Filipino Oxtail
Oxtail (occasionally spelled ox tail or ox-tail) is the culinary name for the tail of cattle. Formerly, it referred only to the tail of an ox, a castrated male. The tail of a steer typically weighs 2 to 4 lbs. (1-1.8 kg) and is skinned and cut into short lengths for sale.
Oxtail is a bony, gelatinous meat, and is usually slow-cooked, often stewed or braised. It is a good stock base for a soup. Oxtail is the main ingredient of the Italian dish coda alla vaccinara. It is a popular flavor for powder, instant and premade canned soups in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
In the United States, oxtail has the meat-cutting classification NAMP 1791.
Versions of oxtail soup are popular traditional dishes in both the American South, China, and Indonesia. In Korean cuisine, a soup made with oxtail is called kkori gomtang. It is a thick soup seasoned with salt and eaten with a bowl of rice. It can be used as a stock for making tteokguk (rice cake soup). Stewed oxtail with butter beans is popular in Jamaica and Trinidad. It is used to make many Philippine dishes.
You can find authentic Filipino Oxtail on many Filipino Restaurants in Los Angeles.
Filipino Soup-Sinigang
Sinigang is a Philippine soup or stew characterized by its sour flavor. It bears some similarities to Indonesian sayur asem, Vietnamese canh chua, and Thai tom yam. Sinigang also bears some similarities to — but should not be confused with — singgang, a tamarind soup dish from Terengganu, Malaysia.
Sinigang’s sour flavor is most often associated with a tamarind based broth but other versions of the dish derive their sourness from other ingredients such as guava, calamansi, bilimbi, or raw mango among others. Powdered soup base or bouillon cubes for sinigang are also used in place of natural fruits. Vinegar is not used for making sinigang sour. A similar dish made with vinegar as the primary souring ingredient would tend to be categorized as paksiw in Philippine cuisine.
Meat in sinigang (e.g., fish, pork, shrimp, or beef) is often stewed with tamarinds, tomatoes, and onions. Other vegetables commonly used in the making of sinigang include okra, taro corms (gabi), daikon (labanos), water spinach (kangkong), yardlong beans (sitaw) and eggplant.
Chicken sinigang is called sinampalukan (from sampalok, Filipino for tamarind). Sinampalukan is made with shredded tamarind leaves, ginger, onions, and tomatoes. Sinampalukan is sometimes prepared to be a little spicier than the other sinigang dishes.
You can find authentic Filipino Sinigang on many Filipino Restaurants in Los Angeles.
Filipino Puto
Puto is a steamed rice cake popular in the Southeast Asian country of the Philippines. Steaming, a popular cooking method in this country along with boiling and roasting, was incorporated into Filipino cuisine and cooking by other Asian countries. Rice, the main ingredient in this dish, is an important staple for the Philippines. Rice is typically eaten in most meals and has been known to be featured in all types of sweet and savory Filipino dishes. Puto is usually eaten as a dessert, but can also be eaten for breakfast dipped into or paired with a cup of hot coffee or hot chocolate.
There are many variations to the recipe ranging from the type of rice used to the method in which the rice is prepared. In its traditional form, puto is of a plain white color. Adding certain common Filipino ingredients like ube and pandan (made from pandan leaves or Pandanus amaryllifolius slightly changes the flavor and completely changes the color of the finished product. Likewise, food coloring can be added to change the puto’s color but still keep its original flavor.
Most varieties often include the addition of coconut milk and this influences the flavor.
Although there are three common ways to cook puto, the taste and texture of each product should remain the same. Puto is not a rich, decadent dish. It tastes mostly like rice but slightly sweeter. Recipes that call for vanilla will produce an even sweeter puto, but traditionally it tastes similar to the almost bland southern cornbread.
Puto’s has a spongy and slightly fluffy texture. It is light and airy and biting into one feels like biting into a much firmer piece of Angel cake.
You can find authentic Filipino Puto on many Filipino Restaurants in Los Angeles.
DINUGUAN
Dinuguan (also called dinardaraan in Ilocano, or pork blood stew in English) is a Filipino savory stew of blood and meat simmered in a rich, spicy gravy of pig blood, garlic, chili and vinegar. The term dinuguan comes from the word dugo meaning “blood”. It is similar to the Singapore dish pig’s organ soup, differing in that it does not contain vegetables and has a characteristically thick gravy. It is frequently considered an unusual or alarming dish to those in Western culture, though it is rather similar to European-style blood sausage, or British black pudding in a saucy stew form. It is perhaps closer in appearance and preparation to the ancient Spartan dish known as black gruel whose primary ingredients were pork, vinegar and blood. Dinuguan is often served with white rice or a Filipino rice cake called puto.
A similar dish is also known among the Bataks of Indonesia, called sangsang. Sangsang is made from pork or dog meat (or more rarely, water buffalo meat), coconut milk and spices (including kaffir lime and bay leaves, coriander, shallot, garlic, chili pepper and Thai pepper, lemongrass, ginger, galangal, turmeric and andaliman (the fruit of a native shrub similar to Sichuan pepper)).
Sangsang has special significance to the Bataks, as it is an obligatory dish in Batak marriage celebrations.
You can find authentic Filipino Dinuguan on many Filipino Restaurants in Los Angeles
Filipino Bebinca
Bebinca, also known as bibik, is a type of pudding and a traditional Goan dessert. The ingredients include plain flour, sugar, ghee (clarified butter) and coconut milk. Goan bebinca in Lisbon, Portugal The dessert is baked in a specially-made clay oven, with a layer of hot coals over it. It has to be baked in layers and traditionally has 16 layers. The dessert is very common in Goan cuisine. In Portugal and Mozambique, it is also a common dessert in Goan restaurants. This food is also popular in the Philippines, where it is known as bibingka. In the Filipino method of preparation, rice flour is used (the baking process is similar to that of the bebinca). Before being served, butter or margarine is spread and sugar is sprinkled over the bibingka. It is typically served with grated coconut. Bebinca was also adopted by the International Weather System as a typhoon name.
Filipino Chop Suey
Chop suey (Chinese zá suì, “mixed pieces”) is an American-Chinese dish consisting of meats (often chicken, fish, beef, shrimp or pork), cooked quickly with vegetables such as bean sprouts, cabbage, and celery and bound in a starch-thickened sauce. It is typically served with rice but can become the Chinese-American form of chow mein with the addition of stir-fried noodles.
Chop suey is part of American Chinese cuisine, Canadian Chinese cuisine, and Indian Chinese cuisine.
Chop suey is widely believed to have been invented in America by Chinese immigrants, but in fact comes from Taishan, a district of Guangdong Province which was the home of most of the early Chinese immigrants; the Hong Kong doctor Li Shu-fan reported that he knew it in Taishan in the 1890s.
Chop suey first appears in an American publication in 1898, described as “A Hash of Pork, with Celery, Onions, Bean Sprouts, etc.
Despite its Taishan background, there are various colorful stories about its origin, which Davidson (1999) characterizes as “culinary mythology”: Some say it was invented by Chinese immigrant cooks working on the United States Transcontinental railway in the 19th century. Another story is that it was invented during Qing Dynasty premier Li Hongzhang’s visit to the United States in 1896 by his chef, who tried to create a dish suitable for both Chinese and American palates: when reporters asked what food the premier was eating, his cook found it difficult to explain the dishes, and replied “mixed pieces”;But this is also untrue.
In his book The Gangs of New York (1927), Herbert Asbury attributes the Americanized version of the term to a San Francisco dishwasher, calling it a bastardized version of the Cantonese phrase tsap sui, meaning “odds and ends”, “miscellaneous pieces”, or more simply “hash”.
Outside of Taishan, the name “chop suey” or “shap sui in Cantonese, and “za sui”, when used in Mandarin, has the somewhat different meaning of cooked animal offal or entrails. For example, in the classic novel Journey to the West (circa 1590), Sun Wukong tells a lion-monster in chapter 75: “When I passed through Guangzhou (Canton), I bought a pot for cooking za sui – so I’ll savour your liver, entrails, and lungs.” This may be the same as the “Chop Suey Kiang” found in 1898 New York.
During his exile in the United States, Liang Qichao, a Guangdong native, wrote in 1903 that there existed in the United States a food item called chop suey which was popularly served by Chinese restaurateurs, but which local Chinese people did not eat. The term “za sui” is found in newer Chinese-English dictionaries with both meanings listed – cooked entrails, and chop suey in the Western sense.
This dual meaning has meant that some Chinese restaurants in English-speaking countries label mixed entrails as “chop suey” on their English menus.
One of the last remaining vertical chop suey neon signs in the world is located in Los Angeles, California, at the Far East Chop Suey restaurant in Little Tokyo.
Chop suey may be prepared in a variety of styles, such as chicken, beef, pork, king prawn, plain and special. Plain, or vegetable chop suey, is often one of the few traditional Chinese American take-out dishes offered without meat at many restaurants.
Filipino Dinuguan
Dinuguan (also called dinardaraan in Ilocano, or pork blood stew in English) is a Filipino savory stew of blood and meat simmered in a rich, spicy gravy of pig blood, garlic, chili and vinegar. The term dinuguan comes from the word dugo meaning “blood”. It is similar to the Singapore dish pig’s organ soup, differing in that it does not contain vegetables and has a characteristically thick gravy. It is frequently considered an unusual or alarming dish to those in Western culture, though it is rather similar to European-style blood sausage, or British black pudding in a saucy stew form. It is perhaps closer in appearance and preparation to the ancient Spartan dish known as black gruel whose primary ingredients were pork, vinegar and blood. Dinuguan is often served with white rice or a Filipino rice cake called puto.
A similar dish is also known among the Bataks of Indonesia, called sangsang. Sangsang is made from pork or dog meat (or more rarely, water buffalo meat), coconut milk and spices (including kaffir lime and bay leaves, coriander, shallot, garlic, chili pepper and Thai pepper, lemongrass, ginger, galangal, turmeric and andaliman (the fruit of a native shrub similar to Sichuan pepper)).
Sangsang has special significance to the Bataks, as it is an obligatory dish in Batak marriage celebrations.
Pinikpikan And Tinapa
Pinikpikan is a dish from the mountains of the Cordillera region in the Philippines.
It is prepared by beating a live chicken with a stick prior to cooking. The beating bruises the chicken’s flesh, bringing blood to its surface, which is said to improve the flavour after cooking. The act of beating the chicken, while done in preparation of the dish, apparently violates the Philippine Animal Welfare Act 1998.
Tinapa is the Filipino term for a fish cooked/preserved through the process of smoking. This is a native delicacy in the Philippines and is often made from milkfish, which is more locally known as bangus.
Filipino Lumpia Varieties
Lumpia Hubad
Lumpiang Hubad literally means naked spring roll. It is basically an unwrapped Lumpiang Sariwa (without the crepe).
Lumpiang Sariwa
Lumpiang sariwa – Fresh lumpia
Lumpiang Sariwa, or fresh spring rolls in English, consist of minced ubod (heart of palm), flaked chicken, crushed peanuts, and turnips as an extender in a double wrapping of lettuce leaf and a yellowish egg crepe. The accompanying sauce is made from chicken or pork stock, a starch mixture, and fresh garlic. This variety is not fried and is usually around 2 inches in diameter and 6 inches in length; it is also the most popular among the Filipino variants. It is derived from the original Chinese popiah.
Lumpiang Shanghai
This type of lumpia is filled with ground pork or beef, minced onion, carrots, and spices with the mixture held together by beaten egg. It may sometimes contain green peas. Both lumpiang shanghai and the sweet and sour sauce are served which attests to the Chinese influence. This variety is by standard an inch in diameter and approximately 4-6 inches in length. However, most restaurants and street vendors often serve lumpia shanghai in smaller diameters, typically one-half to three-quarter inches, and is served with a spicy sauce instead of a sweet and sour sauce.
Lumpiang Prito/Lumpiang Gulay
Lumpiang prito – Fried lumpia
Lumpiang Prito literally means fried spring roll. It consists of a briskly fried pancake filled with bean sprouts and various other vegetables such as string beans and carrots. Small morsels of meat or seafood may also be added. Though it is the least expensive of the variants, the preparation – the cutting of vegetables and meats into appropriately small pieces and subsequent pre-cooking – may prove taxing and labor-intensive. This variant may come in sizes as little as that of lumpiang shanghai or as big as that of lumpiang sariwa. It is usually eaten with vinegar and chili peppers, or a soy sauce-and-calamondin juice mixture known as toyo-mansi.
Lumpiang Ubod
This is another variation of the Filipino spring rolls which is made from coconut julienne or heart of palm. Lumpiang Ubod is a specialty of Silay City, Negros Occidental.
Banana Lumpia or Turon
Banana lumpia or Turon is a Philippine dessert, made of thinly sliced bananas (preferably ripe plantains), a slice of jackfruit, dusted with brown sugar, rolled in a papery wrapper and fried. Brown sugar is further added while frying for additional sweetness.
Filipino Atchara
Atchara (also be spelled achara or atsara) is a Filipino dish made of primarily pickled papaya. The word itself is probably an adaptation of the Indian word for pickle, Achaar.
This dish is often used as an accompaniment to fried or grilled foods such as pork barbecue but it may also be used as a side dish on its own. The primary ingredient is shredded green unripe papaya. Carrot slices, julienned ginger, bell pepper, onion and garlic make up the other vegetable ingredients. They are then mixed in a solution of vinegar, sugar and salt preserves. The mixture is placed in airtight jars where it will keep even without refrigeration. However, once opened, atchara is preferably stored in refrigeration to maintain its flavor.
