Favorite Filipino Dishes We Love to Cook on Birthdays

Hello SteemFoods, I am April Marie Yaun. How have you been? I hope you are all doing fine.

This is my first post here and thank you for this opportunity to share my love for food. As a foodie, this is really a great platform to discover new recipes and share food content.

Today, I will be sharing to you some dishes we Filipinos love to cook on birthdays.

It was December last year when my family gathered to celebrate my Lola’s 81st birthday. Lola’s birthday has always been an annual reunion for my family. It is when my aunts, uncles, and cousins from afar would travel for hours to come here in Mactan just so they could celebrate with us.

It is a culture here in the Philippines to prepare food for a certain type of occasion, particularly birthday celebrations so that we can have our salo-salo (Filipino word for eating together). For my Lola’s birthday we have prepared the following Filipino dishes.

• Pancit Bihon (noodles)
  It wouldn’t be a birthday without this dish.
  We have this tradition in the Philippines that having and eating pancit symbolizes long life and good health for
  the birthday celebrant. Though this is also popular at many Filipino fiesta.

• Pork Dinuguan (also known as chocolate meat)
  A classic Filipino dish made with diced pork, pork blood, and spices. This is a delicious dish for many Filipinos
  specially when paired with steamed rice.

• Empanada
  This is one of the best Filipino delicacies. It is a baked or fried pastry stuffed with meat, vegetables, fruits,
  cheese, and other ingredients. They are made by folding a sheet of dough over the ingredients and sealing
  before cooking.

• Lumpia
  A traditional Filipino dish. It is a Filipino fried spring rolls filled with ground pork and mixed vegetables. Lumpia
  are made of thin-paper-like called lumpia wrapper. This is also a very popular dish in the Philippines, and one of
  Filipino’s favorite dishes in all types of occasions.

• Baked Scallops
  We also have seafood on our plate. My cousin, Kristine was the one who prepared this dish.
  Baked scallops taste delicious and really one of my favorite dishes on this occasion.

And now, the highlight food in any Filipino’s celebration!

• Lechon Baboy (Roasted Pig)
  Lechon is a dish wherein the inside of the entire pig is stuffed with various ingredients which can include
  lemongrass, garlic, onion, bay leaves, you can also add other ingredients to improve the flavor of lechon
  according to your taste preference, and the inside is also brushed with soy sauce.

Personally, my favorite part in lechon is the pig’s skin.

Furthermore, Lechon Baboy is a popular Filipino dish and is served in any Philippine celebration. It’s everyone’s favorite fiesta dish. Also, in any type of occasion such as christening, wedding, and birthday to name a few. It’s a type of dish in the Philippines that would complete the celebration.

In the Philippines, Cebu is famous for its crispiest and juiciest lechon. It is considered as Cebu’s best!

There were actually other dishes that my aunts and other cousins cooked for my Lola’s birthday. One of those was shrimp tempura. Another personal favorite specially when dipped with spicy sauce.

That would be all for now. I hope on my next blog, I can share these recipes with you. Thank you so much for reading!

To conclude, I want to say thank you to SteemFood for creating this opportunity for a foodie like me to share my insights about food. Thank you also to @alikoc07, @booming, and @steemcurator01 for supporting this community.
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