The main course of any Filipino meal is incomplete without boiled or fried rice and ulam. My all-time favorite ulam (or viand) dishes are shrimp sinigang (similar to tom yum soup in Thailand), pork adobo, beef caldereta, beef steak, chicken tinola, pinakbet, rellenong pusit, and rellenong bangus.
Adobo is one of the first dishes I learned to cook. Marinate pork and or chicken cubes with soy sauce, vinegar, minced garlic, a couple of dried basil leaves, some black pepper and some water. Let it boil over medium flame until meat is tender and you don't smell the vinegar. You can stir the adobo only after the vinegar odor is gone, otherwise, you'll spoil the flavor. :-)
Rellenong pusit (squid) or bangus (milkfish) is basically grilled and stuffed squid or milkfish (stuffing includes minced tomatoes, onions, green mangoes, and ginger). We usually serve grilled meat or seafood with a soy sauce-based or vinegar-based dip. The soy sauce mix contains calamansi juice, and some red hot chilli peppers; while the vinegar dip has minced garlic, salt and pepper.
For dessert, I'd go for saba con yelo (boiled sweetened saba bananas with milk and crushed ice), or the halo-halo - a mix of sweetened fruit chunks (banana, jack fruit, macapuno, beans, chickpeas), jello, nata de coco, served with milk and crushed ice topped with leche flan (a variation of creme brulee), ube halaya (purple yam pudding) and ice cream. Yum!
Other traditional sweets that I find myself craving every so often are bibingka (rice cakes), ube halaya (purple yam pudding), pastillas de leche (milk candies), and yema (caramelized milk balls).
For those over 21, booze nights are usually accompanied by pulutan (from the Filipino word "pulot" or "to pick"). The amber juice is usually San Miguel Beer (SMB) Light or Red Horse beer. What we would order in bars as pulutan are sizzling sisig (minced pork skin in soy sauce and calamansi juice) and barbequed pork or chicken. Some prefer to chug their beer with chicharon (fried cracklings made of pork skin and fat) or balut (boiled duck embryos with a sprinkle of salt). An all-nighter ends with a serving of beef bulalo soup (beef chunks with bone marrow boiled with garlic, salt and pepper) or arroz caldo (rice porridge with chicken).
What did you have for supper?
