Welcome
I have often gone to a gathering where Filipino dishes were served and people who like them would ask for the recipe. Even our children who have never cooked at home, after they start to be independent and live outside our homes to attend school, work, or got married, gradually wanted to learn how to cook dishes mom used to make. Here, I will give you some tips on general basics of cooking some Filipino dishes.
A Filipino dish is generally a complete dish with protein, carbohydrates and many nutrients needed by our body done in one pot. It can be soupy style and eaten with rice. It can be a stir fry mix with any fresh vegetables where shrimps or sliced meats are added. Sometimes, it can be a soy sauce or tomato-based dish with any meat you like to add. Filipino cuisine is versatile, healthy and yet very inexpensive for the family who likes everything in one pot. For an easy, quick fix or for those in a rush, you can use the variety of packet Filipino dish mixes that give the sour or saucy flavors available in many grocery stores. For some of us who have to watch their salt intake or contents of packets, using home-made broth is always the option for better flavor.
Soup Based Dishes
Soup dishes are one-pot recipes with meat and vegetables, eaten with rice or as a side dish. A soupy meal is convenient for picky eaters who want to eat either only meat or vegetables. Popular soup dishes include sinigang, nilaga and tinola.
If you want a basic flavored soupy dish, you can have nilaga. If you want it more spicy, make tinola which can also be sautéed first with garlic, onion and ginger, if you prefer, and added to boiling meat and vegetables. For a little sour flavor, there is sinigang. (Sinigang flavor can be lemon, mango, camias, tamarind or guava based. *Packet mixes are available at Chinese/Filipino grocery or you can use fresh green tamarind (cooked, mashed, and strained to get the juice), mango, camias, guavas (cooked and sliced) or one whole lemon squeezed.
You can cook them with multiple choices for the main ingredient, either meat or seafood, and add your choice of vegetables or flavor to mix in. For the main ingredient, you can use any of these: pork, beef ribs, oxtail, chicken, fish, shrimp or squid. We love to use the meats attached to bones to have more flavor on the soup or mix the bone bags (buto-buto) from the grocery store. If soup bones are not available, use any meat bouillon cube or canned broth to add flavor.
General Directions – Quick Reference to Soupy Dishes
Soupy dishes start simply: fill the pot covering the meat or half-way (about 6 cups) with water and boil the meat until it is tender. Meat is cooked normally when meat is separating from the bone or the meat is no longer pink and easily pulled. Add more warm or hot water if it reduced or when you want it more to be more soupy.
Skim scum or fat that float on top of boiling water with a ladle. You can use paper towel to wipe off the scum on the side of the pot. Watch the heat, though.
Depending on the meat, between 30-50 minutes, chicken and pork cook and get tender quicker than beef. As soon as meat is almost cook, add the vegetables putting the longest vegetable to cook first about (5 minutes), and the quick to cook added last like spinach (2 minutes), then turn off.
If using sea food, fish, shrimp or squid you can put them either a few minutes before or when the vegetable is added to the pot. They quickly cook and continue to cook even after turning off the heat. Shrimps and squid cook quickly.
Put some salt and pepper according to your taste, fish sauce – a teaspoon or two. For tastier soup, add half or one whole beef or chicken bouillon cube or canned broth to add flavor.
Depending on how many people you are cooking for, you can either double the recipe accordingly or just add a little of everything to the basic recipe. It’s hard to go wrong with Filipino recipes. You will learn eventually how you want it to taste after making the dish a few times. For example, if you want it to be sour or less sour for sinigang, either add or reduce the flavoring mix. If you want it a little more salty, add more patis (fish sauce).
Quick Reference – Sinigang:
1. In a pot, put about 6 cups of water, add any meat cut in 2” cubes or chicken pieces. Boil meat, skim.
2. Add quartered onion and tomatoes. Boil meat for another 30-40 minutes or until tender.
3. Add any vegetables – basic is, gabi (eddoes), sitaw (long beans), radish, kangkong, eggplant, okra and banana pepper but you can also add green beans, bataw (Filipino pinto bean), mustard greens, spinach, young sweet potato leaves, (some use Chinese sliced bamboo shoots from the can), don’t overcook.
4. Put some salt and pepper, 2 tsp fish sauce, sinigang packet mix (like Mama Sita as mentioned earlier on soup based packet mix*) or lemon juice
Quick Reference – Nilaga
1. In a pot, put about 6 cups of water, add any meat, cut in 2” cubes or chicken pieces. Boil meat, skim.
2. Add quartered onion, stalk of green onions. Boil meat for another 30-40 minutes or until tender.
3. Add any vegetables – you can use either of these: potato, sweet potato, carrot, asparagus, (any green leaf) pechay, bok choy, kale, swiss chard, cabbage, green beans, don’t overcook.
4. Put some salt and pepper or 2 tsp fish sauce.
Quick Reference – Tinola
1. In a pot, put about 6 cups of water, add any meat, cut in 2” cubes or chicken pieces. Boil meat, skim.
2. Add quartered onion and crushed ginger. Boil meat for another 30-40 minutes or until tender.
3. Add any vegetables – you can use any of these: you can use green papaya, chayote, upo and any green leaf – pepper leaves or spinach, don’t overcook.
4. Put some salt and pepper or 2 tsp fish sauce.