Filipino

I return, my dear readers, from the abyss (aka work), armed with a recipe for the popular ensaymada. Ensaymada is the Filipino answer to Puerto Rico’s pan de mallorca. Both are equally sweet, rich, buttery breads and they share the same coiled shape. The Ensaymada I’ve talked about the curious…

When I was a kid, there was a lady who sold arroz caldo every day in her makeshift stall. It wasn’t much to write home about but it made for a good breakfast standby. For 5 pesos, you’d get a bowl of watery arroz caldo and half a slice of…

A mango royale icebox cake. That’s what would be great in this sauna like weather. I recently read a news article on Facebook that said that the Philippines was having tons of surplus mangoes. An unusually warm weather led to a bumper crop of mangoes and farmers were struggling to…

Ginataang bilo-bilo is a common merienda (snack) in the Philippines. It is also known as ginataang halo-halo (don’t you just love reduplication in the Filipino language?). I’ve seen this sold on the sidewalks in little plastic cups and served in local eateries.

Tablea tsokolate is the ultimate Filipino hot chocolate. This creamy drink is made from tablea, has a rich chocolate taste and topped with froth.

You would hardly find any trace of Food for the Gods anywhere in the Philippines from January to November. But for some unknown reason, the classic and chewy treat always finds its way to the list of food gifts for Christmas and New Year.

Maja Blanca is a creamy, gelatinous Filipino dessert made from several types of milk, chiefly coconut milk, thickened with cornstarch and topped with latik (cooked coconut topping). It is a traditional dessert served during get togethers.

Filipinos are the most ingenious when it comes to adopting foreign food to suit the local palate. Take, for example, the case of spaghetti. Though it has some serious Italian influences, you’d be hard-pressed to find spaghetti in restaurants in Italy. Just as the Americans have added meatballs to come up with ‘spaghetti and meatballs,’ we, too, have given spaghetti our spin. We called it our very own Filipino-Style Spaghetti!

Hi! Welcome to the third installment of my personal Christmas challenge! This time, I have this delicious, easy to prepare, and quite frankly, addicting Filipino Chicken Potato Salad.

Our neighbor used to make and sell leche flan. Since they lived just right next to ours, I used to go to their house and watch as they steamed batches after batches of leche flan.

Leche Flan is the Filipino counterpart of custards. The sweet and slightly bitter caramel sauce perfectly offsets the silky texture of the flan.