Burnt Lumpia: Filipino Food | Filipino Recipes | Culinary Hijinks

A Trio of Sinigang

What little knowledge I have about Filipino American history dwarfs what I know about the history  of the Philippines.  Being born and raised in Southern California, and spending my entire scholastic career in the public schooling system doesn't exactly lend itself to learning about the historical accounts of a foreign nation--even if that foreign nation is where my ancestors are from.  I barely even know anything about American history.  I mean, the state of California is like, being ruled by the Terminator right now.  I'm serious, I just Googled it.

Anyhoo, because of this blatant and embarrassing lack of knowledge, I was especially pleased when I found out the theme for the latest go-around for Lasang Pinoy: Cooking for Heroes. For this latest installment of Lasang Pinoy, we were to choose a Philippine National Hero and then answer the age-old question that if this historical figure were invited over for dinner, what would you serve them?

For this Lasang Pinoy event, I decided I would choose a Filipino historical figure that I knew very little about.  Actually, I chose three historical figures: Fathers Mariano Gomez, Jose Apolonio Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora.  These three Filipino priests are better known under the acronym of GOMBURZA (Gomez, Burgos, Zamora) and fought for reform against the Spanish government.

GOMBURZA spearheaded a secularization movement to entrust Filipino parishes to the local Filipino clergy rather than being ruled by the corrupt Spanish friars.  Of course, the three priests were seen as hostile to the Spanish government and were eventually implicated in the Cavite Mutiny and were all executed on February 17, 1872.  The martyred priests became one of the calls to action among Filipinos to resist the Spanish and fight for Filipino independence.

For Fathers Gomez, Burgos, and Zamora, I decided to cook Sinigang--a Filipino sour soup somewhat similar to the Thai Tom Yum Soup or the Chinese Hot and Sour Soup. Except instead of using lemongrass and lime (tom yum) or vinegar (hot and sour soup) as the souring agent, Sinigang utilizes tamarind for its source of sour.  And since there were three priests, I decided to make three versions of Sinigang using three different sources of tamarind.

Kalamansi Granita

Conventional wisdom usually dictates:

“Don’t eat the yellow snow.”

It’s sage advice, really.  And it usually makes sense considering the circumstances that cause the yellowing of snow:

• Huskies
• Rabid Raccoons
• The Abominable Snowman, Yeti, and/or Sasquatch
• Tauntauns
• Drunken Eskimos Canadians Russians Cold Climate Drunks in general

However, this advice does not take into consideration my sublimely yellowy and snowy dessert: Kalamansi Granita.

Kalamansi Infused Vodka

Don't get all excited folks. Yes, those are kalamansi limes you see in the picture above. But no, they are not from my kalamansi tree Kaladocious Kalamansi IV. Kal didn't exactly come through for me this year. He's a failure. Kal's fruit only got as big as the "O" on your keyboard. Go ahead and look down at your keys, I'll still be here when you look back up at your screen.

Tiny right? As soon as Kal's kalamansi got that big, they just up and died. I don't know what went wrong, but maybe Kal needs another year of maturity before he starts producing actual fruit, or maybe the neighbor's cat peed on him one too many times. Poor bastard (Kal, not the cat).

Anyways, ever since I got Kal, I've had all these Kalamansi ideas floating around in my head and I didn't want them all to go by the wayside just because Kal sucks at his job. So last time I was at my parents' house, I went into their backyard and filled a couple of plastic bags full of kalamansi from my mom's tree (I'm hoping jealousy is a motivator for Kal).

Seeing that I love Filipino ingredients and booze, I decided to combine both of these things for my first Kalamansi recipe: Kalamansi Infused Vodka.

Filipino Americans and Gumbo

When speaking on the origins of Gumbo, perhaps the most celebrated of dishes in Louisiana, a hodge-podge of cultural and ethnic groups are usually given credit for its conception. And rightfully so.

For example, Africans are largely credited for Gumbo's name since the term "kigombo" is an African dialect word for okra - a key ingredient in many Gumbo recipes. The use of File powder as a thickening agent in Gumbo is credited to the Native Choctaw Indians who had many uses for the Sasafras leaves from which File is made. And of course, the French (by way of the French Acadians) are credited with the use of a roux as the base of any good Gumbo recipe.

But, there is perhaps one more group to add to this list of Gumbo progenitors – Filipinos. Filipinos first settled in the Bayou State in 1763, a very significant time in Louisiana history as it coincides with the arrival of the Acadians – a group of people who would later become known as Cajuns. Since October is Filipino American History Month here in the United States, I wanted to share  my theory that, in addition to the Cajuns and the various ethnicities already mentioned, Filipinos also contributed to Gumbo's emergence as an All-American dish.

Morimoto and Me

I still remember the first time I saw Masaharu Morimoto on TV.  It was a Friday evening and I was a junior in college.  Like most Friday nights at that time, I was sitting on my couch with beer in hand, killing time (and brain cells), and waiting to go out into the night to stumble about my college town.  As I was flipping through the channels that evening, I came across what seemed to be a badly dubbed kung-fu flick.  I watched as a silver-suited hero drove a spike through the head of an eel  and then deftly filleted the still spasming sea creature with a razor-sharp knife.

I was hooked.

As I would soon find out, this was not a kung-fu movie, it was something far better: Iron Chef.  And the silver-suited knife-wielding protagonist was none other than Morimoto himself.  Watching Iron Chef every Friday at 7pm became a sort of pre-partying ritual for me in college.  Good times.

Years later, after Morimoto had gained world-wide fame from his battles on Iron Chef, he opened his first restaurant in the U.S. in Philadelphia (he now has an outpost in New York as well).  I have been lucky enough to dine at Morimoto in Philadelphia, twice.  And to this day, the Omakase I experienced at Morimoto remains as THE best restaurant meals of my life.

So, when I found out that Morimoto would be at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles to promote his first cookbook, The New Art of Japanese Cooking, I put on my stalker shoes and hightailed it to Skirball.