Love Your Food

Tinapa or Smoked Fish – is the Filipino term for fish cooked or preserved through the process of smoking. This dish is served at breakfast, lunch, and definitely around dinnertime along with tomatoes, onion on the side and garlic flavored vinegar for dipping sauce. This will surely bring out your appetite. Most western cultures might not agree, but for most Filipino’s it would be a homerun.

Making Tinapa is a two-stage process, the brining part and the smoking part. Brining the fish gives it a good salty taste and also makes it moist. The smoking part cooks the fish and obviously gives it the smoky flavor.

Espasol is a cylinder-shaped Filipino rice cake originating from the province of Laguna. It is made from rice flour cooked in coconut milk and sweetened coconut strips, dusted with toasted rice flour.

Ensaymada is an original sweet bread and well known in Philippines wherein one large snail-like coil is dusted in sugar, and today individual sized cakes are more popular throughout the country. they are soft, buttery, milky and rich, and with the added slather of butter, sugar, and cheese, a sinful pillow of extravagance for your breakfast or tea.

Spanish bread, the popular Filipino sweet bread stick typically enjoyed for breakfast or mid-daymerienda, is very similar to the snail-shaped, brioche-like ensaimada but coiled in a different way. The dough is rolled into a sheet, brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with breadcrumbs and sugar, then rolled into a stout stick like a Mexican bigote (bread shaped like moustaches). Why the roll is called Spanish bread is unclear. There is nothing obviously Spanish about it. Its similarity to the Mexican pan dulce and the Spanish sugary ensaimada may very well be the reason it got its name.

Puto, is a sweet Filipino rice cake commonly eaten for breakfast or dessert. The rice cakes are often served a la carte or with a garnish of grated coconut and melted butter. The ingredients to make putong puti are readily available from local grocers. You will need approximately 25 minutes to prepare the rice cake batter and 20 minutes to cook putong puti. This recipe yields six servings, but you can modify it to make a smaller or larger

This is considered the Philippine national dish. The combination of soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, ginger and peppercorns is delicious and actually preserves the chicken!

Also known as tinola, tinolang manok chicken soup is light and refreshing. A simple broth with chicken, spinach and green papaya, it is a favorite home-style dish in the Philippines.

Pork Menudo is a favorite Filipino dish which can be served on a day-to-day meal or for gatherings or special occasions. This sounds like Spanish food but it's actually Filipino style. The food and its name were derived from Spanish due to Philippines was colonized by Spaniards for hundreds of years a long time ago.

Called longanisa in the Philippines, the sausages are flavoured with indigenous spices, with each region having its own specialty. Among others, Lucban is known for its garlicky longanizas (derecado); Guagua for its salty, almost sour, longanizas. Longganisang hamonado (Spanish: longaniza jamonada), by contrast, is known for its distinctive sweet taste.

Unlike Spanish chorizo, longganisas can also be made of chicken, beef, or even tuna. Commercial versions are made into links, but homemade sausage may be simple patties.

Tapsilog is the term used when tapa, garlic-fried rice ("sinangag"), and fried egg ("itlog") are combined into one meal, which is served primarily during breakfast. The word tapa is related to the Sanskrit term tapas which means "heat". In Tagalog, a restaurant that primarily serves tapa is called a tapahan, tapsihan or tapsilugan. According to some sources, "tapsilog" and "tapsihan" are slang words.

Biko is a type of sticky rice cake popular in the Philippines. It is believed that eating sticky foods during the new year brings luck and prosperity.

Pandesal is the most popular yeast-raised bread in the Philippines. Individual loaves are shaped like garrison caps due to its unique method of forming. The dough is rolled into long logs (bastón) which are rolled in fine bread crumbs. These are then cut into portions with a dull dough cutter, are allowed to rise on sheet pans and baked.

Palitaw is a small, flat, sweet rice cake eaten in the Philippines. They are made from malagkit (sticky rice) washed, soaked, and then ground. After excess water is let out from the grinding process scoops of the batter are rolled and the flattened to disk shapes and dropped into boiling water where they float to the surface as flat discs - an indication that they're done. When served, the flat discs are dipped in grated coconut, and presented with a separate dip made ofsugar and toasted sesame seeds

Bibingka is made with rice flour and coconut milk or water. Other ingredients can vary greatly, but the most common secondary ingredients are eggs and milk. The traditional preparation is very time-consuming. A specially made terra cotta container is lined with a single large section of a banana leaf. It is placed over preheated coals and the rice flour and water mixture is poured into it, taking care not to spill it into the container itself. Another piece of banana leaf is added to the top and covered with more preheated coals.