Yummy Filipino Food

Famous Philippine Food

Filipinos traditionally eat three main meals a day: agahan or almusal (breakfast), tanghalían (lunch), and hapunan (dinner) plus an afternoon snack called meriénda (also called minandál or minindál). Snacking is normal. Dinner, while still the main meal, is smaller than other countries. Usually, either breakfast or lunch is the largest meal.

The traditional way of eating is with the hands, especially dry dishes such as inihaw or prito. The diner will take a bite of the main dish, then eat rice pressed together with his fingers. This practice, known as kamayan, is rarely seen in urbanized areas. However, Filipinos tend to feel the spirit of kamayan when eating amidst nature during out of town trips, beach vacations, and town fiestas

As with most Asian countries, the staple food in the Philippines is rice. It is most often steamed and served during meals. Leftover rice is often fried with garlic to make sinangag, which is usually served at breakfast together with a fried egg and cured meat or sausages. Rice is often enjoyed with the sauce or broth from the main dishes.

Filipinos are very good in cooking. Their specialties are being cooked specially during Fiestas.

Here are some of the dishes which Foreign visitors would love to eat here in the Philippines.

The Lechon

The Lechon is the king of all Fiesta food. For sure there are more expensive food that can be brought in a fiesta like the also popular Lechon Baka, but they do not come close to the affinity of lechon baboy has with fiestas. It’s never truly a fiesta indeed without the lechon.

To be clear, the term “lechon” is akin to roasting. The most popular depiction of cooking lechon is with the use of two sticks where a larger stick with the pig is hanged length wise over an intense fire. Mass production of lechon however prohibits such and therefore, the mechanical roasting spits are now used by the top lechon houses.

As lechon is basically a way of cooking, there is also lechon manok (chicken) and lechon baka (calf/cow). However, when one speaks of lechon, there is no need to qualify it because lechon basically pertains to the pig variety.

Lechon is one of those things that Spain brought us and is therefore not distinctly Filipino. But there are some ways of cooking Lechon that are. In fact, one of the varieties of lechon that has been gaining ground as of late is the Lechon Cebu.

Pinakbet or pakbet is a popular Ilocano dish, from the northern regions of the Philippines, although it has become popular throughout the archipelago. The word is the contracted form of the Ilocano word pinakebbet, meaning "shrunk" or "shriveled". The original Ilocano pinakbet uses bagoong ("bugguong" in Ilokano), of fermented monamon or other fish, while further south, bagoong alamang is used. The basic vegetables used in this dish include native bitter melon, eggplant, tomato, okra, string beans, chili peppers, parda, winged beans, and others. Root crops and some beans like camote, patani, kadios are also optionally added. The young pod of marunggay is also added. It is usually spiced with ginger, onions, or garlic

Pancit Molo, an adaptation of wonton soup, is a specialty of the town of Molo in Iloilo a well-know district in the province. Unlike other pancit, pancit molo is not dry but soupy and it does not make use of long, thin noodles but instead wonton wrappers made from rice flour. Leftover wonton wrappers can also be cut into strips and drop into the hot broth.

In Filipino cuisine, adobo refers to a common cooking process indigenous to the Philippines. It should not be confused with the Spanish and Latin American adobo, as they have different origins and refer to different dishes despite sharing the same name. When the Spanish invaded the Philippines in the late 16th century, they encountered a cooking process that involved stewing with vinegar. The Spanish referred to this method as adobo due to its superficial similarity to the Spanish adobo. Nevertheless, the Filipino adobo is an entirely separate method of preparing food and is distinct from the Spanish marinade. There are many variations of adobo in the Philippines in which soy sauce is used like Adobong Baboy in which pork is used, Adobong Manok in which chicken is used, etc. There is also the Adobong Pusit, a squid based dish which uses the squids ink as the broth together with vinegar.

Kare-kare is a Philippine stew. It is made from peanut sauce with a variety of vegetables, stewed oxtail, beef, and occasionally offal or tripe. Meat variants may include goat meat or (rarely) chicken. It is often eaten with bagoong (shrimp paste), sometimes spiced with chili, and sprinkled with calamansi juice. Traditionally, any Filipino fiesta (particularly in Pampanga region) is not complete without kare-kare. In some Filipino-American versions of the dish, oxtail is exclusively used as the meat.

This is basically another pork dish but it is essentially less popular than lechon. Menudo itself isn’t so special of a dish as it is often a regular viand for dinner meals. Menudo is basically mad up of pork, potatoes and tomato sauce. Filinos love to eat rice so this is perfect for such meal.

While menudo isn’t the best viand there is, it is about as staple as a viand could possibly get. One would usually get rice and, even if there are other special viands in the table, would get at least a couple of spoons of menudo on the side.

Batchoy or batsoy is one of the favorite soup of the Filipinos, and the most famous for cooking batchoy and also it's origin is in La Paz, Iloilo City, Philippines. It is a noodle soup garnished with pork innards, crushed pork cracklings, vegetables and topped with cracked egg. Its name was derived from the Chinese word ba chui which means "meat water"

Laing” (or Natong) is a spicy dish that is Coconut milk (or cream) based with dried taro leaves. This originated from the Philippine’s Bicol region (south most part of Luzon island)

Bibingka is a type of rice cake from the Philippines. It is traditionally eaten during Christmas season.

Bibingka is made with rice flour and coconut milk or water. Other ingredients can vary greatly, but the most common secondary ingredients are eggs and milk. A specially made terra cotta container is lined with a single large section of a banana leaf. It is placed over preheated coals and the rice flour and water mixture is poured into it, taking care not to spill it into the container itself. Another piece of banana leaf is added to the top and covered with more preheated coals.

Bibingka is a traditional Filipino Christmas food. It is usually eaten along with puto bumbong right after the Simbang Gabi ('Midnight mass', the Filipino version of Misa de Gallo). They are sold outside of churches during Christmas season.