would certainly benefit from using this alternative to sugar in their diet. But I would still say that raisins are full of fructose and moderation should remain the order of the day if diabetics wish to prevent a sugar spike. Do continue keeping a personal check on the quantity consumed.

The food demonstration to promote California Raisins was sponsored by the Raisin Administrative Committee (RAC) which is a non-profit organisation with headquarters in Fresno, California. According to them, raisins provide flavour, texture and colour to a wide variety of products. Its natural sweetness allows sugar to be reduced in formulations and in bakery products, the high water binding capacity helps moisture to be retained. 

Chef Jackie was wonderfully knowledgeable about raisins but her culinary expertise shone through as she breezed through the four dishes that were featured in an accompanying recipe booklet which all the attendees received a copy. In her Metro Manila base, her pastry bakery, Fleur de Lys Patisserie, Inc, has been opened since 2001. Trained at the California Culinary Academy, her forte is pastry but here, she showed off her skills in other specialisations.

She started off by making a dessert known as Suman sa Lihiya which is a traditional Filipino rice cake made from glutinous rice. The Suman was served with a California Raisin coconut muscovado sauce and sliced mangoes, although she did say that durian could also be used as a replacement for the mango. The appetiser was prepared next and for this, Chef Jackie decided on a California Raisin shrimp beancurd roll. Paired up with the roll was a sweet and sour sauce made with pureed California Raisins as an ingredient. 

For the main, she prepared a pan-grilled California Raisin lemongrass turmeric chicken which she later garnished with garlic mashed potatoes and a Filipino raw papaya pickle known as atchara.  Her final offer was mooncake with California Raisin added to the filling. The recipe booklet mentioned either lotus or mung bean paste but I can't remember what she used as the filling in the demo. Anyway, Chef Jackie made two types: a snow skin version as well as the more traditional baked mooncake.