Food & Travel [Solved] Filipino Food

Bicol express

Bicol Express, known natively in Bikol as sinilihan (lit. 'spiced with chili'), is a popular Filipino dish which was popularized in the district of Malate, Manila but made in traditional Bicolano style.^[1][2] It is a stew made from long chilies (siling mahaba in Tagalog), coconut milk, shrimp paste or stockfish, onion, pork, and garlic. It is said to have been inspired by the fiery Bicolano dish gulay na may lada, which is nowadays presented as one of the many variants of Bicol Express.

Bicol Express was named after the passenger train service^[3] from Manila to the Bicol region,^[4] a region in the Philippines famous for its spicy cuisine.

Bicol Express is a spicy food made of pork, chillies, coconut milk, shrimp paste, onion and garlic. The dish was believed to be coined by Cely Kalaw, a native of Laguna. It is easy and quick to make. Bicolanos love to eat and cook, they often use coconut milk for their dishes, a famous product in the region.^[5]

Pancit Malabon is a Filipino dish that is a type of pancit, or stir-fried noodle dish, which originated in Malabon City, Metro Manila, Philippines. Its sauce has a yellow-orange hue, attributable to achuete (annatto seeds), shrimp broth, and flavor seasoned with patis (fish sauce for a complex umami flavor) and crab fat. Local fresh seafood toppings may include cooked shrimp, squid, smoked bangus (milkfish), mussels, and/or oysters. Other optional garnishes can include pork, hard-boiled duck/hen eggs, crushed chicharron (pork rinds), chopped green onions, lightly browned sautéed minced garlic, and spritz of calamansi (or tropical lemon/lime wedges) juice.

Here's a dessert that's not mentioned in Wikipedia.  It's usually served during parties especially in the past.  I'm not sure what the name for it is, but a lot on YouTube call it Fruit Cocktail Jelly.  It can be made without the fruits from my memory.  The main ingredients are gulaman (agar), condensed milk, and evaporated milk.  It's that mixture of gulaman with the condensed and evaporated milk that gives this dessert a nice texture and taste.  It's often made with red gulaman thus giving the dessert its pinkish or reddish color especially after it's mixed with the milk.  It's a very delicious dish!  I'm not sure what part of the Philippines this dish hails from, but perhaps from the Metro Manila region.  It likely was invented during or after the American Period since it uses condensed milk.  I'm guessing it was invented in the 1960s or 1970s, but I'm not sure.

I'm guessing Fruit Cocktail Jelly was invented in the 1960s or 1970s because it's often prepared in tupperware with a "floral" cast design that's then turned over and released onto a plate to show the design.  Tupperware was very popular in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.  But it could have been invented earlier using non-tupperware cast or no cast at all.  

One last thing on the Fruit Cocktail Jelly.  It's basically gulaman mixed with milk, and that could have been done very early in history with carabao milk or goat milk (or perhaps even with coconut milk but I'm not sure how this would turn out).    

Fruit Cocktail Jelly kind of reminds me of Buko Pandan which is a type of Buko Salad except the gulaman and coconut milk are just an amalgamation in Buko Pandan whereas the milk is completely mixed in with the gulaman to form the gelatinous dish in Fruit Cocktail Jelly.