Philippines
Sweet, sour and savoury all at once — a Spanish-Malay-Chinese mash-up built on vinegar, garlic and a whole roast pig.
At the heart of a Filipino celebration sits lechon, a whole pig turned slowly over coals until the skin shatters like glass — the country's grandest dish, carved straight onto the table. Filipino food is the least chilli-driven in Southeast Asia; it chases instead a moreish tug-of-war of sour, salty and sweet, the taste of three cultures folded together — a Malay foundation, three centuries of Spanish rule, and generations of Chinese trade.
The everyday workhorse is adobo, meat braised gently in vinegar, soy, garlic and black pepper until dark and glossy and tangy — ask ten cooks and you'll get ten versions, each certain theirs is the right one. Around it circle a bracingly sour tamarind soup called sinigang, oxtail in a rich peanut sauce (kare-kare), a sizzling plate of chopped-pork sisig, and the Chinese-descended pancit noodles and lumpia spring rolls. Vinegar and funky shrimp paste (bagoong) lurk behind almost everything. Save room for halo-halo, the gloriously chaotic shaved-ice sundae piled with fruit, jelly and purple yam.
- adobo (vinegar-braised meat)
- lechon (spit-roast pig)
- sinigang (sour tamarind soup)
- kare-kare (oxtail in peanut sauce)
- sisig (sizzling chopped pork)
- pancit (stir-fried noodles)
- halo-halo (shaved-ice dessert)
