Philippines Guide
For Travelers, Expats and Pinoys
Philippine “Pochero”
The heavy-weight nutrients of beef, vegetables, and fruit; or, the delicate taste of tender beef, crunchiness of vegetables, and the sweet flavor of fruit—these are mouth-watering features of the native cuisine Philippine “pochero.” It is considered a luxury native dish served mostly only to the elite or in very special occasions.
Pochero dates back to Spanish times, a time when native dishes cooked were sure to be nothing less than top quality. Spanish landlords were mostly very discriminating in taste and preferences. They were often very strict masters. So this native cuisine was birthed at such a time when everything was made “primera clase” or first class.
This native cuisine, pochero, is cooked in this manner. For a kilo of pork or beef (or a mix) these are the ingredients: a small ball of cabbage sliced in big pieces, 5 pieces sweet potatoes sliced into 4 each, 7 pieces pared native “saba” bananas sliced into halves, a bundle of Baguio beans cut into halves, a bundle of pechay leaves sliced into halves, a can of pork and beans, a teaspoon of salt, and 5 cups of water. Make sure all the veggies have been kept in the fridge the night before for a crunchy quality. Now we’re ready to cook this native dish.
Simmer the meat and sweet potatoes in 5 cups of water for one to two hours for a super tender native cuisine of pochero. If the water has dwindled too much, add enough to soak meat in it. When the meat of this native cuisine gets tender enough the sweet potato should have become very soft and thickened the beef stew. Pour in all the others (cabbage, pechay, bananas, salt, and Baguio beans) except the pork and beans. Put to medium fire for half a minute, pour in pork and beans, and cook for another half a minute, then the native dish is ready to serve. Make sure not to over do the vegetables to keep their crunchiness.
Native cuisine, Pochero, has an aroma and taste that blends the pungent qualities of meaty richness and fruity sweetness. Its thick stew captures in all the abundant goodness of beef, vegetables, root crop, and fruit for a tangy native dish flavor unmistakably Filipino-Spanish in orientation.
A super balanced native cuisine complete with meat, veggies, root crop, and fruit is the Philipine pochero. Balanced meals seldom come as delicious and nutritious as this native dish does—not to mention its rich and thick stew.
Philippine Cuisine: How Vegetables are Often Cut
In Philippine culinary practice, as in many places, vegetables are not just cut any which way. Some native dishes require specific cut styles. There are specific styles or kinds of cutting vegetables to go with specific native recipes.
Julienne cutting style is for native recipes requiring fine and narrow vegetable sticks. They are about 2 to 3 inches long and about an eighth inch square thick. Some native dishes may require finer julienne styles. This may be used for cooking fried potato or sweet potato as an appetizer, or as a side dish for several native dishes like fried chicken. It may also be used for stuffing vegetables in rolls, like fried or fresh “lumpya.”
Shredding is cutting vegetables into long, thin pieces like when a grater is used. This cutting style is used for cabbage or lettuce. Native recipes requiring shredding are sautéed and/or stewed cabbage, string (Baguio) beans, “pechay” leaves, “patani” flat beans, and sometimes even eggplants and “ampalaya” or bitter melon. Shredding is usually done in stuffed native dishes.
Sliced vegetables are also often used in cooking native recipes. This involves cutting the vegetables crosswise or lengthwise or even diagonally, thinly. This style of cutting is required in the following native dishes: “amplaya” or bitter melon “con carne,” choy suey, vegetable salads, the Ilocano “pinakbet,” some sautéed vegetable recipes, “sinigang” recipes, and vegetable omelets, among others.
Diced cutting is used for quick-cooking native recipes using tough vegetables like potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, tubers, and some fruits used for salads. Diced pieces in native dishes often measure a fourth to a third inch square. Dicing, along with shredding and julienne cutting, is used in stuffing rolls and omelets.
Minced vegetables are cut much smaller than diced ones. Mincing is often done with vegetable spices to better bring out their flavors and better supplement a native recipe. Vegetables in native dishes often requiring mincing are garlic and ginger. Mincing in Philippine culinary often means crushing the vegetable first before cutting it in small pieces.
Chopping is often required in cooking most vegetable native recipes. Chopped vegetables are usually onions, string beans, some “pechay” and cabbage recipes, carrots, apples, onion leaves, celery, among others found in native dishes.
Chunked vegetables are for native recipes with potatoes, radish, carrots, and other tough vegetables. They are used for prolonged cooking of native dishes.
Vegetables ought to be cut as specified or required in a particular native recipe. Vegetable cutting styles contribute much to the precise cooking of native dishes.
More Pinangat! More Water! A Philippine Delicacy
Imagine tasting the wonderful flavor of coconut milk, vegetables, and seafood in every bite, wouldn’t that be heaven boiling in your tongue? Add to it a spicy taste that would accentuate the rest of the flavors in your mouth (that is if it doesn’t send you running for water). That is Pinangat, a wonderful delicacy in the Bicol Region of the Philippines.
If you ever wonder which of the many people in the Philippines would eat spicy chili peppers for snacks, then all you ever have to do is visit the Bicol Region.
The locals are called bicolanos, and are known to be a people who have a rooted fear of spicy chili peppers out of their chests. One spicy specialty bicolanos are known for is their ever-famous Pinangat.
Pinangat is part of Philippine cuisine that espouses coconut milk as a major theme. It is reminiscent of other dishes from the neighboring pacific islands. Since the Bicol Region in the Philippines is a large producer of coconuts, a major theme among the local cuisine is based on coconut milk (locally known as gata).
Pinangat is made from local “gabi” leaves (i.e. taro). Every neighborhood in the Bicol Region will have these planted nearby. These leaves will either be sun dried or cooked fresh to become a major ingredient in almost every bicolano delicacy including Pinangat.
Other than gabi leaves, coconut milk, and chili peppers, the succulent flavor of Pinangat won’t be complete without the tasty seafood that makes this delicacy a huge hit in the local cuisine of the Philippines.
You can use crabmeat, fish meat, or shrimp meat to make Pinangat. At times, when you get to visit the Bicol Region in the Philippines, you might even be treated by the local folks to Pinangat with shark meat (expect killing sharks to be illegal in the Philippines though).
Pinangat is simply made by wrapping your favorite seafood meat, chili peppers, onions, garlic, and spices in gabi leaves. This is sometimes tied up using gabi leaves that are cut lengthwise into strings, but it’s totally up to you if you want to do it that way.
The vegetable wrap (Pinangat) is then set aside while the coconut milk is set to a boil. Once the coconut milk is brought to a boil the vegetable wraps are dropped in. You let the whole thing boil over adding salt to taste until the vegetable wrap has absorbed most of the coconut milk.
And that’s how to make the Bicol Region’s famous Pinangat. Just prepare yourself for a tasty meal that sends you begging for water.
How to Enjoy Philippine Cuisines Better
Philippine native cuisines are natural taste bud ticklers that induce appetite like fatty oil is to grill fire. But there are certain culinary secrets that enhance the subtle taste of native dishes, especially where marinating and sauces are concerned. Here are some secret tips for a more enjoyable Philippine native cuisine.
Most fried native dishes, like fried fish and pork chops, are rubbed with a dash of salt and flour a minute before frying. This results in a super crispy and juicy fred native cuisine, with all the food flavors intact and succulently oozing at a bite. For a much tastier native dish flavor, fish, pork or beef is marinated with soy sauce and vinegar, or better, soy sauce and natural “kalaminsi” or lemon juice. This marinating procedure is done 30 to 45 minutes before cooking, either by frying or grilling. Grilled pork liver is also thus marinated for a mouth-watering aroma and taste.
Native cuisine fried or steamed fish are often stuffed with sliced native tomatoes, garlic, ginger, “kinchay” leaves, a little powdered pepper, and onions. At times this native dish is mixed with cooked ground beef or pork. The fish’s abdomen is sliced open, gull and gills removed while leaving the liver and intestines intact, and the spices are stuffed inside. Then the abdomen is stitched closed with a clean white thread. The fish is then wetted enough with a soy sauce and “kalamansi” or lemon juice concoction for some 15 minutes, and then fried or grilled.
With grilling native cuisines, the usual method is to wrap the fish or pork with aluminum foil. This cooking method evens up cooking all sides of a native dish fish, pork, or beef but it’s unhealthy because of the lead content of the foil. The best alternative—and one of the native cuisine culinary secrets of cooking grandmas in the country—is to wrap food in banana leaves while being grilled. This saves the native dish from too much burning and boosts natural food and spice flavor enhancement.
Finally, native cuisines usually go with a specific dip sauce. Dip sauces of mixed vinegar, soy, or preserved fish for a specific native dish may heighten taste bud stimulation. Native cuisine Kare-Kare’s true gourmet potential lies on how good the preserved shrimp or “bagoong” sauce is cooked.
Philippine native cuisines are enjoyed more when the secret ingredients are in and the right sauce concoction for a native dish is in place.
Max’s Fried Chicken: Product of Family Unity
The story of Max’s Fried Chicken restaurant can be traced to a dream. One night, Maximo Gimenez had a dream. In the dream he was chasing a white chicken. Little did he know that chickens would be a tradition and a business he would later pass down to his children and grandchildren. Eventually he and his family would establish what is known today as Max’s Fried Chicken dubbed as “the house that fried chicken built”.
After World War II the Philippines was back to American control once again. Maximo Gimenez was a teacher who studied at Stanford. At this time, the Gimenez family, like most Filipino families in the post-war era of the Philippines, was under financial difficulty.
Here’s how Max’s Fried Chicken restaurant started. Maximo, known to friends as Max, made friends with the American occupation troops. The American servicemen in Quezon City would regularly visit Max’s home for a drink. Soon after, the soldiers insisted to pay for the drinks they got from Max’s home that prompted the man to open a cafe to serve food and drinks.
This was the humble beginning of Max’s Fried Chicken restaurant. Since the cafe opened up, the Gimenez family was united by the desire for service and inspired by the opportunity to earn a living to alleviate themselves from their financial crisis.
Max’s Fried Chicken started out as a little cafe, which was also the Gimenez family home. Tables and chairs were arranged and other furnishings necessary to add to the ambience.
The Max’s Fried Chicken specialty (the fried chicken of course), emerged from a request of one of the American servicemen to fry a whole chicken. Ruby, Max’s niece managed the kitchen and created the special recipe that made the Max’s Fried Chicken an instant hit.
No sooner did the Filipinos also catch on to the Max’s Fried Chicken craze. It began as news of tender, juicy, and crispy chicken was served at the Gimenez family home cafe. From here the Max’s Fried Chicken restaurant was born.
The family encountered a bit of trouble when the American forces left the Philippines and returned to the United States. Through a united effort and good service, the Gimenez family was able to keep Max’s Fried Chicken alive.
Max’s Fried Chicken restaurant became a place where fond memories are made. Today, Max’s Fried Chicken can be found all over Metro Manila, in the Northern Luzon Island of the Philippines, Cebu, and in California, USA.
Max’s Fried Chicken has well established itself as a household name in the Philippines. It can be said that Max’s Fried Chicken is a product of family unity, warm-hearted service, and good food.
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Fish in Ginger Stew or “Pesang Isda” Delight
The pungent flavor of ginger stew and the savory taste of native fresh water fish—combine this and we have the unique, delightful tang of the native cusine, “Pesang Isda.” This is a highly nutritious recipe popular in the Tagalog regions.
Don’t pre-judge this Tagalog cuisine. Many disagree with the fish usually used for this recipe. It is often cooked using fresh water “mudfish” that once loitered freely around rice paddies and streams and rivers in the region. Today, mudfish or “dalag” are cultured in fish ponds or caught fresh from clean rivers, streams, or rice paddies—which is a rarity. For those wary about mudfish, the fish for this cuisine may be substituted with milkfish or “bangus,” or “tilapia,” another fresh water fish for another recipe variation.
We need the following ingredients for this native recipe: two cloves of minced garlic, one medium-sized and thinly sliced ginger, one quarter of medium-sized onion, one large mudfish (“dalag”) cleaned and cut into serving size, two cups water used for washing rice or ”pinaghugasan ng bigas”, two fish broth cubes, two bunches Tagalog cabbage chopped in big sizes, two stalks green onions, and pepper to taste. With these ingredients in hand, we’re ready to cook this cuisine.
In cooking this recipe the following is the procedure: sauté the garlic, ginger and onions till light brown. Add the fish and rice wash. Drop the fish cubes to bring out the taste of the savory mudfish, and then bring to a boil. When the fish is cooked and tender, add the pepper, cabbage and green onions. Wait for the vegetables to cook, then serve hot. This cuisine serves 5 persons.
Some “pesang dalag” cuisine variations add in a lot more vegetables than are found in this recipe. Vegetables like green leafy “pechay” Baguio, ordinary “pechay,” potatoes, or “malunggay” leaves. Last but not least, this Tagalog cuisine has a special sauce or side dish that makes it doubly stylish. We need a cup of tofu putty and a few garlic and onions for the side dish of this cuisine. To prepare this added recipe, sauté a cup of tofu putty, or “miso” with a few minced garlic and chopped onions. When light brown add in the cup of tofu putty. The “pesa” is eaten with teaspoons of the tofu now and then.
The Tagalog native cuisine, “Pesang Dalag” or Fresh Water Fish in Ginger Stew, is a rare recipe of fish and healthy veggies that is cooked mostly by pure Tagalogs.
Philippine Cuisine Spiced Up the Ilocano Way
Choice and tender pork cuts mixed in a delicately spiced stew of native, crunchy vegetables cooked fast and easy as one, two, and three.
Sound good?
Pinakbet is a popular dish in the Philippines. In fact, almost every region in the country has its own version of this native cuisine. But nothing beats an original, especially an original recipe. And there’s no Pinakbet like the original Ilocano Pinakbet. Beware of imitations—they’re well-intentioned concoctions, but they fall short of being fully representative of the real McCoy, the popular dish of Ilocanos.
This native cuisine is a display of small but terrible Ilocano fresh vegetables ranging from small eggplants to small ampalaya or biter melon to small okra and small flat string beans or “patani.” We need a small bunch of all these, plus a fourth of a small squash, ten small peeled unchopped onions, 6 pieces small and ripe tomatoes, a bunch of “kangkong” leaves (an inch of the stems from the leaves included), about a half-fist of peeled ginger (or smaller), 3 pieces long native chili (“sili” for “sinigang”), 5 cups water, and 5 spoonfuls of Ilocano-style preserved small fish. Almost everything small but one can get a big kick out of this popular dish.
A kilo of tender choice cut pork is needed for this native cuisine, cut into small cubes—about 3X3 inches. Tender loin pork may be used. What Filipinos call “liempo” is often the favorite. After chopping the pork, put 5 cups of water in a pot and throw in everything else: pork, vegetables tomatoes, onion, preserved fish, and all. Boil on medium fire. Once in full boil bring immediately to a gentle simmer until pork is tenderly cooked. Do not overcook. Once the pork is cooked enough (about 20 minutes or so), everything’s ready for serving. Serves 5 persons. This popular dish is better eaten when dipped in a sauce of fish sauce (“patis”) with crushed long chili from the cooked dish.
The stew of this special native cuisine, pinakbet, is the result of a delicate mix of succulent flavors oozed from the subtle taste of pork and the sweetness of fresh vegetables plus the qualities of melted tomatoes. The tangy features of ginger and long native chili add a “kick” to the overall pungent taste of this popular dish.
Pinakbet in its original Ilocano form is a native cuisine that can satisfy discriminating taste buds and health aficionados. Among Filipino popular dishes this rates an “A” in overall aspects.
Enliven Christmas With Puto Bumbong and Bibingka
Christmas is the most celebrated season of the year. Filipinos start to spread the spirit of Christmas as early as September. And with Christmas, comes the favorite Christmas specialties. The two favorite Christmas dishes in Philippine cuisine are Puto Bumbong and Bibingka.
Puto Bumbong is a part of Philippine cuisine that is based on rice. This is how to cook Puto Bumbong. For one hour, soak a kilo of glutinous (a special type of rice) and 125 grams of ordinary rice mixture in salted water. If you want you can add some food coloring. Dry the Puto Bumbong mixture overnight inside a clean flour sack. Squeeze out the excess water. The following morning, the Puto Bumbong mixture is ready for cooking.
Use a steamer to cook the Puto Bumbong mixture. Pour in a small measure of Puto Bumbong mixture in bamboo tubes (locally known as “bumbong”). Place the bamboo tubes in a steamer.
You’ll know when Puto Bumbong is cooked when steam rise out of the bamboo tubes. Push out the cooked Puto Bumbong from the bamboo tubes. Serve the cooked Puto Bumbong with grated coconut and sugar on top.
The other favorite Christmas delicacy is Bibingka or rice cakes. Here’s how to make them. Soak 250 grams of glutinous rice in water for six hours then grind it. Beat one egg. Have 25 grams goat milk’s cheese sliced into desired thickness (you can try other cheese if you like).
In a saucepan, boil a half-liter of thin coconut milk. Continue boiling while adding in the ground rice, beaten egg, and one-fourth teaspoon salt. Lower the flame, then add 100 grams of sugar. Stir thoroughly to blend.
Put some banana leaves on small cake molds and pour the rice mixture in. Add in sliced cheese and 100 ml thick coconut milk. Sprinkle some anise powder on the top and cover the mixture to add to the aroma. Cook the Bibingka with live charcoal on the lid and below the cake mold for 15-20 minutes.
Unfortunately, there are no instant mixes of Puto Bumbong and Bibingka. There are no substitutes for these delicious Christmas rice specialties of the Philippines.
When you visit the Philippines for the holidays, you’ll be enchanted with the sweet smell of freshly cooked Puto Bumbong and Bibingka that blends well with the cold early mornings and nights. Though these rice specialties come in different sizes and shapes, having Puto Bumbong and Bibingka during the Christmas season helps make the Christmas spirit livelier.
Sweet and Sour Adobo Pork and Chicken
A sweetened and all spiced up pork and chicken adobo is another variation of the general native cuisine adobo. This native recipe caters well to those who prefer a subtle blend of sweet, sour, and spicy pork and chicken.
To cook this native cuisine, here are the ingredients we need: half a kilo of Pork Kasim chopped for adobo, half a kilo of fresh chicken chopped into serving pieces, four pieces of sliced hotdog, three tablespoons minced garlic, one tablespoon ground pepper corns, two tablespoons sugar, one piece laurel leaf, half cup of soy sauce, three-fourth cup of cane vinegar, 2 cups of boiled water, and a dozen hard quail eggs. With these ingredients ready, we’re all set to cook this native recipe.
To cook this native cuisine we first combine all ingredients in a saucepan (except the quail eggs and hotdogs). Then boil the mixture on high fire. On boiling, reduce the heat to a simmer and cover with the lid for some forty five minutes. Then, remove the lid cover and simmer again for some five minutes to reduce and thicken the sauce. Check the tenderness of the pork. If the meat and skin of the pork is tender enough, the rest of the ingredients should follow. Check also the sweetness and sourness of the sauce. Aim for a balanced sweet and sour flavor. Lessen the taste by adding a little water. Add to the taste by adding either more sugar or more vinegar. Finally, when everything is balanced, add the quail eggs and hotdogs for another two to three minutes. This native recipe serves 5 people.
This recipe is a favorite native cuisine in picnics and outdoor potlucks, as well as in elegant dinner meals for the family and guests. Because of the introduction of vinegar into this native recipe, sweet and sour pork and chicken adobo lasts longer than other native cuisine. Hence, it is suitable as a picnic viand for a packed dinner when traveling far to eat out. It goes well with sliced and salted tomatoes on the side, coupled with some sliced preserved eggs with chopped onions and tomatoes. This native recipe is also partnered with chopped green mangoes and onions with a dash of native preserved fish or “bagoong.”
Sweet and sour pork and chicken adobo is a popular native cuisine almost always present in every Filipino dinner table, at home or in native restaurants. It is one of the Filipinos’ culinary legacies.
Philippine Milkfish Sinigang
How about a super healthy, super yummy native cuisine of stewed milkfish? This one’s stacked with vegetables loaded with fibers, Vitamin A, antioxidants and lycopene that can only do one’s health good. And then the fish meat is cooked just right to get all its juicy, flavorsome quality all intact. This native dish is an all-time favorite in Filipino dinner tables.
“Sinigang” has several variants and they always come a bit sour. The origin of this native dish is not exactly known and one of the versions says it was accidentally discovered in a hasty preparation. A mix of ingredients was there but what to do about them was the problem. So the stuffs were all poured into a pot, boiled, and out came the native cuisine “sinigang.”
Cooking this native dish: for a kilo of milk fish (choose a single piece weighing a kilo, with gills, bile, and scales taken off) prepare the following: a bundle of “kangkong” leaves picked off from branch, 3 pieces eggplant sliced into 3 each, one piece peeled and chopped radish, a bundle of okra chopped in halves, 2 pieces long chili or “siling pula,” 7 pieces “kalamansi” or lemon squeezed in a cup (seeds taken out), sliced tomatoes, a teaspoon of salt or fish sauce (“patis”), and 4 cups water. Now we’re readu for this native cuisine.
After washing the fish, put it into a pot with the 4 cups of water, eggplants, radish, tomatoes, long chili, and boil. When boiling, watch if the fish’s eyes have popped out. If so, bring this native dish into a simmer. Add lemon, okra, “kangkong,” and teaspoon of salt or fish sauce. After half a minute, serve while hot. This native cuisine serves 4 to 5 people.
This native cuisine is best served with a small saucer of fish sauce where the long chili from the milkfish stew is sliced. This makes for an excellent dip for the Philippine milkfish “sinigang.” This menu also comes with pork or beef. But for the longer hours of boiling to tenderize the meat, everything in the procedure stays the same. Philippine milkfish “sinigang” is superb with its traditional partner, “tortang giniling” or ground pork (or beef) omelet. Eaten together, the chemistry of the native dishes bring out a subtle taste that is contrasting yet complementary.
Philippine milkfish “sinigang” has been a proven native cuisine that continues to satisfy discriminating gourmets. For decades it has been a reliable native dish in spur of the moment dinner preparations because it’s easy to cook.