Stephanie Sharp - Filipino Cookbook: Plunge into the diversified Cuisine of Philippine

Filipino cuisine covers the vast areas of ethno-linguistic groups existing throughout the Philippine archipelago. The style of food making has been gradually shaped over centuries from their Austronesian origin (also shared by Malaysian and Indonesian cuisines) to a mixture of Indian, Chinese, Spanish, American cuisines. Distinct ingredients and features from these cuisines have been well adopted to lend the Filipino cuisine the uniqueness it possesses. Simple yet striking dishes like rice, fish curry, fried salted fish, chicken curry occurs in everyday menu. Some popular dishes include tapa, torta (omelet) lechon (whole roasted pig), dinuguan (pork blood stew) pancit (noodles), lumpia (fresh or fried spring rolls). Adobo is another famous dish. It is chicken or pork based dish where soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, and oil is used to marinate the meat. Filipinos add fruits and vegetables like Plantains, kalamansi, guavas, mangoes, papayas, and pineapples to add a tropical taste to the dishes. Vegetables like water spinach, Chinese cabbage, eggplants remain mainstays. Coconut is another ingredient that is used widely and in a lot of ways. The flesh is used in desserts, milk in sauces and the coconut oil for frying. There is also a tendency to consume food with various kinds of dipping sauces. Root crops such as potatoes, carrots, cassava, sweet potatoes, etc. are widely harvested and readily available in the kitchen. The combined use of tomatoes, garlic and onions are found in many food items. Desserts are enjoyed as the end meal and a range of unique as well as tasty items are prepared on a daily basis. Leche flan, a Filipino version of the caramel pudding is extremely popular. Puto is a sweet steamed rice cake. Halo-halo, a crowd puller is a custard made with crushed ice, jelly, sago pearls sweet potato, banana, coconut, jackfruit and a few other items.

Other popular desserts include Buko Pandan (a kind of pudding using pandan leaves), Banana cue, Turon (a kind of wrap), etc.