Filipino Cuisine

Adobo is a simple, classic dish and the most versatile when it comes to Philippine cuisine. In my humble opinion, you can make just about anything with this wonder dish from seafood, poultry, pork, and vegetables.

Adobong sitaw is one of the top choices when it comes to a vegetable and meat combination. String beans or Sitaw/Sitao is a very common type of bean in the Philippines. Unlike the green beans ,these beans grow as long as 36 inches in length but, they are best when harvested at about 18 inches long. You will find string beans in all types of dishes from Pakbet, (mixed vegetable stew) to Sinigang, (sour soup) and with all sorts of stir-fried vegetables. Combine string beans and meat braised in soy sauce, vinegar, spices, and fat rendered from pork belly and you will have another mouth-watering Filipino dish.

As with most Asian countries, the most consumed food in the Philippines is rice. It is most often boiled and served during most meals. Left over rice is often fried with garlic and onion to make sinangag (fried rice), which is the typical way of Filipino style fried rice. One of the most common dishes served with classic fried rice are Silogs.
As most Filipinos know they come in several combinations, but the most common ones are Tapsilog, Longsilog, and Tocilog. One of the keys to making fried rice is using the right type of rice. For example, don’t use a rice that is very sticky or you will have a hard time incorporating all the ingredients. The rice will stick together rather than breaking apart. Also let the rice sit overnight in the fridge. This will help to break the rice apart a lot easier or at least let it totally cool off before cooking it. There are endless combinations when it comes to fried rice, but we are not going to talk about all of them today. Instead I’m going to show you my version which is pretty simple, but it has enough ingredients in it that it could be eaten by itself. This version of fried rice is inspired by the way the Chinese cook theirs, which also became very popular in the Philippines. The same common ingredients are found in both versions. Let’s check the pictures.. shall we?

Bicolano’s have been well known for their fiery obsession for centuries. They often use scalding-hot peppers as a main ingredient in most if not all of their vegetable dishes especially in the first district of Albay. Bicol Express is a very popular dish originated from Bicol, but oddly enough in Bicol from what I read, they don’t even call it Bicol Express. So the dish itself did originate from Bicol, but not the name. They say that this dish evolved from another dish called “gulay na may lada.” I also read that the reason they call this Bicol Express is that it makes you run for water like an express train as soon as you put it in your mouth. Whether this is how they got the name or not, I don’t know.

What I can tell you for sure is that this stuff is very good and thanks to the Bicolano’s for coming up with it. Bicol Express nowadays has so many variations that just about everyone that has cooked this dish had modified it to their own personal preference. They have to accommodate their level of obsession when it comes to scalding-hot peppers. I have looked at several recipes online about Bicol Express before coming up with my own recipe. Even though this is not the authentic Bicol Express, it’s still very good and it will not put you in a coma, but in order for me to use the original name it does have to have a certain degree of hotness.

My version of Bicol Express does not use scalding-hot peppers as a main ingredient, instead I used it as a secondary ingredient. I love hot peppers, but unfortunately my obsession with hot peppers does not quite measure up to the Bicolano’s, so mine is a milder version. Now let’s take a look at the picture!