LEARNING OUTCOMES

• At the end of this lesson the students should be able to:

a. Define cooking style
b. Identify the cooking styles of the Philippines
c. Distinguish the common techniques in native cooking
d. Explain the Filipino traits associated in Filipino cuisine
Basics of Philippine
Cooking and
Cooking Styles
• There are two major cooking styles of preparing and cooking
food in the Philippines. The first cooking style has vinegar as a
major theme. You’ll find that popular dishes in the Philippines
like adobo, paksiw, and sinigang are based on the sour taste.
Dishes like these are not necessarily based on the sour taste
alone but more on the preserving effects of vinegar.
• This first major cooking style in the Philippines focuses more on
preserving the food. Dishes prepared in this cooking style are
meant to last longer even without refrigeration. The food
created in this cooking style seems to taste better after some
time.
• The second major cooking style in the Philippines has Patis as its major
theme. Patis is the Philippine equivalent of the Vietnamese “Nuoc mam”
or the Thai “nampla”. It is a very salty, thin, fish or shrimp sauce.
• This cooking style focuses on accentuating the taste of the food using
Patis. Though Patis is kind of rare and sometimes is really hard to find, it
still remains a major theme among many dishes in the Philippines.
Where patis is not found, salt is used as a substitute in this cooking style.
• Coconut milk is common in Philippine cooking, quite popular in the Bicol
region. Anatto seeds (known in the Philippines as “achuette”) can be
bought in the Philippines at the local wet market or in groceries in four
or eight ounce bottles. This can be bought in oriental stores in the US.
• Bagoong (fermented shrimp or fish paste) is quite popular in the
northern and southern regions of the Philippines. This can also be
bought in any oriental food store.
• Cooking the dishes of the Philippines is quite easy to begin with. The
ingredients are readily available and if not, substitute ingredients can
still be used. The cooking styles in the Philippines were developed with
practicality in mind.
Common Techniques
for Cooking
Native Cuisines
• Philippine native and local cuisines are always special dishes worth
serving on elegant dinner tables. They will never let us down even in
dinner banquets. Here are some basic culinary techniques for cooking
some local dishes.
Baking

• When food is cooked in dry heat in an oven, modern or stone ovens, the
cuisine is baked. With modern ovens, it is important to keep track of the
oven heat with the use of thermometers. Most ovens, though, have built
in varying heat degrees. Baked local dishes are baked spaghetti, lasagna,
creamed lapu-lapu, and other delicacies.
Braising

• Braising local cuisines is when the meat or veggies are cooked to a

brown in some amount of fried fat. Then it is followed with simmering
with some water, slow cooked for a long period of time. The lid is kept
tightly closed over the food.
Braising

• Braising is done especially with dishes that have tough meat cuts to
tenderize. Braising, with its slow cooking, also allows the full flavors of
cuisines come out and mix thoroughly with other flavors from the
spices.
Sautéing

• Sautéing is a popular Philippine cooking procedure for cooking native

cuisines. It often involves minced garlic and chopped onions and sliced
tomatoes sautéed in an amount of cooking oil. When light brown, other
ingredients—meat, fish, vegetables and other spices—-are poured in
and mixed with the sautéed ingredients.
Sautéing

• Sautéing brings out the savory flavors of dishes and blends different
food flavors into a subtle mix. Butter is also a favorite for sautéing dishes
and other classy cuisines.
Simmering

• Simmering takes a longer time to cure and cook some cuisines. It is

slowly cooking local dishes with the use of water that later turns into s
savory stew. It is cooked on low fire
• Simmering meat often takes long hours, while fish and veggies often
take some minutes.
Boiling

• Boiling tenderizes and blends cuisine flavors with a shorter time span.
Boiling is often just a matter of 3 to 5 minutes.
How to Eat Like a
True Filipino?
Eating is treated as a social affair

• This is because mealtime in

Filipino households is supposed
to bring the family together. It
is the time to talk, tell each
other about their days, and
really just interact with one
another.
Eat three big meals and several
smaller ones in between

• Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are

all typically big meals (a Filipino
breakfast, for example, consists
of rice, eggs, and meat). Several
snacks, what Filipinos call
merienda, are also eaten in
between these big meals. These
snacks are basically anything
that isn’t eaten with rice (i.e.,
sweets, pastries, sandwiches,
noodles, etc.).
It isn’t a meal without rice

• Filipino meals are usually

served with a big bowl of rice
and several viands in the
middle of the dining table.
Rice will always be present.
This is also why viands or ulam
(anything eaten with rice) in
the Philippines are always very
rich in flavor because the rice’s
neutrality will balance it out.
 Eat with a fork and spoon

• Eating with a spoon instead of a

knife is much easier for Filipinos as
there is more room for the rice to
rest. Although knives are usually
placed on the table at restaurants,
most Filipinos have mastered how to
cut meat using only the edges of
their spoon, leaving little use for the
sharper utensil unless bigger cuts of
meat, like steak, are served.
Know proper food formation
on the plate

• The rice is centered at the bottom

of the plate, close to the eater,
and the viands are arranged
around it. This is the most
convenient way since Filipinos will
normally take a bit of the viand,
pushing it onto their spoon with
the fork, and then portion off a
bigger amount of rice and pushing
it towards their spoon.
Know how (and when) to eat
with your hands

• it makes the eating experience much more immersive and fun. It also
makes things easier when eating seafood and meats with a lot of bone.
• The viand and rice are first portioned off on the plate and then brought
together by the four tallest fingers. The thumb further pushes the food
towards these fingers to make them more compact, and supports it as
the hand is brought up to the mouth. And finally, the thumb moves from
supporting the food to pushing it from behind, and into the mouth.
Get creative with sawsawan
or condiments

• Filipinos are very fond of eating their ulam with sawsawan (condiments)
since they enrich the flavor of the dish
No animal part
goes to waste

• Filipinos don’t like wasting food and are ingenious when it comes to
making sure no animal body part goes to waste when cooking up a dish.
In fact, the nationally-loved dish sisig, made mostly of the parts of a pig’s
face, was first created in an attempt to make use of the unwanted cuts
thrown away by what was then a US Air Force Base in the country
 Be an adventurous eater

• to be able to truly immerse

yourself in the rich food
culture in the Philippines,
it’s very important to be a
fearless eater, willing to try
everything at least once. It’s
easy to turn things away
when you’ve already given
it a chance and decided that
it’s not for you.
 Invite people to eat with you —
whether you mean it or not

• it is also common courtesy to

invite someone to eat when
you’re eating. So for
example, if someone were
having lunch in the office
pantry, and his colleague
happened to walk in for a
glass of water, the guy eating
would normally say, “Tara,
kain (Let’s eat),” simply out
of courtesy.
 Avoid taking the last piece of
food on a serving plate

• the practice of not

taking the last pieces of
food from the center of
the table is
subconsciously
practiced by most
Filipinos. This is mostly
out of shyness in case
anybody else at the
table is still hungry.