A Nasi Goreng Recipe

After decades of Spanish-influenced fiesta fare and American fast food junk, Pinoys are now starting to appreciate the cuisine of its South East Asian neighbors. Restos serving Vietnamese, Thai, and Malay food are becoming a common sight.


A favorite among locals is nasi goreng. Literally meaning fried rice, it is just basically the Indonesian/Malaysian version of the sinangag, with much more spices other than garlic. My office mates, the events, food & lodging coordinators (EFLC) foodies, like my version so much that I'm sharing this recipe with them.


Ingredients: 
5 cloves of garlic, minced
4 cups left-over rice
1 onion, sliced thinly
1 tomato, sliced
spring onions, or onion leeks, sliced diagonally
2 tbsp chili sauce
2 tbsp bagoong alamang (shrimp paste)
3 tbsp kecap manis (sweet soy sauce)

Optional:
2 medium eggs
1/3 cup mixed vegetables -peas, diced carrots 
crushed chili

Apart from being really hot and spicy for most Pinoys' taste, nasi goreng uses kecap manis, or sweet soy sauce. It is available in many SM groceries. The traditional Indonesian version also uses a stronger, dried version of the shrimp paste. The local bagoong alamang substitutes nicely.

Just like in sinangag, it is best to use cold (left-over) rice. Break down the rice using a spatula or the back of a large spoon, or your clean hands, to unclump them. Set aside.

In a large wok, saute the garlic, onion, and tomatoes.

Add in the bagoong alamang and chili sauce.

Add in the rice. Stir fry until hot.

Mix in the kecap manis.

Add in more bagoong, chili, and kecap manis to taste.


(Optional) With the heat still on, make space in the center of the wok. Put in the eggs and again stir fry, mixing the eggs well into the rice.

Garnish with spring onions.

Serve.

Trend shows Pacquiao's punch stats on the decline

Here's a compilation (Table 1) of Pacquiao punch statistics from the last Morales fight up to Bradley II. The stats are culled from boxingscene.com and boxrec.com. I also compiled the punch stats of his opponents (Table 2). From the two tables, we get the average jabs and power punches thrown per round (Table 3).

Table 3 is then plotted on a line chart to give us Figure 1. The adage that styles make fights might explain the up and down fluctuations in the chart. We fit a trend line over the points. Excel does fitting a polynomial trend line well. From the trend lines, we see that Pacquiao clearly peaked in 2008-2009 when he fought dela Hoya-Hatton-Cotto. While Pacquiao won over Clottey, that fight was the start of his decline.

We also produced a trend line of Pacquiao's punches that landed (Figure 2). This chart shows an even faster decline. We plotted his accuracy too (Figure 3) . And we get a slight declining trend as well.

Finally, Table 4 shows the occasions and areas where he outworked his opponent. Pacquiao generally outworks his opponents except when he fights counter-punchers. The 2nd Marquez fight and both Bradley fights show that counter-punchers are busier than Pacquiao. This tells us that Floyd Mayweather, Jr., most probably will outwork him too.

In the post-fight interview, Pacquiao said that there are two more years in his boxing journey. Incidentally, there are also two more years before the next elections where he can run for senator. He also said recently that his ideal weight class is junior welterweight. That effectively gives him and Mayweather another reason not to fight each other. But that will also pit Pacquiao against the likes of Matthysse, Danny Garcia, Keith Thurman, and his former sparmate Shawn Porter. Not to mention Khan, Provodnikov, and Bradley again.

If Pacquaio cannot/will not fight Mayweather and if the prospect of beating FMJ at this point (more so next year) is dim, I suggest that Manny retire. There is no point in him being a stepping stone of the new light-welterweights to shine, like Barrera and Morales did for him.

The data set used for the tables and charts above is here.

Table 1. Pacquiao punch stats

Table 2. Pacquiao opponents' punch stats

Table 3. Pacquiao's average no. of punches per round

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

Figure 3. Accuracy

Table 4

A month after the perfect storm

screencap from unosat

A month after Haiyan-Yolanda, the Tacloban mayor is still hurt by the criticisms he got from Pnoy. words. The mayor said Pnoy should have first come to the aid of the city before criticizing how his city government dealt with the storm. 

Aside from the strength of the storm, many factors impact the level of devastation to an area. One is the distance from the storm's direct path. Another is the physical geography, topology, and elevation. We cannot change these natural and physical characteristics in several days before the storm.

Another factor that might affect the impact would be the population and population density. And lastly, the preparations for the storm. I am sure someone will come up with some measure how each of these factors contributed to the amount of destruction each place got.

Judging from the UNOSAT map of the typhoon's path, Ormoc, Bogo, and Guiuan are nearer to the typhoon's path than Tacloban. Using population density and elevation data available from the Internet, Bogo and Kalibo have lower elevation than Tacloban. Kalibo and Roxas also have larger population density than Tacloban. Bantayan Island's population density approximates that of Tacloban, but Bantayan's death count is lower. 

Further on, I hope the NDRRMC can come up with numbers on Yolanda deaths per 1000 population of each LGU. There are places that incurred minimal casualties when people listened to warnings from their authorities. I hope people would now listen to warnings given by authorities, that is, if local authorities are doing their jobs.

City/  Municipality	Distance from Yolanda's  eye (km)	Elevation  (m)	Population Density (people/ sqkm)
Tacloban	35	7	1,100
Guiuan	20	56	270
Homonhon	5	53	270
Bantayan	0	30	1,030
Coron	0	142	62
Bogo	20	1	680
Kalibo	25	4	1,600
Ormoc	0	25	310
Tulong Diot	40
Roxas City	20	148	1,600

Solomonic reinstatement, but the fudging is still moronic.

Expectedly, the government will reinstate the police chief who was relieved from his post for claiming that 10,000 died from Supertyphoon Yolanda. I hope he is being reinstated not just because of public opinion but because it is the right thing to do.

If all government functionaries have the sense to stop the wrongs they make, discard favoritism, overcome inertiative, stop being sanctimonious, then it would be perfect to work in this earthquake, flood, lahar country. But that's another story.

Back to Soria, I'm glad they announced it before the death toll approximates his initial estimate. With 5,560 dead and around 2,000 more unaccounted for, the deaths could reach 7,500, easily tripling the government guesstimate. Soria's count will be closer to the final count than the government's first estimate.

Remember that the police chief offered his estimate right after the typhoon. he was right there on the ground with the press egging him for estimates. No other government official can come up with numbers. True, there was emotional drama in the estimate. Why shouldn't there be? The typhoon was truly catastrophic. In the tragic bombing of the World Trade Center, the death toll was estimated to be over 6,000, more than twice the number of deaths eventually confirmed. They did not fire Mayor Giuliani on the overestimate.

The 2,000 - 2,500 deaths reported by the president, gathered from the field 5 days after the typhoon was supposedly objective and devoid of drama. Many think that the government was fudging the count because it might appear that it did not do enough to warn the people. I think so too, until it can't fudge it no more. For one, the count stalled for a while because they checked and triple checked the data. They didn't count the dead until it has been identified. Wtf?!@#$%^. A death is a death, identified or not.

Then they quibbled on the cause of death. When they found 'new dead' under the rubble, Mar Roxas speculated that they “... had just died were from recent causes. Maybe they had a heart attack, pneumonia or something, but not because of Yolanda.” Wtf?!@#$%^. They had a heart attack or whatever and they chose to crawl under the rubble and die? Isn't it more logical to conclude that Yolanda buried them in the rubble but they did not die immediately? That they died before they could be rescued?

Does the government really think that Yolanda did not cause the rubble under which they died?


Mar-ronic!

They heeded the warnings, and survived

photo from abs-cbnnews.com

Albay Governor Joey Salceda echoes Pnoy's call on LGUs to take warnings seriously and adopt other measures in preparing for future calamities. He says zero casualty should be the target.

Amid the squabbling in the Yolanda aftermath, we hear good news of entire communities that survived or suffered very minimal casualties.

Situated along the Yolanda's destructive path, these small communities heeded the warnings and survived.

Tulong Diot's and Manicani's small size maybe helped in their survival. Perhaps the folks heeded their leaders' warnings because they reached them soon enough (they evacuated 2 days before the storm). And perhaps they realize that because of their isolation (they are islands kilometers off the main city), when the worst happens (and it did) help would be a long time coming. People in city centers tend to have the false security that everything is near and easy to get.

The next time the storm surges come, we will be definitely prepared. We learn the hard way. Ondoy struck us so bad, that when Habagat'12 came we were prepared.

The Pag-asa came up with color coded rainfall forecasts to warn us of impending rain levels. I'm sure they will next devise some graphic way of warning about storm surge heights. There must be a better way of warning about 5 meter surges, like maybe, sustained waves that reach the second floor of a building.

This should also be a learning experience for the government. If they are uneasy calling storm surges as tsunami because technically they are not, what's stopping them from vividly describing them as tsunami-like? It's better than fudging the death count.