P is for the Philippines

P is for the Philippines

Lumpia filling

Compared with last week’s bleak outlook in terms of available countries and cuisines, P felt like hitting the gastronomical jackpot. Sure, it may not have the biggest selection of countries to go on, but it is not messing around. For starters, who in their right mind doesn’t LOVE a Portuguese nata? Y’all know them, for sure – those crispy, gooey, sweet-as-you-like custard tarts to which, upon purchasing, you say ‘oh gracious, I couldn’t possibly eat more than one’, only to find yourself soon 7 natas in and wishing someone would come along with a little wagon and drag you and your sorry excuse for willpower home. Yeh, those ones. And what about pierogi from Poland – another national take on everyone’s favourite carb-fest, the dumpling? A little plate of those bad boys smothered in sour cream is surely the stuff of everyone’s dreams (or perhaps digestion-induced nightmares). However, probably the most obvious choice this week for me was Peru because a) I’ve been there, many moons ago, and b) Peruvian food is something of a darling of the food scene at the moment. When I visited this wonderful land, I was a mere 16 years old and so my palate was a little less discerning than it is now. Indeed, my lasting memories of Peruvian food are the radioactive yellow of ‘Inca Kola’ (this really is the stuff of dreams, folks) and a tasty little dish of deep fried guinea pig. Yep, there we were, a bunch of rag-tag teenagers from rural England, breaking off limbs and gnawing on the ribs of what several of us had, until that very moment, only ever considered as a rubbish version of a pet rabbit. Disconcerting it may have been, but oooooeeeeeeeiiiiii it was GOOD! But even the combined goodness of Portuguese, Polish and Peruvian grub was not enough to tempt me away from one cuisine that is revered deeply by my fellow eating fanatic, Ms Shelley Pascual. And so, without further ado, I present to you…the Philippines!

Rollin' dat lumpia

Just a quick word about Shelley: a former work colleague and absolutely tip-top friend, Shelley has seen a lot of the world. Just when you think you’ve visited a lot of places and are silently congratulating yourself on being so very worldly, Shelley will just casually slip in that she’s been here, there and everywhere. Oh, and there too. Twice. Sometimes one may begrudge such traveling, but Shell is such a class act that it simply makes you wish that you were a little more like her. She’s also an A+ freelance journalist (check it out: https://shelleypascual.wordpress.com/), mountain biker and, importantly for this blog, daughter of Filipino parents. Thankfully, she also luuuurves food (check out her and her sister’s drool-worthy Instagram account @pascualeats: https://www.instagram.com/pascualeats/) and on several occasions cooked up some bangin’ dishes straight from her mum’s repertoire. So, while I may not have ever been to the Philippines, given Shell’s love of food and support for this project, I decided that the Philippines was the only way to go!

Siopao filling

Well, it turns out the Philippines are pretty eclectic when it comes to food: almost anyone can join the party – the Spanish (there they are again), the Chinese, the Malays, the Japanese and, of course, the Americans. Over the years, all of these guys have made their mark on the food found on this string of islands, resulting in a real mixed bag of delights. Rice, for example, was first cultivated by a gaggle of Austronesians from Southern China and Taiwan waaaaay back in 3200 BCE. A bit later, a few more of those entrepreneurial Chinese got wise to the ways of the ‘Pines and started trading in a range of goods, bringing some staples with them in the process, such as soy sauce (or toyo), tokwa (a.k.a. tofu) and fish sauce, or patis. Via the Malay-Indonesian trade connection, Filipino cooks even had access to the cuisines of such faraway places as India and Arabia, a notable example being puto, a type of steamed rice cake that apparently has its origins in Kerala. Pretty nuts, eh? Remember, this is before the days of supermarkets, mass food production and social media telling us all about what we should be eating right this second (apparently kouign amann is big deal right now – no, I don’t know either). THEN those wily Spaniards found their way to the shores of the Philippines and introduced a whole host of new and exciting ingredients to the local melting pot, including chili, tomatoes, corn and potatoes, which they in turn had picked up on their looting spree in South America. And, of course, with the spreading of American popular culture, fast food now has a firm foothold in the Philippines, too. PHEWF, that’s a lot of influences right there! Take a breather while I gather my thoughts for a sec.

Before hitting the steam room

Still with me? HEY, WAKE UP – YOU THERE, I SEE YOU DOZING!!! Alright? Ok. So, with all those cuisines and flavours vying for attention, what on earth constitutes a typical Filipino dish? Well, rice, for one thing. One dish I remember eating at Shelley’s house is champorado, or chocolate rice pudding to you and me. It seems that over on the islands, rice is a legit meal any time of the day, for any course – get your fix at brekkie with a steaming plate of sinangag (garlic fried rice), a serving of the above mentioned puto with spicy pork blood stew (yes) in the afternoon, and maybe later a sweet treat in the form of a sticky rice pastry, you know, if you’re feeling a bit rice-deprived. The Filipinos also have their own version of what is essentially finger food, called pulutan. This name comes from the Filipino word pulutin, which means ‘to pick something up’, and what better thing to pick up than a random part of a pig that has been either fried, boiled, grilled or minced, or sometimes all of the above?! Shockingly, it looks like these folks enjoy their porcine delights even more than the Germans, making use of almost every single part of a little piggy – the pork rinds, intestines, mesenteries (no joke, a membrane inside the body cavity of an animal – gahhhhhhhhh! And it resembles a FLOWER – GAHHHHHHHHHH!!!), ears, cheeks and liver. That is some serious nose-to-tail eating.

POW siopao

Despite the vast array of bloody delicious looking fare to choose from (I’ll say right now that bakeries in the Philippines must be a hell of a good time, based on what I’ve seen), I decided to consult my dear amiga on what to cook. She first gave me a comprehensive list of all her favourite snacks (mostly sweet and deliiiiiiish) and then said, in perhaps slightly different words, “people also love a boodle fight”. What? A WHAT? Pens at the ready, people, this is a good one: a boodle fight is basically when a giant – and I mean GIANT – pile of food is plonked in the middle of a table and the diners simply go to town on it. No room for knives and forks here, it’s all about getting stuck in with your hands (hence the ‘fight’ part of the name). The story goes that this style of eating originated in the Philippine military, when hungry soldiers would delicately and oh-so-gracefully shovel in food using nothing more than what the good Lord gave them, symbolising brotherhood, camaraderie and equality. Nice! However fun a boodle fight sounds, it’s not massively practical unless an actual army comes for dinner. Instead, I decided to whip up a round of lumpia and siopao.

Lumpiaaaaaaaaaa

Lumpia is what most of us know as a spring roll – simply a load of veg chopped up and stuffed inside a lumpia wrapper, then fried until crispy. Nothing too tricky there. Interestingly, the Dutch word for spring roll is loempia, as they were introduced to the country via their Indonesian colony, where the snack is also called lumpia. For their part, the siopao landed in the Philippines thanks to the Chinese, and is a filled and steamed bun. Once again, bread is on the menu – HOORAH! For this experiment, I decided to go for a classic Chinese-style pork filling, with plenty of soy sauce, oyster sauce and star anise. What could go wrong? Miraculously, not a lot! The lumpia, as expected, were an absolute doddle. Wrapping the buggers up was definitely a test of patience and dedication to the cause (expertly managed by my wonderful mum, who got well into the rolling), but the filling is definitely not rocket science: get a load of veg, mainly beansprouts, fry it all up and Bob’s your uncle, you’re done. We had ours with a fish-sauce based dip and a satay-style dip – both very tasty indeed.

The siopao required a little more care and attention, as is often the case with diva bread dishes. The dough itself has a pretty high sugar content, but don’t worry, ‘cos you also chuck in a whole lotta salt to balance it out. So far, so artery-destroying. Of course, there’s loads of resting involved (euuuugh, breeeaaddd), so you can toddle off and do other important things in the meantime, like drink tea and rearrange your underwear drawer. It’s not just the dough that needs time to do its thing – the filling also sits gently bubbling away for a couple of hours, until the pork falls to pieces the second you look at it. Once both elements were ready, I rather cack-handedly put them all together, desperately trying – and miserably failing - to achieve some level of beauty, then popped them in a steamer for 15 minutes. And that was it! Sure enough, we ended up with some average-looking but mighty tasty steamed pork buns, accompanied by a sauce made from the leftover juices from the cooking pot. Despite the OBSCENE amount of time they take, I can definitely recommend giving siopao a bash, and lumpia too. My guinea pigs and I very much enjoyed them, so all that is left to say is thank you to Ms. Shelley for some spectacular suggestions – once again, you’ve nailed it!