Merry Christmas from FoodieManila.com!

How prodigious that I end up blogging about food on Christmas Day itself. From the aftermath of what was (I would expect) a noche buena feast, comes the carnage of the morning after. Many of us still lay in a food coma after consuming copious amounts of holiday cheer and the best our family has to offer. Surely, it was a good night.

This is the typical Filipino Christmas. We save the best dish in our arsenal to serve to our family and friends during this most joyous time of year. Forget birthdays, Christmas is where it is at.

With a variety of influences, the traditional noche buena is where those influences come out. Whether it be from Spanish, American, or even Japanese, they all come to the table come Christmas time. I know our family brings it out.

My mom, being kapampangan, will definitely cook our favorite adobo and kare-kare. This is a staple that will NEVER be surpassed by any dish. NEVER. For our side of the family, the perfect complement to kare-kare would be adobo that was fried and made to stew over a low fire for a long period of time. No, we don’t use slow cookers. We go old school and use firewood in the backyard.

For my dad’s side, we will definitely have lengua with orange marmalade, callos ala madrid (we cook this with pig’s cheek , slow-cooked from four to five hours), paella, and of course bacalao (salted cod fish). All that work for Noche Buena.

And don’t forget the lechon, the most glorious of pigs, slow-roasted to crispy perfection.

After dinner, we will definitely have some pandesal with either Majestic ham, or Adelina’s ham with Queso de Bola or Edam Cheese. This is accompanied by tsokolate made from tablea slowly melted and mixed in with full cream.

After after dinner, (yes you read that right, 2 afters!) generous servings of ensaymada and other pastries are spread out. We usually break out the wine at this point.

You would think that food would be the main subject during noche buena. I beg to differ. Family is what’s important. The reunion of people connected via blood and marriage. A coming together and rehashing, catching up of the year that was.

So again, from foodiemanila.com, aka Carlos Palma, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Pass the rice please!