Burnt Lumpia: Filipino Food | Filipino Recipes | Culinary Hijinks

Baon Blues

If memory serves me right, my very first lunchpail was a beat up plastic yellow box that featured Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the whole Peanuts gang on it. It was a hand-me-down from my older brother and significantly declined in coolness, and increased in overall wussiness, by a factor of 10 by the time I graduated Kindergarten.

As a first-grader, I was able to grasp the importance of the socio-psycho-economic perceptions put forth by one's choice of a food containment vessel (I've always been an observant lad). For instance:

• Peanuts lunchbox = "Please punch me in the face."
• Casper the Friendly Ghost lunchbox = "Please drag me into the boy's bathroom and stuff my head into the urinal."
• Anything featuring laserbeams, superheroes, or laserbeams = "Don't mess with me or there'll be hell to pay, scoundrels!"

So I articulated the pros and cons of a newly purchased lunchbox to my mother (i.e. cried until I got it, or until my dad put me in a Figure-4 leg lock). After many tears, and a strained anterior-cruciate ligament, I was bestowed with a gleaming metal lunchbox illustrated with the likes of Spiderman, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, and others that would surely beat the stuffing out of Peppermint Patty, Linus, and Lucy in a steel cage match (Well, maybe not Peppermint Patty. She's a tough cookie).

My new lunchbox was awesome and my playground cred shot through the roof. I didn't have to wait in line for the monkey bars or for the drinking fountain as my peers gifted me with "cutsies" upon my arrival. Coincidence? I think not! Once, while sipping milk from my Marvel Superheroes thermos I saw an anonymous egg salad sandwich sail through the air and nail a kid square in the head whose lunchbox was emblazoned with Care Bears. Public school, a barbarous lot we were.

Yet, as we were often taught at that age, it's what's on the inside that counts. Terribly cliche, but it was especially apropos of lunchboxes and what was carried inside these lunchboxes.

Dueling Noodles

I have had my bouts with difficult and time-consuming recipes, and recipes that I just could not figure out on my own. But no matter how much I get my ass kicked in the kitchen, I always feel rejuvenated in between recipes.

It's kinda like pushing the select button in between rounds of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out: I get all my stamina back and I'm ready to punch King Hippo in the mouth.

Whoooosh.

Sorry, that might've gone over some of your heads. What I'm trying to say is that the more Filipino food I make, the more confidence I gain in my Pinoy Prowess in the kitchen. And, as I'm slowly discovering, Filipino cooking can be incredibly easy (with a little bit of practice, of course).

With that said, there are usually three dishes one first learns to make when embarking on a journey of Filipino cuisine: Lumpia, Adobo, and Pancit (The Big 3).  These three dishes are, generally speaking, easy to prepare. So that's probably why the Filipino cook learns them first.  Not coincidentally, these are also the first dishes that are usually fed to non-Filipinos with which they can dip their toes and test the waters of Filipino yumminess. Yeah, yumminess.

If you're keeping score at home, my cracks at the Big 3 are as follows:

Lumpia - Check and check
Adobo - Check, check, check, and check
Pancit - Check

Pancit (pronounced pahn-sit) is a Filipino dish of noodles that comes in as many forms as there have been varying iPod versions. And as you can see from my Big 3 list above, I've only dabbled once in the Pancit department when I made sotanghon (another type of Pancit).

Why haven't I made more Pancit recipes? Well, even though I've made Sotanghon before, I still have this stigma in my brain that Pancit is a difficult dish to prepare, and I'm lazy. Difficulty + Laziness = Beer.

But, after trying out Pat's Pancit recipe over at The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook, I was finally able to add another check next to Pancit on my Big 3 list.

Baby-Back Ribs Adobo

According to my handy-dandy copy of Memories of Philippine Kitchens, the word "Adobo" refers to a condiment of oil, garlic, and marjoram in Spain.  For Mexicans (Oaxacans to be more specific), "Adobo" is a marinade of guajillo chiles, garlic, cider vinegar, thyme, bay leaves, avocado leaves, oregano, black peppercorns, and cinnamon.  For us Filipinos, "Adobo" is not a condiment or marinade, but instead the word refers to a method of cooking anything in a mixture of vinegar, salt (and/or soy), garlic, black peppercorns, and bay leaf.

Filipino Adobo, like many many other things in our culture, has a Spanish name. When the Spanish rolled into the Philippines a few hundred years ago, they saw our adobo, thought it looked a little bit like their adobo, and ultimately imposed their name onto our dish (among other things). That's hegemony for you. In addition, the use of soy sauce is of Chinese influence--the oldest forms of adobo were made with salt and no soy. And on top of that, the use of Heinz apple cider vinegar (a relatively new staple in many adobo recipes) can be attributed to the arrival of Americans to the Philippines at the start of the 20th century--although Filipinos have always had vinegars of their own.

In spite of its Spanish name, Chinese soy sauce, and American vinegar, a dish of adobo is inherently Filipino: we've been stewing meats in salt and vinegar throughout the ages.

Although Filipinos have probably been making adobo for millennium, there isn't really a standard recipe written in stone--every household has their own version.  For me, I'm most used to chicken, pork, and squid adobos, but there can also be adobos with vegetables and other types of meat.

I've attempted an adobo recipe from Memories of Philippine Kitchens before, and I wasn't too pleased with the results. That chicken adobo wasn't terrible, I just wasn't used to coconut milk in my adobo. With that said, I decided to give the "Memories" cookbook another try with another one of its adobo recipes: Baby-Back Ribs Adobo.

This recipe had no coconut milk but had plenty of vinegar, garlic, black pepper, and the unusual addition of jalepeno peppers. This version of adobo was tangy, piquant, and just a bit spicy. It was perfect.

Pointing in the Right Direction

Filipino-Americans are the second largest Asian-American group in the United States behind the Chinese (damn those Chinese!).  More specifically though, we're THE largest group in the United States hailing from Southeast Asia.

Whoohoo! We're #1! In your face Thailand, Vietnam, and whoever else Wikipedia says is in SE Asia! In your face!

Ahem. Uh, sorry for the seeming hostilities. I mean no disrespect. That is a foam finger of peace! I love all my Asian-American brethren. I really do. I'm just, just, jealous.  That's right, I can admit jealousy.  You see, in spite of having a very large presence here in the U.S., Filipinos still lag behind our Asian homies when it comes to the dining scene.  Good Filipino restaurants are few and far between here.

That isn't to say there aren't any, but relatively speaking, there aren't many Filipino restaurants. All around the cities and from coast to coast, there are countless Chinese and Japanese restaurants. And the delicious cuisines of India, Vietnam, and Thailand (among others) are growing in popularity as well. You see how that can make a brother envious?

I'm sure there are a number of reasons why Filipino food hasn't caught on in much the same way as the Curries, Phos, and Pad Thais of our Asian compatriots. For the public at large, there's probably an apprehension to try new and different things. With that said though, there was also a time in this country when sushi was seen as strange and foreign.

For me however, I don't frequent Filipino restaurants very often because I'm constantly comparing everything to my mother's cooking and therefore, find myself being overly critical of perfectly fine food. I do realize the hypocrisy in all of this--I want to promote Filipino food, but I've yet to review a Filipino restaurant on this blog.

So, to keep from talking out of both sides of my mouth (and out of my ass for that matter), I'm glad to say that I've serendipitously discovered a very good Filipino restaurant.

Filipino Pantry Chicken Caesar Salad

Imagine, if you will, a Chicken Caesar Salad.

Cool. Crisp. Creamy.

Chickeny.

A classic dish, some may say.

Behold!

A Chicken Caesar Salad!

It looks innocent enough doesn't it? But, that is no ordinary Chicken Caesar Salad.

Look closer.

Closer.

Closer still!!!

That is a salad that has traveled the space-time continuum. A salad, constructed from the unusual. A salad so familiar, yet... so... strange.

What's so strange about it you ask?

This salad was created from the following ingredients...

Behold!!!

Gasp!

Those things can't combine to create a classic chicken caesar salad can they?

Oh, yes they can. Yes they can!

Mwahahahahahaaaaa!

Ladies and Gentlemen. You've just crossed over into...

The Filipino Pantry Zone!