The Best of Philippine Cuisine

Our Menu:

• Before the Westerners came
• Aliens arrive
• The importance of rice and flavor
• Sumptuous Sampling

Sumptuous Sampling

Here are some of the Philippines' signature dishes:

Sinigang. Considered the most representative dish of the Filipino,
the sinigang is a slightly sour soup with broth the color of peach,
comparable to the French boullabaise. There are no fixed ingredients.
Fish, shrimp, or meat, any kind of vegetable, as many as you wish,
all according to your tastes. The broth is soured not by using vinegar,
which is considered unimaginative, but by using the fruits
and leaves of sour plants.

Adobo. Also identified as the Philippine stew in some cookbooks, the adobo can be called the Filipino national dish. Nowadays, the adobo is a generic term which means the process of cooking meat, fish, poultry, and veggetables in vinegar and garlic spiced with ground pepper corns and bay leaves. A good adobo is said to last a week without refrigeration.

Lumpia. This is a Chinese-inspired vegetable snack much like the poh-pia of Singapore and Malaysia, and the khan-pyan of Burma. Generally, lumpia is a mixture of vegetables or meat wrapped in delicate egg wrapper. There are four kinds: lumpiang Shanghai (mixture of pork and spices, served as appetizer), lumpiang labong (made of tender bamboo shoots), lumpia with peanuts, and lumpiang sariwa (made mostly of vegetables).

Halo-halo. Literally, mix-mix. Take a tall glass, cubed sweet potato, cut up bananas and jackfruit, some red beans, some ube jam (a gluitnous yam), ice cream, whatever else you want to put in, shaved ice, milk, and sugar, and there you have it. A great Filipino snack, ideal for hot summer days.

Ginataan. This is a method of cooking with coconut milk, common in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. But the Filipino way is much simpler because the coconuit flavor is not overwhelmed by too many spices. Seafoods, poutlry, other meat and vegetables are cooked with cocnut milk and flavored with garlic, onions, ginger, chilis and lemongrass. Coconut is also used to make cakes.

Sources:

Belmonte, Leonada & Del Mundo Perla. Philippine Fiesta Recipes.Mandaluyong, Metro Manila: Cacho Hermanos Inc. 1988.

Fernandez, Doreen & Alegre, Edilberto. Sarap: Essays on Philippine Food.Mr. & Ms. Publishing Co. 1988.