5 Filipino Food Recipes That Latinos Will Find Familiar

All of this looks delicious!

Many traditional Filipino dishes have touches of different cultures due to the hundreds of years that the South East Asian country has been colonized.

Filipinos love to eat, and because of this, the Philippines' varied cuisine has become a mixture of recipes from other cultures.

Since the Spanish colonial period, which took 300 years, had been the longest regime in the Philippines, Spain had a significant influence on Filipinos' culture and heritage, especially food.

According to Filipino Kastila, about 80 percent of Filipino dishes have been from Spaniards, who introduced tomatoes, garlic, as well as sautéing dishes with onions. Filipino cuisine evolved through adaptation of tastes and availability of ingredients in different parts of the country.

Below are five of the numerous Latin American and Spanish dishes that Filipinos have come to love, and are certainly familiar to Latinos.

1. Adobo

Made with chicken, pork, squid or vegetables. These ingredients are stewed in vinegar, garlic, soy sauce, peppercorns and bay leaf.

According to Kumain, the dish's name has been Filipinized from the Spanish adobado, a complex dish where ingredients are soaked in garlic and oil.

2. Sinigang

This dish is a lightly boiled and slightly sour soup usually eaten by Filipinos with rice.

Made with souring agents such as tamarind leaves, unripe guavas, kamias and tomatoes, the soup has different variants including ones fish sinigang (sour vegetable soup with fish) and pork sinigang (sour vegetable soup with pork).

The Spanish influence in sinigang is seen in the herbal spices like the tanglad (lemon grass) and bambawing, which is a "wild" member of the basil family.

3. Menudo

According to Panlasang Pinoy, to make this pork and liver stew dish, ingredients needed are of course pork, soy sauce and lemon. The three need to be marinated for at least an hour, heated, sauteed with garlic and onion.

After five to seven minutes of cooking, tomato sauce and water are added, as well as bay leaves. Then it needs to be simmered for 30 minutes to an hour.

Liver and hot dogs will then be added in. After another five minutes of cooking, add potatoes, carrots, sugar, salt and pepper. After 8 to 12 minutes more, the dish is done.

4. Pinakbet or Pakbet
This is a stir fry dish popular in the province of Ilocos, north of the Philippines. It is made with Filipino vegetables, garlic onions, tomato and bagoong of fermented fish, or in the south, bagoong alamang.

5. Ginisang Monggo

This dish is also known as Mung Bean Soup outside the country. It uses sweet tomato for sautéing. Other variations may be sour, while others include coco milk as well, according to My Filipino Kitchen.