7 facts about Filipino cuisine all foodies need to know
Chef John Buenaventura gives us the details on Filipino cuisine and the must-try dishes
1. Food is culture and culture is food
Food is the leading light of every fiesta and celebration in Philippines, explains Chef Buenaventura, Executive Chef at Hilton Yas Island Abu Dhabi. “It is a way of life in the Philippines that brings people together, whether it’s a sad event or happy event.
You’d be hard-pressed to find bite-sized dishes in Filipino cuisine because of how integral a part of the culture communal eating is. Big portion sizes and batch-cooking is typical of Filipino food as is the practice of eating with hands called kamayan, says Chef Buenaventura. ‘Especially as Filipino families are usually big and we tend to invite the neighbours too when we cook!
This means tables are often laden food and a single-dish meal is an alien concept. “[Our dinner tables] are visually abundant and there’s always 3 or 4 different dishes plus something made of rice.”
The Filipino people are very generous especially with food and will always cook for anyone and will always try to 'out cook' the neighbour. We also send [dinner guests] doggy bags to take back home. Food is simply life as we know it.
Always expect something vegetarian, a fried fish dish, a stew of some kind and something crispy as well as alongside visual variety, the Pinoy palate craves a range of textures too.
“The Filipino people are very generous especially with food and will always cook for anyone and will always try to 'out cook' the neighbour. We also send [dinner guests] doggy bags to take back home.
“Food is simply life as we know it,” he adds.
2. About the adobo
A lot of non-Filipino foodies know nothing much about Filipino cuisine except for ‘adobo’ and ‘balut’ (a fertilized duck egg embryo eaten as a street food). And even then, their knowledge of these dishes is half-done.
"Adobo is in fact, both a dish and a cooking technique where you marinate and then cook meat or seafood in soy, garlic and vinegar," explains Chef Buenaventura. The acidic content of the vinegar and the salt in the soy tenderise the meat, making it fall-of-the-bone soft during the cooking process.
The Filipino adobo is also very different from the Spanish and Latin American adobo sauce/ or dry spice mix that includes paprika, oregano and other spices.
In fact, the adobo can be cooked in a 100 different ways, since there are regional differences that change recipes and cooking techniques vary from province to province. But the common thread of soy sauce, vinegar and garlic runs through every adobo variation in the Philippines.
3. Stock up your pantry with…
… garlic, fish sauce, black pepper, shrimp paste, onions, annatto if you want to dabble in some Filipino cooking. These ingredients are the building blocks of Filipino cooking and a must in every Filipino household’s kitchen.
Some interesting ingredients whose use in Filipino cuisine sets it apart from Southeast Asian cuisines are duhat (Java plum or jamun), santol or cotton fruit, calamansi (Philippine lime or calamondin) and, Lanzones (also known as longkong, a fruit indigenous to Southeast Asia), says Chef Buenaventura.
He also lists certain condiments and sauces that are symbolic of Filipino cooking: Shrimp paste, banana ketchup, sweet liver sauce, fermented coconut vinegar and coconut palm sugar jam, to name a few.
In fact, dipping sauces are so integral to Filipino food habits, they have an entire term dedicated to it in Tagalog – sawsawan. “The sawsawan is a blanket term that can be anything from fish sauce and chillis mixed in the dipping bowl, to a blend of calamsnsi and soy sauce or calamansi, soy sauce and chillis.
4. Fusion cuisine
The Philippines’ cuisine is a vibrant blend of the cultures it’s historically hobnobbed with.
“As with most countries, [much of our] food is highly influenced by what is available in the surrounding areas, what grows [naturally], and what livestock is easily found in the immediate environment,” clarifies Chef Buenaventura.
“Then, when different countries came and tried to conquer the Philippines, they brought their ingredients and cooking methods together with it. The Spanish have had a massive influence on our food in terms of the spices they brought with them.
300 years from 1521 to 1898, Spanish cuisine’s indelible influence is seen in the use of spices Spanish conquistadors brought with them. Even today, a number of popular Filipino dishes are adaptations of original Spanish variants.
“We have a version of the paella called Arroz a la valenciana. Unlike the Spanish version, the rice that is used is jasmine rice and so this paella has a sticky texture. Our leche flan is exactly similar to crème caramel and Spain’s dulce de leche. Cosido, a popular Spanish meat, vegetable and chickpeas-based stew is something that we eat as well.”
The Japanese have shaped the Philippines’ love for sushi and this explains the spike in sushi restaurants around the island nation, says Chef Buenaventura. “It’s easy for us to love as it uses the two ingredients we have in abundance – fish and rice.
“Then when the Americans came to liberate our country from the Japanese, they left their culinary imprint too,” he adds. The practice of nose-to-tail cooking, especially with Filipino street food is courtesy the Americans. Entrails wasted by American army were ingeniously used in dishes since rations during WWII were low, which is how dishes such as Isaw (grilled chicken intestine) soups made of offal are popular. “We also owe our love for ice cream, sugar-rich chocolate and candy to the Americans.
5. Making its way into mainstream
Despite shared culinary roots with other mainstream cuisines, why is Pinoy cuisine still hovering in the wings and not taking centre-stage? Neighbouring Vietnamese and Chinese cuisines have been accelerating up the popularity ranks of It’s even more perplexing considering the Filipino diaspora is a far-flung and widespread one; as of 2019, an estimated 2.2 million kabayan were working abroad.
The main hindrance, says Chef Buenaventura, is that traditional Filipino cooking needs to be tweaked to be made more palatable to foreigners balance out flavours and consider the international palate. People also haven’t gotten around to understanding the ingredients and the bold flavours (salty, sour and sweet) they impart and so it remains underrated.
“[Filipino cuisine] has not developed its own identity yet and a standard has not been set. Awareness is key and proper old-style cooking methods (like mushy beef stew which has to be cooked for hours) need to be refined. Another factor is a lot of the great Filipino chefs tend to cook other cuisines and specialize on it rather in their own cuisine.” It’s something he’s actively attempting to rectify.
The 3 main dishes he suggests as a gateway to Filipino cuisine for those who are hesitant to try it because of its strong flavours are the Pandesal – Filipino milk bread, Chicken Adobo – cooked in soy, vinegar and garlic and Beef Tapa – beef marinated in garlic and soy.
The 3 main dishes he suggests as a gateway to Filipino cuisine for those who are hesitant to try it because of its strong flavours are the Pandesal – Filipino milk bread, Chicken Adobo – cooked in soy, vinegar and garlic and Beef Tapa – beef marinated in garlic and soy.
6. Quirky food habits
Filipino cuisine’s use of certain processed ingredients such as milk powder, canned meats, etc. go deeper and are a broader socio-cultural reflection. “These products tend to have a longer shelf-life, which matters in a country that always faces typhoons and other disasters. So people stock up,” explains Chef John.
Filipinos also relish what might seem like the most obscure combinations to outsiders: “Dried fish with champurado, a rice and dark chocolate pudding that is sweet is one. Ice cream in pandesal (milk bread) another one and its often purple-coloured ube ice-cream (made from purple yam).”
It again circles back to the Filipino love for bold flavours. Even eating Taho, a dessert-like dish of silken tofu with caramel and tapioca pearls, for breakfast might seem incongruous but out in 7640 islands of the Philippines archipelago, it’s tradition.
“We love mixing odd things,” quips Chef Buenaventura.
The halo halo, considered the national dessert of the Philippines is a case in point: Tagalog for “mix mix”, the dessert is a blend of sweetened kidney beans, mung beans, chickpeas all cooked in sugar syrup, followed by heaps of nata de coco (coconut jelly), macapuno (old coconut where the meat becomes tough and is cooked sugar syrup), crushed ice, slice of leche flan, ube jam, ice shavings, ice cream and evaporated milk.
7. Rise and shine and dine with rice
We might not be able to be sure of much in this life, but you can take it in writing that no matter which part of the world you’re in or what time of day it is, there will always be rice on a Filipino table. “The reason why we eat so much rice is again linked to our love of tangy, sour and salty foods,” says Chef Buenaventura. “Rice neutralises these flavours. You can’t eat adobo on its own. Even our beloved shrimp paste is too strong by itself. Also rice can fill people up quicker and is cheaper.”
This boundless love for rice has resulted in a category of dishes called silog. “Silog is a dish which can morph into anything. Silog is a portmanteau of the words Sinangág (garlic fried rice) and itilog (egg) and includes some kind of meat, making it a meal in itself.
And so you have hotsilog (with hotdog), adosilog (featuring adobo), bangsilog (featuring the milkfish called bangus) and the silog that rules them all tapsilog – a mix of tapa (grilled beef) and garlic fried rice and egg that’s a big hit on breakfast menus.
“In the past, people used to indulge in heavy labour, so breakfasts are very heavy and hence heavy savoury dishes like the tapsilog are popular.”
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