Burnt Lumpia: Filipino Food | Filipino Recipes | Culinary Hijinks

Chicken Pipian

Between the years of 1565-1815, Spain transported goods between Mexico and the Philippines (two of Spain's colonies) via the Manila-Acapulco Galleons. These giant wooden ships traveled across the Pacific from Manila to Acapulco only once or twice a year. Once or twice a year may not seem like much, but once or twice a year for 250 years (250 years!!!) would rack up some serious frequent floater miles, no?

The galleons brought New World crops to the Philippines such as chocolate, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, pineapples, bell peppers, jicama, chayote, avocado, peanuts and annatto. And because the galleons traveled in both directions, the Mexicans received rice, sugarcane, tamarind, coconuts and mangoes from Philippine soil. As a result of the galleon trade, there are a number of Filipino dishes that have roots in Mexico.

One such dish is Chicken Pipian. In Mexico, where the dish originated, Chicken Pipian usually consists of chicken cooked in a mole sauce seasoned with epazote and thickened with ground pumpkin seeds. The Filipino version (mostly served in Vigan, Ilocos Sur—another stop on the trade route) features chicken cooked in a sauce seasoned with epazote, colored with annatto seeds, and thickened with ground toasted rice and/or ground peanuts.

If a sauce thickened with rice and peanuts sounds familiar, it's probably because you are thinking of Kare-Kare—a Pinoy dish of oxtails braised in a peanut sauce. So yes, Chicken Pipian (the Pinoy version, at least) is more or less a poultry version of Kare-Kare (but that's another recipe for another time)

Considering the epazote, annatto, and peanuts (all ingredients introduced from Mexico to the Philippines) its easy to see that Mexican Pipian and Filipino Pipian have more in common than name alone.

Chicken Adobo and 40 Cloves of Garlic

Whoever said, "Too much of a good thing is never good at all," has probably never been to a wedding with an open bar, has not found a go-to all-you-can-eat sushi joint, nor has ever had Chicken and 40 Cloves of Garlic. Unlimited alcohol, unlimited raw fish, and a chicken that seemingly threw itself on a garlic grenade are all good things.

Although the first two items in that list may be subjective (you know, if you're a teetotaling fish-o-phobe), there is no arguing the third. In today's post-BAMmage culinary landscape, who doesn't like a shizzload of garlic thrown in their food--especially garlic that's been sauteed in chicken grease and butter, and then slowly braised until buttery, sweet, and soft?

Such is the case with Chicken and 40 Cloves of Garlic--a dish of Provencal origins that features a whole chicken roasted along with, yup, you guessed it, 40 whole cloves of garlic(!).

Why 40 cloves of garlic? I have no clue. Perhaps it's because "Chicken and 40 Cloves" sounds a bit more impressive than say, "Chicken and 3 to 4 Heads of Garlic" (which might make for an awesome band name). Who knows?

But what I do know is that there is perhaps no other chicken dish that takes such great advantage of the more mild and sweet qualities of garlic. Well, except of course, Chicken Adobo. So why not combine the two dishes?

And that's what I did. Chicken Adobo with 40 Cloves of Garlic.

Turkey, Sweet Potato, and Cranberry Empanadas

As someone who sometimes celebrates Thankgiving sans turkey [insert GASP here], I'm always looking for new and different ways to incorporate said bird into my recipes around this time of year.

Recently, while trying out different Filipino empanada recipes for a little project I've been working on, I started thinking about the raisins sometimes seen in Filipino, Spanish, and Mexican empanadas. (Spain and Mexico both have had quite the influence on Filipino cuisine via colonialism and the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade, and empanadas happen to be a tasty result of that Spanish/Mexican influence).

So, while considering raisins, the dominoes started to fall.

For a change of pace and a different kind of sweetness, I thought of using dried cranberries in place of the raisins. And with the dried cranberries, turkey soon came to mind--I'd use ground turkey instead of beef or pork. And finally, because sweet potatoes (AKA Kamote) are used quite often in Filipino cooking, they were another logical addition for me.

Suddenly, without intending to, I had stumbled upon a Thanksgiving-themed empanada. Eureka! It was kinda like the time I had stumbled upon a Groundhog Day-themed adobo. OK, so that probably never happened.

Nevertheless, these empanadas are like Thanksgiving squished into a conveniently parceled pie. With these handy portable turnovers, you can now take Thanksgiving anywhere! Take that, iPad!

Picnic for the Planet & Some Fried Chicken

This Friday April 22 is Earth Day. And to celebrate, The Nature Conservancy is encouraging people all around the world to step outside and head to their favorite outdoor spot to enjoy good food in the company of great people.

Picnic for the Planet is a celebration of the planet we live on, the food it provides and the people we share it with--after all, there's more to Earth Day than just recycling; our food choices can have huge impacts on our environment as well. According to The Nature Conservancy, you can take the following actions to make better food choices for the planet:

1. Eat Smart: Learn what's in your food, where it came from, and who it impacts.
2. Eat Local: Where possible, buy food that is in season from local food producers.
3. Eat Sustainably: Eat sustainable seafood — one of the only things that we eat that we still get from the wild.
4. Eat Green: Eat more fruits and vegetables — it's good for your health and the planet's.
5. Eat Out: Join us in the Picnic for the Planet!

To participate in Picnic for the Planet, people can choose a location and plot a picnic here: meetup.com/natureconservancy to help spread the word.

Heck, at the very least just head outside on your own and have a private picnic with some good eats.

What's that you say? What should you throw in your picnic basket? Well, chefs around the country (like Mario Batali, Alice Waters, and Eric Ripert) have all offered up their favorite picnic recipes to provide some outdoor eating inspiration.

And if those recipes aren't enough, how about some Filipino Fried Chicken from yours truly?

Wingin' It, Filipino Style!

Like most sports-watching, bar-hopping American males, I can ingest copious amounts of poultry flight appendages in one sitting--even more so when these appendages are varnished with a spicy glaze. Yes, I'm a chicken wing fiend. Buffalo wings, red hots, hot wings--whatever the moniker, I'll stuff my face with them.

In fact, I've found that my chicken wing consumption is directly correlated with the amount of televisions in my immediate vicinity. For example, I have a modest-sized television at home, so I eat a modest amount of hot wings as a couch potato--about 2 pounds worth (that's modest for me). But when I'm at a sports bar or other such venue and am surrounded by dozens of giant flat-screens, I tend to overindulge a bit--perhaps all the blinky lights distract me from the burgeoning pain in my belly.

Anyhizzle, with Super Bowl Sunday fast approaching, I figured now was a good time to unleash my Adobo Chicken Wing recipe upon the masses--or at least for the Filipino-philes that are also football-philes--who need a new hot wing recipe for their Super Bowl party (or for any occasion, really).

In all honesty though, this isn't a true adobo recipe (i.e. the chicken isn't braised in the necessary adobo potion of garlic, black pepper, bay leaf, vinegar, and soy/salt). Rather, it's a recipe for Crispy Chicken Wings in a Spicy-Sweet Adobo Glaze (the glaze does contain the necessary adobo potion). Despite the lack of a braise, these adobo wings are simple to prepare and tasty to boot. Trust me.

Lugaw is for the Children

Generally speaking, babies (of the human variety) can begin to eat semi-solid food between 4 and 6 months of age. So when my kid hit the four-month mark, and our pediatrician gave us the green light to shove spoonfuls of rice cereal into his mouth (the baby's mouth, not the pediatrician's), I was rather excited. As soon as my kid got used to the idea of rice cereal in his maw, I would begin gifting his palate with little tastes, here and there, of Filipino food.

Here in the U.S., the introductory food of choice for toothless lil' babies seems to be rice cereal because it is easy to digest and relatively bland in flavor. In the Philippines though, a rice porridge called "Lugaw" is often the first semi-solid food given to babies.

Like rice cereal, Lugaw (looh-gow) makes for a wonderful first food because it too is relatively easy for babies to digest. But unlike rice cereal, Lugaw is anything but bland as this Filipino porridge contains the essence and soul of a chicken (mwahahaha!).

Steamy Kitchen's Chicken Adobo

Since welcoming our new son into the world this past summer, the wife and I have seemingly fielded 101 different variations of the same question:

"Are you getting enough sleep?"

I'm sure every new parent knows what I'm talking about, but after you have your first kid, someone with pitying eyes will inevitably look upon you as you're tending to your crying/wailing/crapping baby and inquire as to whether or not you are getting any shut-eye.

For example, when seeing me for the first time after my son was born, a buddy of mine said to me, "Geez dude. You look like a bowl of sh*t warmed over. You getting any sleep?"

As the saying goes, when a friend compares you to temperate poo, enemies are unnecessary. Or something like that.

Anyways, while a lack of rest may have had an (obvious?) effect on my haggard appearance, I think there are more factors at play here. Sure, everyone warns new parents about sleep deprivation, but no one ever talks about kitchen deprivation. Eff sleep! I've got no time to cook anymore!

So as much as I find solace in slumping into bed and face-planting into a pillow (if only to nod off for just a few minutes), I also cherish each and every convenient and quick-cooking recipe I come across since time is now at such a premium.

And that is exactly why I was so excited to finally get my hands on Jaden Hair's The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook: 101 Asian Recipes Simple Enough for Tonight's Dinner. As I'm sure everyone knows, Jaden is the author extraordinaire of the Steamy Kitchen food blog.

But in addition to being a superstar blogger, Jaden is also a supermom with kids of her own. If Jaden could write an entire cookbook while simultaneously raising a family, I figured I could bang out one of her recipes while simultaneously propping my baby up in front of the TV my wife played with our son.

I was right.

Tinola: Filipino Chicken Soup

As new parents, the wife and I have received some child-rearing tips from, oh, just about everyone we know. I'm not saying we're not appreciative of such tips, but some of these pointers have been downright unusual. Not surprisingly, the strangest pointers have come from my own mother:

• "Make sure you massage his head so it will stay round."
• "You should leave the lights on at night when he sleeps, so he gets used to it."

I know I'm new to this whole parenting thing, but I'm perfectly satisfied with the current roundness of my kid's head, and leaving the lights on at night just makes no sense to me. Ironically enough, I can rest a beer on my own head because it's so flat, and I'm nocturnal. Strange, that.

So despite my mother's good intentions (at least I think her intentions are good), I've pretty much ignored her "sage" advice. However, there was one nugget of knowledge that spilled from my mother's mouth that did kinda sorta make sense: "Tinola is good for increasing breast milk production."

"I can produce breast milk?" I asked my mom.

"Not you, your wife!" she corrected me.

I told you, I'm new to this.

Anyways, Tinola is a simple-to-make rustic Filipino chicken soup. Like the chicken soups of most other cultures, Tinola is also known for its healing and restorative powers--helping to recover from cold and flu symptoms--this much I knew. But I had never before heard that Tinola was also good for nursing and feeding newborns.

So I wasn't sure if my mother was just perpetuating some old Filipino wives' tale, or if Tinola indeed possessed any lactic magic (I'm very pleased with myself that I came up with that rhyme). But if cooking a pot of Tinola would make things easier for my wife, and indirectly get some Filipino food into my kid, I was all for it.

My Adidas

Chicken feet are gnarly-lookin' things aren't they? What with the pink-toned lizard skin and the talon-equipped toes and non-opposable "thumb".

Ick.

From a purely aesthetic standpoint, the foot of a chicken is indeed quite creepy in appearance. And depending on how a particular chicken is raised, his or her feet will either spend a good amount of time standing in the chicken's own hot feces within a small confined cage (regular industrial, corn-fed, mass-marketed chicken), or hopefully running around out in the open on dirt, grass, and the hot feces of other farm animals (natural, cage-free, free-range, blah blah blah chicken).

Double ick.

Now, if you can get past the pink lizard look of chicken feet, and if you can get past the notion of where those feet could have possibly spent all their walking (or standing) hours, and if you are a bit of an adventurous cook, then you may find that chicken feet can actually be a wonderful ingredient to use in the kitchen.

Not only can chicken feet be used to make a wonderfully rich and gelatinous homemade chicken stock, but they can also be transformed into tasty bits of goodness on which to nibble.

Yes, nibble.

That's right. Chicken feet are delicious.

For instance, the menus of Chinese dim sum joints often offer fried/braised/steamed chicken feet under the moniker of "Phoenix Claws" (perhaps risen from the heap of unwanted chicken parts).

And in the Philippines, street food vendors can be found grilling marinated chicken feet that are playfully nicknamed "Adidas" (three toes = three stripes). Similarly, grilled chicken heads are referred to as "helmets," and pig ears are known as the ever-so-80's "Walkman". I'm not making this up.

Filipinos. Clever marketers of food we are.

Anyhoo, I'm sure there are many more cultures with a chicken foot fetish. But for most chicken foot recipes that I've found, you have to first boil the feet to tenderize and soften them up a bit. As such, I decided to kill two birds with one stone, er, uh, boil chicken feet for two separate recipes: Chicken Stock and Grilled Adidas.

What the Duck?!!

After concocting a batch of duck adobo confit a few weeks back, I've had quite the surplus of duck fat sitting idly in my fridge. In addition to the tub of duck fat that was still protecting my last two legs of confit from the harsh elements of the outside world, I had another tub of duckboob grease at my disposal as well.

As I mentioned in my confit post, I've used some of that fat to fry some garlic-fried rice. But for the last few weeks I've also used duck fat for sauteeing veggies, whipping up vinaigrettes, browning chicken, rubbin' on my elbows (I get ashy), and silencing squeaky door hinges (it's the WD-40 of the kitchen). It's been an absolute cluster-duck for me these past few weeks.

In fact, duck hasn't been this prevalent in my life since Webby Vanderquack and Doofus Drake chilled with me on weekday afternoons.

Ah, DuckTales. It's a classic.

Anyhoo, I decided to put a stop to all this here-and-there use of duck fat and put the magic grease to the test on a larger scale--I broke out the cast iron pan and was ready for some fryin'! Oooh-whoooo-hoooo!

Of course, the first thing that may come to mind when mentioning frying and duck fat is perhaps potatoes--as I'm sure duck fat fries are quite tasty.

But I had something else in mind--especially after doing some reconnaissance on Ilocano Empanadas during my recent trip to the Philippines.

Empanada vendor in Batac Ilocos Norte, Philippines.