Recipes & Photos

The Filipino Holiday Feast

Posted by The Filipino Food Shop on 1/1/2022 to Photo Gallery

Big on every Filipino family’s calendar are the Christmas and New Year’s holidays and all the days in between.

For the midnight meals, Media Noche on Christmas Eve and Noche Buena on New Year’s, there will be Christmas ham or pork barbecue and lumpiang shanghai and pancit or spaghetti. Spaghetti carbonara has gained popularity over the more traditional Bolognese of late.

Also, there would usually be a selection of kakanins – puto bumbong, bibingka, and a variety of sticky sumans. The soft and cheesy ensaymada will also be on the table. Queso de bola, a ball-shaped Edam cheese, will be cut and served with the sweet and savory dishes.

Everything is finally capped with all sizes and flavors of cakes and the quintessential fruit salad made from syrup-soaked tropicals and multi-colored nata de coco in condensed milk.

Filipino Food & Tradition: Pasalubong and Padala

Posted by The Filipino Food Shop on 11/27/2021 to Photo Gallery

The holidays are peeking around the corner. Everyone is getting busy with lists, thinking up the perfect presents for family and friends as well as setting the menu for holiday parties.

What to give to delight the receiver? What to stock up on to create the most memorable get-togethers?

The Filipino Food Shop (filipinofoodshop.com) has the perfect solution to the perennial dilemma of Pinays in the US and Canada. A variety of Filipino food packs for gifting and making holiday food preparation much easier. And we’ve received hearty cheers from all corners of North America. Even non-Pinoys are taking notice.

Kare Kare as Pinay Heirloom

Posted by The Filipino Food Shop on 11/21/2021 to Photo Gallery

Recipes and good taste are handed down from one generation to another. In the Philippines, where fiestas abound and family reunions happen more frequently than in other parts of the world, particular dishes stand out as heirloom stuff.

Pinays make a point of learning from their elders how to cook such delicious fare and they bond over secret ingredients or cooking methods imprinting unique flavors to popular dishes.

Silog: A Uniquely Filipino Meal Arrangement

Posted by The Filipino Food Shop on 11/14/2021 to Photo Gallery

One can reach for milk and cereal, or get some toast, pour coffee and be off into the busy day ahead. Breakfast completed. No biggie. All good.

Or pick up a sandwich, wash it down with soda and then declare lunch officially done.

Or put some greens together, toss in tomatoes and other vegetables, cheese and a little meat and declare dinner solved.

Or one can fix herself up the kind of meal that no right-thinking Pinay can ever pass up, the ultimate tasty Pinay meal.

Not just any no-cooking-required or get-you-out-the-door-in-no-time elements thrown together, the silog takes some time to prepare. It rewards fans, however, with a unique blend of tastes nowhere else invented but in the Philippines. Often finished with slices of tomato and cucumber, this unique Filipino meal arrangement is a harmony of flavors, textures, and colors, too.

Merienda Fare: The Pinay's Favorites

Posted by The Filipino Food Shop on 11/5/2021 to Photo Gallery

MERIENDA FARE: THE PINAY’S FAVORITES

Snacks hold a place of honor in the food hierarchy. They are at once accessible and affordable, offering quick, bite-sized comfort between meals.

Here are some crowd favorites:

Empanada – an ode to the Philippines’ Spanish heritage, this puff pastry is filled with the scrumptious goodness of minced pork, potatoes, carrots, green peas and egg. The saltiness of the sauteed filling perfectly balances off with the sweetish bland pastry hugging it.

Bibingka – sweet cakes made of galapong or milled glutinous rice, sugar and coconut milk. A popular treat during the Christmas season, the bibingka is traditionally baked in terracotta ovens in clay pots lined with banana leaves. The satisfying scent of margarine incorporated in the cooking process emanates from these cakes once they are broken apart while still fresh from the oven.

Hopia – a flaky pastry encasing any one of a range of robust fillings – from pork fat, ube, red bean to monggo. As varied as the fillings that could be used for this delicacy are, it is shaped in different ways, too - round, triangular or cubed. Hopia was introduced to the Philippines by Fookienese migrants and has evolved into a well-loved snack.

Ensaimada – a pillowy soft and buttery bread that traces its origins to Mallorca, Spain, this is a well-known treat in the Philippines, Latin America and Southwestern Europe. The Pinay’s version is an excellent sweet-savory mix because of a generous topping of grated cheese.

Pan de sal with coconut jam – simple, sweet, fragrant, and, lip-smacking good.

Pinoy Food Tradition - Undas

Posted by The Filipino Food Shop on 10/29/2021 to Photo Gallery

THE UNDAS FILIPINO FOOD TRADITION

You will most likely feast on savory pork or chicken adobo, spaghetti, macaroni salad or a certain type of pancit, be it bihon, canton, habhab, or bam-i, which has both pancit and vermicelli noodles. Some families will serve up the mouthwatering lechon kawali or an entire lechon altogether.

Because everyone will need to be handed snacks, too, or midnight and early-morning refreshments, there will surely be kakanins in the mix – sapin-sapin, palitaw, suman sa lihiya, biko, puto bumbong, ube halaya, puto puti, pichi-pichi, all sweet and satisfying.

The sticky kakanins are a perfect representation of the affection and unity that characterizes the Pinoy family. Bonding over delicious Filipino food, sharing stories, enjoying each other’s company, reveling in the unique custom of Undas.