The New Filipino Kitchen: Stories and Recipes from Around the Globe

Copyright © 2018 by Jacqueline Chio-Lauri

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without express written permission from the publisher.

All food photography and styling by Rowena Dumlao-Giardina except for the photos on pages ix (Studio Mossige) and 98 (Tom Haga).

Editor photo by Henriette Time, Studio Hjelm.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Chio-Lauri, Jacqueline, editor.

Title: The new Filipino kitchen: stories and recipes from around the globe / edited by Jacqueline Chio-Lauri ; photos by Rowena Dumlao-Giardina ; foreword by John Birdsall.

Description: Chicago: Surrey Books, an imprint of Agate Publishing, [2018] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018007796 (print) | LCCN 2018008924 (ebook) | ISBN 9781572848207 (e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: Cooking, Philippine. | Philippines--Social life and customs. | LCGFT: Cookbooks.

Classification: LCC TX724.5.P5 (ebook) | LCC TX724.5.P5 N49 2018 (print) | DDC 641.59599--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018007796

First printing: September 2018

109876543211819202122

Surrey Books is an imprint of Agate Publishing. Agate books are available in bulk at discount prices. Learn more at agatepublishing.com.

For Natividad and Sylvia, lolas or lolos, nanays or tatays, who showed us strength, hope, and love through food

CONTENTS

FOREWORD BY JOHN BIRDSALL

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1: SEAFOOD

TEACH A GIRL TO FISH

CRISTINA QUACKENBUSH

Originally from the slums of Manila, Cristina grows up in the US Midwest and explores what kinilaw, a dish she originally found repulsive, means to her.

Kinilaw: Vinegar and Citrus–Cured Fish with Coconut Milk and Green Mango

GOOD FOR ONE

JACQUELINE CHIO-LAURI

A restaurant manager in her mid-20s, Jacqueline grapples with singlehood in a couple-oriented society and a restaurant with a signature dish for two.

Seafood Sinigang: Sour and Savory Seafood Soup Seasoned with Gremolata

SMOKE GETS IN MY EYES

ROWENA DUMLAO-GIARDINA

Rowena is hooked. Years later, she discovers the reason behind her Fatal Attraction–like obsession for a particular type of plant.

Inihaw na Isda at Ensaladang Talong: Stuffed Fish Grilled in Banana Leaves and Eggplant Salad with Toasted Pancetta

THE HEAT IS ON

CHRISSY CAMBA

How can Chrissy’s grandmother spare her from the pain of her parents’ early divorce and the disappointment from getting chopped at a reality cooking competition?

Crab Torta: Crab Omelet

ANG PAMBIHIRANG LUTO NI NANAY (MOM’S EXTRAORDINARY COOKING)

CRISTETA CRIS COMERFORD

Cris, the White House executive chef, compares her mother to a fictional character who seems perfect in every way—except for one serious condition unknown to all.

Escabeche-Inspired Fried Snapper

CHAPTER 2: POULTRY

EIGHT WAYS TO COOK LIKE MA

JANICE LOBO SAPIGAO

Janice narrates eight personal experiences, including an incident at Costco and the impact of the huge retailer on the lives of immigrant and working-class families.

Tinola: Ginger Chicken Soup with Moringa

IN THE GREAT WHITE NORTH

ALLAN PINEDA

How does Allan, a second-generation immigrant, figure out why he is placed in an ESL (English as a second language) class when English is his first language?

Sous Vide Fried Chicken Breasts

TO MAKE A HOME

MELISSA R. SIPIN

Abandoned by her biological mother at a very young age, Melissa is raised by her grandmother, who teaches her everything—except how to cook.

Baked Chicken Adobo Infused with Coconut Milk

MY AFRITADA ANGEL

DALENA HASKINS BENAVENTE

US-born, half American–half Filipino Dalena visits the Philippines for the first time and encounters

the healing powers of a mystical woman.

Spaghetti Sauce Chicken Afritada

CHAPTER 3: MEAT

THE MAKING OF LUMPIA

ALEXA ALFARO

How can Alexa drop a bomb without breaking her father’s heart? Alexa tries the same tactic her father used decades ago to win her mother’s heart.

Lumpia: Pork and Vegetable Egg Rolls

POUNDING ON THE DOOR WITH A SLEDGEHAMMER

ROBERT MENOR

When Robert isn’t jazz club–hopping or getting kicked out of places only a hipster can love, he pounds on doors with a sledgehammer of pulled pork adobo.

Pulled Pork Adobo Loko Sliders

Atchara

THE MIGHTY CLUB OF MIGHTOR

CHRISTIAN ANDRE PETTERSEN

Many things aren’t going in the right direction at a culinary competition where Chef Christian battles to perfect a pork dish inspired by crispy pata.

Crispy Pata: Braised Boneless Pork Hocks with Crispy Pork Rind, Ginger-Soy Glaze, and Turnip-Apple Slaw

IN LOVE AND REVOLUTION

VANESSA DEZA HANGAD

Politics finds its way into Vanessa’s family life as she tries to process her parents’ separation through the lens of the People Power Revolution and a reconciliatory dish.

Kare-Kare: Oxtail Stew in Thick Peanut Sauce

CHAPTER 4: VEGETABLES

AMPALAYA EPIPHANY

LISA SUGUITAN MELNICK

An epiphany presents itself to Lisa at the age of 55 during her first journey to the Philippines. Her discovery goes beyond ampalaya.

Tortang Ampalaya: Stir-Fried Bitter Melon Omelet

ACROSS THE MILES

VANESSA LORENZO

Separated from her family for the first time, Vanessa recalls an heirloom dish that has traveled across the miles and stood the test of time.

Habichuelas: Navy Beans with Chorizo and Tomato Chutney

YOU CAN’T RUSH A GOOD THING

JOANNE BOSTON-KWANHULL

Joanne is never on time. She is the last one to arrive at school, and the last one to be picked up. When is it worth it to wait and when is it not?

Monggo (Balatong): Stewed Mung Beans with Pork Belly Sofrito

DRIVING HOME

LEONARDO ESPERACION FERNANDEZ JR.

MasterChef runner-up Leo Fernandez journals his grueling day in the kitchen as he navigates his way home in a city he hardly knows.

Pinakbet at Bagnet: Mixed Vegetables with Bagoong Sauce and Crispy Pork Belly

COOKING BY HINDSIGHT

FRANCIS C. MACANSANTOS

A culinarily challenged professor strums rambunctious renderings of the Beatles for food until a former

cook for the rebel army comes into his life.

Dinendeng: Mixed Vegetable and Shrimp Stew with Red Wine

CHAPTER 5: NOODLES

THE PRICE OF FREEDOM

MONICA MACANSANTOS

Monica’s father wants to murder someone when he sees a skeletal version of his only child walking toward him.

Pansit Bihon Guisado: Stir-Fried Rice Noodles with Shrimp and Adobo

EVERY SUNSET

NASTASHA ALLI

Nastasha has zero dollars to her name and no cooking skills when she immigrates to Canada. How can she make a home?

Pansit Palabok: Rice Noodles with Seafood and Thick Shrimp Sauce

A PLAIN BOWL OF NOODLES

PAOLO ESPANOLA

Saudi-raised New Yorker Paolo Espanola, a believer that food can be used to solve most of the world’s problems, muses over a bowl of noodle soup.

Pansit Molo: Meat and Shrimp Dumpling Soup with Shiitake Mushrooms

CHAPTER 6: RICE

CAN’T HAVE ONE WITHOUT THE OTHER

MIKE CORBYN

There is only one thing Mike can’t stand when he is shipped off to boarding school at the age of 13. What can he do to cope?

Arandobo Balls: Deep-Fried Chicken Adobo–Stuffed Rice Balls

MY PLATE IS FULL

MARILYN RANADA DONATO

Marilyn has it all: a husband, six kids, a career, sports, her own cookbook, and a maid. Her perfect life turns upside down when the maid leaves.

Meat, Seafood, and Vegetable Paella

THAT WHICH WE CALL CHAMPORADO

RAY ESPIRITU

Ray’s telephone conversation with his mom fizzes with tension until their discussion veers to his favorite childhood dish.

Champorado: Sweet Chocolate Porridge

SUMMER OF ’92

ADRIAN BRIONES

Summer has just ended, and it is time to go back to school. This dish gets Adrian through his most loathed subject—math.

Ginataang Bilo-Bilo: Sticky Rice Balls, Sago, and Jackfruit in Coconut Milk

CHAPTER 7: DESSERTS

FINDING SYLVANA

NOUEL OMAMALIN

You eat rice for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert, mocked his colleagues. Chef Pâtissier Nouel proves there is more to Filipino desserts than rice cakes.

Sylvana: Balls of Almond and Candied Lemon Peel Meringue Filled with Coffee Praline Buttercream

THE PEAR-SHAPED AVOCADO

RODELIO AGLIBOT

From his Filipino upbringing in Hawaii to the first restaurant he opened in LA, Rodelio shares the story behind one of his signature dishes.

Avocado Mousse with Raspberry Sauce and Lychee Granita

ANATOMY OF A FILIPINO PARTY

TIMPLA

Kristina, Katrina, Aniceto, and Paolo transport a table of 10 strangers in their Washington, DC, row house to family parties from their childhood.

Cassava Cake with Candied Pecans and Honey-Roasted Apple

UBE: A TASTE OF CHILDHOOD

MARK CORBYN

Mark’s 13-year-old peers can wrap their heads around spicy honey and ginger or even rhubarb ice cream, but not purple yam ice cream.

Ube Halaya Semifreddo: Purple Yam Ice Cream

A PERFECT ENDING TO A MEAL

RONI BANDONG

Roni and her nanny were a dynamic duo. After her nanny’s death, a vision awakens Roni to what could have been a perfect ending to a meal.

Coffee Sans Rival: Meringue, Coffee Buttercream, and Cashew Layer Cake

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INDEX

FOREWORD

BY JOHN BIRDSALL

WE TEND TO THINK of a cuisine as a monolithic thing, hewn from rock by ancient hands and hauled by some other generation long ago into the present, for us to passively inherit. Take cassoulet, for example. In all its local variations, it is a dish most Americans reckon as fixed in French tradition, locked in a rustic past we can’t really imagine. It no longer feels like a living dish, capable of being fully modern. It’s an expression of cultural nostalgia, honoring a history whose arc ended before we were born. By contrast, Filipino food—the cooking born in the island archipelago—is being carried around the world by hands that are still working and adapting their inherited culinary knowledge; Filipino food is as dynamic and fluid as molten lava, morphing to both fit and transform landscapes far from the Philippines.

This book of recipes—each framed by a story of discovery and reinvention—is an act of a global cuisine in the making. It’s proof that cooking is a living art. Like language, it’s constantly changing as its practitioners adapt to new places, new realities.

Like language, the art of cooking is constantly changing as its practitioners adapt to new places, new realities.

My own introduction to Filipino food came in the form of a dish my future mother-in-law made me, many years ago, on a sweltering morning in Chicago. I’d flown there from San Francisco with my new boyfriend, who had only just come out to his Ilocano parents. We’d arrived late the night before—I barely had time to exchange awkward hellos with Perry’s parents before they went off to bed. The next morning, as Perry slept, I made my way to the kitchen, where his mom, Prespedina, was watching Oprah on a little TV set. The awkwardness of the night before was still there; it was a presence even more commanding than Oprah.

Prespedina offered me breakfast. I could have cereal, she said, or—if I wanted to—I could try our food, as she called it: a bowl of chocolate meat. She giggled a little when she said it. Perry had told me about chocolate meat, or dinuguan. I knew that it was made with pork blood and offal. And I knew, by the way Prespedina asked, that I had to try it.

It was delicious, rich, bright with vinegar—it had soul. It represented the new realities both Prespedina and I were adapting to that morning: she, to having a gay son who had brought his boyfriend home; me, to trying a new cuisine that seemed to express both yearning for a distant homeland and an adaptation to a place of trees, sweeping green lawns, and neighbors who were mostly Irish American. On that now-distant morning, a Filipino dish was more than an expression of nostalgia. It was a single brick in the building of a new world.

John Birdsall is the author of the forthcoming book James Beard: The Man Who Ate Too Much. He won the James Beard Award for food and culture writing in 2014 and 2016.

INTRODUCTION

W HAT IS F ILIPINO FOOD ? asked my Italian mother-in-law, whose culinary repertoire doesn’t stray out of the bounds of traditional Italian cooking.

I cleared my throat. I needed to buy some time to collect my thoughts before I answered. How do you define a cuisine that’s a hodgepodge of numerous foreign influences and is almost as varied as the 7,000-plus islands that make up the nation?

Umm, I said, pulling my earlobe with my thumb and forefinger, trying to silence the mocking voice in my head. It’s a mix of different kinds of cuisines.

Struggling to find the words to accurately express the complexity of my homeland’s culinary traditions, I started to babble about the history of the Philippines and the many influences that molded the food, from the Malay settlers and the Chinese migrants and traders, to the Spanish and American colonizers and so on. (Yeah, she’s dying to get a Philippine history lecture.) And about how, in general, it’s not as spicy-hot as the food of nearby countries such as Thailand and Malaysia (Right, as if she’s tried Thai and Malaysian food), though some regions in the Philippines like their dishes hot. (Huh? Is it or is it not hot?) And how it’s heavily rice based (Oh, she’ll think risotto!)—not like risotto, but rice cooked separately and then eaten together with another dish. (Another dish? A Filipino dish? So back to the question What is Filipino food? Brava, Jacqueline! You’ve further alienated your mother-in-law from Filipino food!)

My mother-in-law nodded her head, as though she understood, but I knew my explanation was anything but clear to her. She was as clueless about Filipino food as she was before she posed the question. Her nod was out of sympathy, to relieve me from my agony. She never asked me about Filipino food again.

Trying to define Filipino cuisine in a few sentences will always fall short in capturing its essence.

Complex and diverse, Filipino cuisine is ineffable. Trying to define it in a few sentences will always fall short in capturing its essence. To make sense of Filipino food, it has to be experienced, with all the emotions and sensations that are associated with it.

If only I had thought to tell my mother-in-law my story about torta, or omelet, a favorite childhood dish. If only I told her about my lola (grandma) pounding the heads she severed from fresh shrimp in the kitchen while her transistor radio blared melodrama. How the rich, tomalley-like flavor she extracted from the shrimp heads perked up the dish’s flavor. How she cleverly packed the stovetop frittata with as much substance as flavor to balance our diet and feed three families on a shoestring budget. The way she relentlessly beat egg whites with a fork from goo to stiff foam with the same hand she used to beat us, her grandchildren, to form us into better shapes of ourselves. The way she made an insignificant, unremarkable egg strong enough to hold a cornucopia of ingredients together. And why—after many years have passed, and mindsets on child-rearing and good eating have changed—my memories of torta embody love without fear, flavor without bitterness.

A story, in addition to preparing the dish for my mother-in-law to see, smell, taste, and feel, would have given her a far better understanding of and connection to Filipino food than any definition I could have strung together. I missed out on what could have been a great opportunity to break the cultural barrier that stood between me and the other woman in my husband’s life.

An understanding, a connection, and—most of all—an experience. These are what the stories and recipes in this book will put on the table. As food is inevitably entwined with life, this book is as much about people as it is about food.

As food is inevitably entwined with life, this book is as much about people as it is about food.

Certain dishes evoke memories that, when explored, lead to heartwarming revelations. For me, the sound of a stone pestle crashing into a mortar; the smell of garlic, onions, and fresh shrimp extract simmering in a wok; the golden color and halo shape of a torta; the springy texture of the cooked beaten egg; the steam, caramelized minced meat, and brightly colored bits of vegetables that escape when the torta is sliced; and the savory yet subtly sweet first bite steer me back to the pains and joys of my childhood. When I examine different parts of my life through the lens of torta, I discover empathy and reconciliation.

I asked the book’s contributors to share memories and epiphanies accessed through Filipino food. To take their reflections further, each of them developed a recipe inspired by a Filipino dish that means a lot to them. Even though the dishes are common in the Philippines, every contributor put his or her own stamp on it. While most may have evolved in varying degrees from the traditional Filipino versions to suit the author’s new way of life, all are, nevertheless, anchored to an authentic Filipino experience.

I am awed by the contributions of these men and women. They spoke from the heart and cooked from the soul. As I read and edited their stories, I felt their emotions, saw their worlds through their eyes, and walked in their shoes. As I tested and tasted the recipes, I was drawn to a deeper appreciation of the cuisine’s versatility and the people’s resilience. Our food has been shaped by indigenous hands that, when exposed to hundreds of years of foreign influences, adopted and adapted what they could to their means and liking. The result was a cuisine—morphed in the homeland, distinct from its origins. As millions of Filipinos have traveled abroad and set down roots beyond the archipelago of 7,641 islands, our food, as exemplified by the recipes in this book, persists—and, in fact, is gaining the recognition it deserves in the mainstream. I don’t think it’s because the dishes resist change. It’s because they and the people who create them are able to adapt to new environments and new times, while staying true to themselves. Borrowing the words of Franklin D. Roosevelt: There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.

This collection is a buffet. Emotions and flavors from bold to subtle, rustic to refined, and everything in between blaze, just like the cuisine. But though each piece recounts a unique, deeply personal experience, all speak of truths that are universal.

I hope that this book will help you understand what Filipino food is about in a more profound way—the way you would experience it if a Filipino family member or friend told you about it. If you, like my mother-in-law, are not familiar with the cuisine, this book will shed light; if you are familiar with the food, you will see dishes in a light you’ve never seen them in before. But, most of all, I hope that through this book, you will join us in embracing our differences and celebrating our commonalities—regardless of your food beginnings.

ABOUT THE RECIPES

The recipes in this book are developed with you in mind—an open-minded person who, every now and then, is in search of heightened food experiences. They are for those who’d like to have a taste of Filipino food at home—wherever that may be—without having to travel far