A Filipino Chef in New York
Dannah Paloyo in Ang Pinoy Stories
Nov 06, 2019 • 2 min Read
Chef Angela Dimayuga — her name is definitely Filipino — shares our cuisine in the prestigious New York Times where she works as a food critic. She re-discovered the Filipino Dishes from her childhood when The Times asked her for “10 recipes that speak to the heart of Filipino cuisine.”
Born and raised in Northern California to a Pampangueña and a Batangueño couple, Dimayuga’s childhood was full of the aromatic smell of steamed rice, chicken relleno, sinigang, and arroz caldo.
Dimayuga studied hotel and restaurant management and has since progressed from a small café in New York to Mission Chinese Food in New York to Standard International hotel group as a creative director for food and culture.
Her list of choices for The Times does not include her comfort foods like monggo or bola-bola. She says that “this list is just a beginning” because the Philippines—being an archipelago of more than 7,600 islands—has a multitude of regions with individual claims to “culinary glory.”
She describes Filipino cuisine as a “centuries-long tangle of Eastern and Western traditions” that encompasses Chinese, Spanish, and American connections.
Dimayuga’s Filipino dishes feature uncommon ingredients and steps — and also miss a few ingredients. Full recipes are found in https://cooking.nytimes.com/:
- Arroz Caldo — features collard greens (from the kale family) and soy-cured eggyolks
- Beef Empanadas — features a meat filling that can be a separate dish by itself
- Bibingka — uses cream cheese and parmesan cheese for additional creaminess
- Bistek — combines browned butter, lemon and orange juice, and olive oil
- Chicken Adobo — uses coconut oil, coconut milk, and coconut vinegar
- Embutido — uses chorizo de bilbao and ingredients are smoothly combined in a food processor
- Lumpiang Shanghai — roll into skinny cigarillos to achieve supercrunchy skins
- Pancit Palabok — skips tinapa flakes and yolks of salted egg
- Pinakbet — uses quartered tomatoes and caramelized tomato paste
- Sinigang — uses Serrano chillies, instead of the common siling haba, for that extra bite, also has daikon (from the radish family)
Wherever we may be, we crave for Filipino dishes. They may change due to circumstances (but there should be tinapa flakes in the US, right?) but the taste stays in our memories.
Bon appetit, kabayan!
Featured Image Source: starchefs.com
