Lumpia

Lumpia Shanghai

One of the most famous of Filipino foods, besides adobo, is lumpia. Lumpia are small, fried spring rolls: very simple and tasty.

The most common variety of lumpia in the Philippines is lumpia Shanghai (which gives a clue to its origin.) These are filled with ground pork, minced onions and shredded carrots with a beaten egg as a binder. If a Filipino talks about Lumpia he's typically referring to lumpia Shanghai. There are vegetarian versions though, probably eaten during Lent. These may contain such things as palm hearts (ubod), mung bean sprouts (togue), shredded cabbage, carrots and/or Julienned string beans. These items may also be added to the meat mixture in lumpia Shanghai.

Lumpia, especially lumpia Shanghai, are usually quite small when compared to the typical size of Chinese spring rolls. This is so that the pork filling will be thoroughly cooked during the frying process. I think it's also just a Filipino thing as they're crispier that way.

Lumpia may be eaten with a typical soy and vinegar sauce, a type of spicy chili sauce, sweet and sour sauce, banana catsup or (most commonly) with regular tomato ketchup (catsup) as dipping sauces. They're usually eaten with rice, and may be either eaten as a finger food or cut up into small pieces then eaten as a viand with a spoon, along with some rice.

Here in Cebu no feast would be complete without certain foods: lumpia, bam-i, chop suey and lechon baboy (spit-roasted suckling pig.) A few lumpia with rice make a fine light meal all by themselves, though.

Siopao

Two siopao

Yet another common street food in the Philippines is siopao. Pronounced show-pow, these are large steamed buns, made from wheat flour and containing a savory meat and sauce filling (usually pork, in which case they're properly called siopao asado though in reality everyone just says siopao.)

Siopao are eaten as snacks all by themselves: no rice for a change. They come in a paper wrapper which is used to hold the siopao while eating. Filipinos typically add some ketchup (catsup) to the filling by means of a small, restaurant-style ketchup bottle with a long, narrow spout. You turn your siopao upside-down, insert the spout through the bottom of the bun where it's thinnest, and squirt some ketchup inside.

The name siopao is from the Hokkien Chinese dialect: in standard Chinese they're called bāozi, or in English simply as "steamed buns." In China they're typically served with a dipping sauce consisting of soy sauce, vinegar and some chili paste rather than ketchup (you mix your own sauce, so ingredients and proportions vary from diner to diner.)

One is enough to tide one over until the next meal. Two make a light meal on their own. They typically cost 25 pesos each: around 60 cents.

Note that the siopao you get in the Philippines typically don't contain as much meat filling as those shown in the photo above: they're mostly bun.

Siomai

A serving of siomai

Another bought dish (though some people make their own, but it's easier and inexpensive just to buy some) is siomai. Pronounced like show-my (show rhyming with cow), these are actually a type of Chinese dim sum: small, steam-cooked dumplings. They're basically just wonton wrappers filled with a seasoned pork mix, and sometimes some extra "extenders" such as peas and carrots, steamed, and served with toothpicks along with a spicy, oily, dark garlic sauce as well as calimansi (a small, green citrus fruit, the juice of which is used to flavor certain foods the same way we use lemon wedges- which, incidentally, would make an excellent substitute at Western tables.)

We've started getting ngohiong for dinner every payday as a treat, but 1) I'm starting to get tired of them already, so they're not as much of a treat any more, and 2) they make us both poop a lot the next day: probably due to all the oil from deep-frying. :) So this coming payday I requested something different: siomai, which we haven't had in a long time.

Twelve siomai, with sides of rice, are plenty for dinner for two with some left over (often enough to have again the next evening.) They cost just about the same as a paper bag of ngohiong, too.

A variation of siomai, called "Japanese siomai", uses nori (Japanese edible seaweed, used by them as the wrapper for sushi) instead of wonton wrappers. It's OK but it kind of tastes odd because the siomai are warm, where my palate is expecting cold sushi. It needs a bit of wasabi, too.

You can buy siomai in the food courts of shopping malls (in the Philippines) as well as from carts or booths along the streets.

Goulash

Yep, another non-Filipino dish!

The rainy season is here, there's a low-pressure area just east of Samar that's aiding and abetting the normal monsoon causing cool, rainy weather with lots of dark clouds, and I didn't have much food in the house nor money to go buy more. Besides, I didn't want to go out in the rain.

I had a bunch of pork belly, a large cabbage, plenty of garlic and onions, so I was going to make ginisang repolyo or braised cabbage (and pork.) But the weather made me crave soup or stew instead, and I figured I could stretch the cabbage further by using it in a soup of some sort.

I went prowling through our cupboards and drawers to see what I had on hand, and I found an unopened sachet (packet) of Spanish paprika, as well as a small plastic bag with some flour in it. I used to cook a lot of Hungarian dishes once upon a time, when I was still in America, so I was inspired to try to do something different for dinner.

Corned beef and scrambled eggs

I want to take a break from cooking and need a change from vegetable dishes so I plan to fix something simple tonight: canned corned beef and scrambled eggs, basically, breakfast for dinner as a serving of corned beef, rice and a cooked egg is a common breakfast dish in the Philippines.

The variety of available canned foods found here is, well, not what most ex-pats are used to in their home countries. You can find corned beef, carne norte (a variety of corned beef that's chopped up finer and contains more juice), Vienna sausages, tuna in various flavors, sardines in assorted flavors, pork and beans, SPAM, something called "beef loaf" which is a finely-ground meat product of some sort, plus a few favorite Filipino foods such as lechon paksiw and sisig. You can sometimes find things like canned soups (and not very many flavors of these: cream of mushroom, mainly) and vegetables in the regular old #2 size cans, but these are usually located in the Imported Foods aisle of a supermarket and they're rather expensive. You probably won't find very many canned convenience foods (meals in a can), such as Chef Boy-Ar-Di products, canned beef stew, tamales, "Chinese food" or lima beans with ham. No Spaghetti-Os!

The canned corned beef you find here is different than that in the US: chunkier and more flavorful. The cans are small, round 155 gram size rather than the larger, squarish cans that are opened with a key. You open these with a regular can opener. I actually prefer carne norte, which is both cheaper and tastier, but my wife likes corned beef because it has larger chunks of meat. Anyway, it's an easy and nourishing meal to eat occasionally if you want to take a break from vegetables.

Ginisang upo (sautéed white squash)

A white squash

My Filipina wife calls this vegetable "white squash" in English. The labels that supermarkets attach to them say "wintermelon" though, which I think is from the Chinese name for a variety of this vegetable which they grow there. A quick Google search tells me that the Filipino name is "upo" per a certain Filipino chef's blog, yet Google Translate says that "upo" means "sitting", so ???

Whatever you want to call it, it has a mild, somewhat buttery flavor that's very tasty when prepared in the ginisa style as it compliments the pork flavor quite well.

Dugo-dugo

Dugo-dugo (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

Here's another dish that I've never actually cooked myself, but just eaten in restaurants and shopping mall food courts. Called dugo-dugo in the Cebuano dialect of Visayan and dinuguan in pure Visayan, it's one of those things that sound absolutely disgusting but taste delicious. It's a type of stew made from pork meat and/or offal (which may include lungs, kidneys, liver, intestines, ears, heart and snout) cooked in the pig's blood with vinegar and hot green peppers (siling mahaba or sword peppers.)

Americans usually are appalled at the idea of eating pig's blood, but the English and Germans are more used to the idea: to them, this dish is a spicier, moister version of black pudding or blutwurst. 

I, too. was at first turned off by the ingredients, but after trying it I was hooked! My wife and I once joined several friends and acquaintances for lunch after church on Sunday, and the particular restaurant we chose, Golden Cowrie, served very large portions (and unlimited rice), so we dined "family style." I was in a fish and chips mood for some reason, so I ordered a large batter-fried fish dish. My wife ordered dugo-dugo, and after tasting it I ended up eating half of her order without knowing what it was! It was only afterward that I found out what was in it. I often order it in food courts now, if I happen to want to eat when I'm at a mall.

I once kind of tricked an American acquaintance of mine, who is visiting Cebu, into trying it. We were meeting up to do some sightseeing, and first had lunch in the food court at the SM mall in Cebu City. I ordered dugo-dugo (as well as some barbecue and some adobong kangkong) and he asked me what it was. I just said, "It's pork" so he ordered some too, and loved it. I never did tell him what was in it. (Sorry, Doc Kieth.)

Some people make their dugo-dugo kind of sweet: I prefer it to be more sour and spicier from the chili peppers. Anyway, a small serving goes a long way in seasoning your cooked rice so it's a cheap meal when dining out. Oh, did I tell you it's absolutely delicious? No? Well, it's absolutely delicious.