One of the things I love the most about living the Philippines is, without a doubt, the Filipino food selection. It ranges from sweet to sour to spicy to salty in a span of cities and provinces. Sometimes when you travel through from one area of the peninsula to the other, the contrast between each province is striking not only in terms of appearance or culture, but with the food as well. You take one dish and each province has a unique way of cooking it that fits their identity. The diversity of each province can literally be sampled through the food, among other things. But there is this one food item that I feel is… universal, I suppose you could say, and that’s the dish I’m using to jump-start my promise to feature more Filipino food on the blog.

It shames me to admit that despite blogging for almost two years now, I haven’t shared a single Filipino recipe. When I came across this amazing blog, I felt a mixture of both guilt and inspiration. Here was a man who made a blog to cure himself of his homesickness, and here I am just neglecting what I could write about with even more clarity than all the things I have been making and sharing on the blog so far. I guess when you have seen and eaten certain things all your life, they become so commonplace that you begin to kind of ignore them. Despite the fact that there are so many things I wish I could change about this country, the one thing I love unabashedly is the food. It’s about time I start showing it.
Continue reading for the recipe