On this page is where you can indulge in an exotic islands ethnic food adventure with a bevy if tastebuds treats from the Phillippines. Filipino Cuisine at its finest, with recipes to make you want to go there!
From these islands come some amazing meals, such as this dish, our first offering out of many to come. the very best Filipino chicken adobe recipe we know of. This main dish entree, as is the case with many famous Filipino recipes, is marvelously elegant in its simplicity.
Please note: For your convenience, you can click on the recipes listed below and be taken directly to a page with just that one recipe on it, in printer-friendly format.
You are certainly welcomed to read through this whole page, all the recipes are here as well, and there are some videos and pertinent information on background, history, customs, special notes, etc., so it is well worth the read.
Here is the list, in alphabetical order:
Adobo Adobong Manok (Filipino Chicken Adobo)
Adobo Adobong Manok
(Filipino Chicken Adobo)
Ingredients:
- 3 lbs. chicken pieces, bone-in
- 1 cup soy sauce
- 1-1/3 cups vinegar
- 3 – 4 large garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
- 3 bay leaves
- 2 tsp. freshly ground black peppercorns
- freshly ground course sea salt
Directions:
- In a large, deep saucepan, add in the soy sauce, vinegar, and ground peppercorns, and bring to a boil.
- Salt and pepper the chicken pieces, and add them into the boiling mixture; reduce the heat and cook at a lively simmer for about an hour with a lid covering the pan, until the chicken is cooked well and tenderized.
- Check after a half hour to see how the sauce is. You want it to reduce by about half and become thicker, more like a stew than a soup. If it is not reducing much, by half way through the hour, remove the lid for the remaining 30 minutes. After 55 minutes, add in the bay leaves.
- Before serving, do a taste test, add salt if needed, and remove the bay leaves.
- Serve piping hot with rice.
Next we have yet another one of the best Filipino food recipes, a splendidly seasoned and exquisitely textured dish featuring aubergines (eggplants) as the main ingredient.
Filipino Eggplant (Aubergine) Adobo
Ingredients:
- 5 cups diced eggplants, cut into ¾” x ¾” x 2” rectangular pieces
- ½ tsp. freshly ground course sea salt
- 1⁄3 cup vegetable oil
- 1⁄3 cup soy sauce
- 1⁄4 cup red wine vinegar
- 6 large garlic cloves, peeled and minced
- 1⁄2 teaspoon fresh ground black peppercorns
- 2 or 3 green onions, finely chopped, for garnish
Directions:
- Spread eggplant pieces out on cloth or paper towels and sprinkle generously with salt, flip the pieces over and salt the other side as well. Let the salt stay on for 30 minutes, then rinse the pieces off in a coriander with cold water, and then pat the pieces dry.
- In a large skillet, fry the eggplant pieces in oil, stirring occasionally for even cooking, until nicely browned on all sides, and then set aside.
- In a smaller saucepan, simmer the vinegar, soy sauce, pepper and garlic for 5 to 6 minutes.
- Now add in the eggplant pieces, put a lid on the pan, and cook over low heat for 7 to 8 minutes, stirring now and then.
- Serve hot, with a sprinkling of finely chopped green onions on top, as a garnish.
Phillippine food recipes that are considered main dish entrees at a meal usually call for meat – beef, chicken, pork, goat, and … get this, dog. Yes, dog meat is considered a delicacy by the Filipinos, much like it is in Korea.
We may offer a dog meat recipe at some point on this page, but not this early in the building out. This next dish is another one of the famous Filipino recipes, a wonderful tasty beef stew, seasoned as only the people of the Phillippines do.
Filipino Beef Adobo with Coconut Milk
Ingredients:
- 3 lbs. stewing beef (chuck roast is good), cut into 1-1/2” cubes
- 3⁄4 cup white vinegar
- 1 whole bulb of garlic, cloves peeled and crushed
- 1⁄2 cup soy sauce
- 4 bay leaves
- 1-1/2 tbsp. whole black peppercorns
- 1 tbsp. freshly ground black peppercorns
- 1 tbsp. sugar
- 4 tbsp. vegetable oil
- 1 tbsp. patis (Philippine fish sauce), or more, to taste
- 12 oz. coconut milk
Directions:
- Using a large cooking pot, put in the beef cubes, garlic, soy sauce, vinegar, bay leaves, sugar, ground pepper and whole peppercorns. Stir and blend all the ingredients together well.
- Allow the mixture to stand for 2 hours at room temperature and marinate. You can put it in the fridge, but the traditional Filipino way is at room temperature.
- After the marinating period, put the pot on the burner, turn the heat up high and bring the mixture to a vigorous boil, then reduce the heat to where the mixture is at a mild simmer, and cook for about an hour, or until the meat is well tenderized.
- Put the oil in a large skillet and raise the burner up to medium high temperature. Use a slotted spoon to take out the garlic from beef mixture, transfer the garlic to this skillet, and sauté until well browned. Use the slotted spoon to next add the beef to the skillet with the garlic, and continue to sauté, stirring, until the meat cubes are nicely browned on all sides.
- Now add in the patis, to taste, and the coconut milk, stir and blend together well.
- Lastly, add the sauce from the pot that the beef simmered in, stir well to make sure the cubes are equally distributed and coated, and cook for 5 to 6 more minutes.
- Serve hot, with rice.
Among the more famous Filipino recipes, is the Pancit, which is a broad term for a wide range of rice noodle dishes. There are hundreds of variations on this marvelous dish, but always constant is the base of rice noodles, with an assortment of spices, seasonings, vegetables and meats.
It would be very difficult to say which version of this dish is the best Filipino pancit recipe. There are simply too many types of it prepared that are all equally delicious. So, for our purposes here, at Ethnic Foods R Us, we offer you this one, which is definitely an authentic Filipino pancit recipe, using a combination of seasonings and ingredients that are among the most traditional in the Phillippines.
You will be able to, after trying out this pancit, come up with your own version(s) of this remarkable and unmistakeably Filipino meal.
Traditional Filipino Pancit
Ingredients:
- 1 (8 ounce) package Bihon (rice noodles)
- 1 lb. chicken breast, skins removed and diced into 1/2″ to 3/4″ cubes
- 1⁄2 cup teriyaki sauce
- 6 large garlic cloves, minced
- 2 cups rough chopped cabbage
- 1 cup sliced carrot
- 1 cup finely chopped onion
- 2 to 6 Birds-Eye red hot chili peppers, sliced open lengthwise and left whole (these Asian peppers are hot – so be forewarned, perhaps using just one or two your first time, if you are not a super hot spicy dish lover)
- 1⁄16 teaspoon Accent seasoning
- Cooking oil
- Gukganjang (Premium soup soy sauce – much stronger and saltier than regular soy sauce)
- 1⁄2 cup finely chopped green onions
- 1 lemon sliced, and 1 more lemon for juice
- Optional: 4 hard boiled eggs, sliced
Directions:
- Marinate the cubed chicken with the teriyaki sauce and 2 cloves of minced garlic in a Ziploc bag, overnight.
- Next day, soak the rice noodles in warm water for 20-30 minutes in a large bowl; drain thoroughly in a coriander.
- Remove the chicken from the bag, discard the marinade, and drain the marinade off the chicken.
- Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a very large skillet on medium high heat, and sauté the chicken, stirring and turning occasionally, until nicely browned on all sides; drain and set aside.
- Heat 2 more tablespoons of oil on medium high heat in a large cooking pot, and sauté 4 cloves of minced garlic with a liberal dose of Accent seasoning for 30 seconds.
- Now add in the sliced carrots and stir fry for about 4-5 minutes.
- Add in the onions, cabbage, peppers, and 1 tablespoon of Gukganjang and stir fry until the vegetables are well tenderized.
- Now put the chicken in with the vegetables, and continue stir frying.
- Lastly, add the noodles into the pot with 1/8 cup of oil and 1/4 cup of soy sauce and mix all the ingredients together thoroughly.
- Put 4 large eggs on to boil now if you are going to include them in your Pancit.
- Keep cooking, stirring occasionally, until the noodles are soft and completely cooked
- Serve with a chopped green onions sprinkled on top, fresh lemon juice squeezed over the surface, sliced boiled eggs arranged evenly over the entrée (optional), and lemon slices on the side.
Anyone familiar with Mexican cuisine will of course recognize the name “menudo” – a stew made with tripe and red chili sauce. But the traditional Filipino style of menudo is a whole lot different. Filipino menudo recipes are a stew made with marinated pork, pork liver and/or calf liver in a spiced tomato sauce with an assortment of vegetables.
Try out this version, an authentic Filipino Cuisine – a menudo made with traditional ingredients.
Menudo – Filipino Style
Ingredients:
- 2 lb. pork tenderloin, chopped into 1” cubes
- 3 medium potatoes, cubed
- 2 medium carrots, cubed
- 1⁄2 cup raisins
- 1 medium red bell pepper, diced
- 1 medium green bell pepper, diced
- 8 oz. tomato sauce
- 3 – 4 oz. tomato paste
- 4 oz. pork liver pate
- 1 medium onion, rough chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 2 oz. freshly grated Romano cheese (also good is Parmesan)
Marinade:
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 cup carbonated soda, Sprite
- 4 tbsp. soy sauce
- 4 tbsp. fresh Calamansi juice (juice from Phillippine limes)
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 1 tbsp. freshly ground black peppercorns
Directions
- Combine all the marinade ingredients together well, and divide into halves. Set one half aside, and put the pork cubes into the other half with 1 bay leaf. Let the pork marinate for at least an hour.
- After an hour, remove the pork and drain off excess marinade in a coriander.
- In a large saucepan or skillet, heat your oil over medium high heat, sauté the onion and garlic until fragrant and translucent, then add in the pork, the other half of the marinade, and 1 bay leaf
- Reduce the heat to where the mixture is at just a lively simmer, and cook, uncovered, until the liquid is reduced by half.
- Now add in the liver pate, carrots, tomato sauce, tomato paste, carrots, raisins and potatoes, and continue to simmer, stirring now and then, until the cubed potatoes and carrots are softened and until the liquid is reduced and nicely thickened.
- Next into the pan go the peppers, again cooking on simmer until they are softened.
- Do a taste test, and adjust the seasonings if necessary.
- Just before serving, add the grated cheese. Let it melt as you stir and distribute it evenly throughout the menudo. Serve right away, while still very hot.
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