Recipes on Food Magazine
Last 2013, Mr Ricky Manzano of Country Chicken Zamboanga introduced me to the editor-in-chief of Food Magazine Philippines, Ms. Nana Ozaeta. She, together with her team were doing a second feature on the culinary treasures of Zamboanga for their August issue. Well, we sat down and talked about how Zamboanga Cuisine evolved and how it continues to develop as time passes on. Zamboanga Cuisine is indeed complex, it is a mix of various influences largely from malay and spanish roots.
I invited them over to a Zamboanga feast degustation at Lantaka hotel which I will prepare myself which they just so happily obliged. The dinner was intended to introduce them to traditional zamboangueno cooking spiced up with a little modern touch. Since I was born and raised in Zamboanga and coming from a family of traditional zamboanguenos, eating good food has been a way of life. We often put a criteria to set our cuisine apart from our regional neighbors making us truly distinct. Over the years, we have injected local flavors to traditional spanish classics since most of the ingredients are hard to source in our locality. With the influx of malay traders from our southeast asian neighbors, we have also slowly embraced malay food and developed it to suit our palates.
The degustation meal I prepared for them consisted of a pigs trotter "pata" soup that was cooked sinigang style with some camansi and camias as souring agent. Camansi is similar to breadfruit is usually used by locals as ingredient for soups. For added flavor, I also added some cured pig fat that has been stored in bottles till they turn yellow, we call this "tocino" which is totally different from the typical sweetened tocino of Luzon. I also prepared Chicken Pianggang - a muslim delicacy of chicken cooked in blackened grated coconut. Instead of cooking it in coconut sauce, I marinated it otherwise in a spicy black coconut sauce and grilled it in charcoal. They also love the beef culma, which is our take on the malaysian rendang. Culma borrowed from the Indian word Corma which simply means curry. My version uses kaffir lime leaves thus making the culma very fragrant and
delicious. They were also surprised to taste for the first time a camias sirguelas salsa that was paired with very fresh tuna grilled to perfection. I chose to makle camias sirguelas since they were in season that time. The higlight of the meal was my award winning recipe from Kumbira - The Marang Cake which is marang custard filled in a soft chiffon cake and some fluffy meringue wafer. Marang is a tropical fruit that is largely found Mindanao and is so abundant in the hinterlands of the city.
I invited them over to a Zamboanga feast degustation at Lantaka hotel which I will prepare myself which they just so happily obliged. The dinner was intended to introduce them to traditional zamboangueno cooking spiced up with a little modern touch. Since I was born and raised in Zamboanga and coming from a family of traditional zamboanguenos, eating good food has been a way of life. We often put a criteria to set our cuisine apart from our regional neighbors making us truly distinct. Over the years, we have injected local flavors to traditional spanish classics since most of the ingredients are hard to source in our locality. With the influx of malay traders from our southeast asian neighbors, we have also slowly embraced malay food and developed it to suit our palates.
The degustation meal I prepared for them consisted of a pigs trotter "pata" soup that was cooked sinigang style with some camansi and camias as souring agent. Camansi is similar to breadfruit is usually used by locals as ingredient for soups. For added flavor, I also added some cured pig fat that has been stored in bottles till they turn yellow, we call this "tocino" which is totally different from the typical sweetened tocino of Luzon. I also prepared Chicken Pianggang - a muslim delicacy of chicken cooked in blackened grated coconut. Instead of cooking it in coconut sauce, I marinated it otherwise in a spicy black coconut sauce and grilled it in charcoal. They also love the beef culma, which is our take on the malaysian rendang. Culma borrowed from the Indian word Corma which simply means curry. My version uses kaffir lime leaves thus making the culma very fragrant and
delicious. They were also surprised to taste for the first time a camias sirguelas salsa that was paired with very fresh tuna grilled to perfection. I chose to makle camias sirguelas since they were in season that time. The higlight of the meal was my award winning recipe from Kumbira - The Marang Cake which is marang custard filled in a soft chiffon cake and some fluffy meringue wafer. Marang is a tropical fruit that is largely found Mindanao and is so abundant in the hinterlands of the city.
Indeed, the team enjoyed the very memorable dinner alongside jovial and educational conversations with some zamboangueno foodies that came over. I am truly delighted that they got to feature some of the recipes I prepared for them during that evening. I believe that after that meal, the Philippines can now get a better glimpse and appreciation of the very unique gastronomy of this rich Latin city called Zamboanga. Check out the recipes below or download the August 2013 issue instead.
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