What dish reminds you of Mum? Chefs JP Anglo, Tina Legarda, and more share their memories

Carlos Garcia hails from Extremadura, Spain and is the chef behind The Black Pig, Tiago’s Restaurant, Fiddle Leaf, and The Pigpen

Lentejas con chorizo. It reminds me of my mum because when she does it, the whole house smells of lentejas con chorizo—so when I come home from school hungry, it’s the most amazing smell. She would place chorizo, jamon bones, tocino, and pork trotters, which are the best in Extremadura.

Nowadays when I go home to visit my mum, we go on long walks looking for blackberries in the summer and mushrooms in autumn. We also get water from the springs and along the way, we see Ibérico pigs and sheep or lamb. But best of all, we get to talk about anything and everything.

Related: On the Pass: get to know chef Carlos Garcia and his philosophy that “food should never be pretentious”

EJ Lagman is the chef-owner behind Eliseos bed and breakfast in La Union, as well as its experimental Filipino restaurant Makan at Eliseos

My mum makes the best sinigang! And I’m not just saying that because it’s Mother’s Day. It’s definitely one of my favourite things to eat, sinigang and rice. My mum uses beef ribs for hers. She starts by pressure cooking the ribs until it’s extra tender. Then she uses the cooking liquid for her base—no fancy souring agents here, just good old trusty Knorr Sinigang sa Gabi powder. Next, she throws in her vegetables, according to their required cooking times: gabi, tomatoes, string beans, eggplant, okra, and kangkong. She simmers the pot and adjusts her seasoning with some patis while I wait at the table with a mound of white rice in my dinner bowl, spoon and fork at the ready.

Her broth is nice and thick, almost like a sour tsukamen broth, with as many vegetables as meat and bones. I like starting my meal by having a couple of spoons of the broth. Then, I mash the gabi with my fork, separate the meat from the bones, and layer the veggies on top of the rice with enough broth to cover every single grain of rice, like a warm blanket. Then, using my spoon and fork in a crisscross manner, I chop and mix everything together. Every single spoonful is different from the next. I got my body from the gabi and rice, the okra mucilage making it feel like gumbo, acid from the broth and tomatoes, and fresh, peppery, earthy-grassy notes from the rest of the vegetables. It’s over before I’d like it to be, sweat dripping and an extra full tummy. 

Happy days. Every time she makes it is a special occasion, like it’s everyone’s birthday. There’s no way you can be mad, sad, down or any of that after a plate! Shoutout to my momma, hehe. Love you! 

Read more: Chef EJ Lagman of Makan, La Union on “finding your voice and your people”

Tina Legarda is the chef-owner behind southside neighbourhood favourite Bamba Bistro, known for its lovingly made comfort food

Paella. In grade school, my classmates and I compared our lunch, and I remember one time when I opened my Rainbow Brite lunchbox, it was carne frita served with beautifully-plated paella! I still laugh now at how some of my friends gasped when they saw it! 

I also particularly loved our Baguio summers with all our cousins and how “paella night” was always something we all looked forward to in the itinerary. I guess it was the fastest way to feed dozens of hungry kids—but even under pressure, she’d do it really well. It’s the way she still does it for us to this day: a paellera full of seafood, chorizo, and vegetables, always equally dividing the socarrat and homemade aioli among everybody (to make sure no fights ensue).

Now that I’m older, I realise how amazing it was to watch her all my life genuinely enjoy feeding the people she loved. And just like her paella, I will never stop showing off what a truly wonderful mum she is.

See also: Nostalgic recipes with chef Tina Legarda of Bamba Bistro: Pollo con mantequilla

Inspired by his time in Toronto, chef Jeramie Go returned to the Philipines to open his restaurant Pilgrim, a serene culinary destination in Davao

Rellenong bangus wrapped in banana leaf would be that dish! In my elementary days, going to the market with my mum to shop for bangus (and other meats and produce) was always part of my chore. It was never fun as a kid. I always felt it was embarrassing, not cool. So, I remember, once we got home, I would then have to gut, clean, and stuff the fish, and then wrap them in banana leaves. Then I would also be the one cooking them on the grill. Looking back, I’ve now grown to cherish and appreciate the experience. That right there was the foundation of my work ethic. and some of the most essential building blocks of my culinary training.

Read more: Who is the father of the farm-to-table movement in the Philippines?

Chef JP Anglo is among the country’s most celebrated culinary figures and vocal advocates for Filipino cuisine, best known for his restaurant Sarsa

The dish that reminds me of my mother is chicken ubad, our native chicken ubad—Bisaya na manok with ccoconut heart. She cooks it in coconut, lemongrass, salt…I think there’s ginger. It’s meaningful to me because every time I come home to my hometown Bacolod, that’s what she cooks. It’s sort of like a welcome home dish. Every time I have it, I feel the warmth from my mother; I feel that she is happy that I’m home, because she knows that dish makes me happy. I like the texture of the banana heart, the ubad; I like the flavour of the native chicken, it’s so deep and gamey, and it goes well with coconut. It’s nice when it’s braised, so we braise it and it goes well with the creamy coconut sauce. Of course, the lemongrass and ginger—ginger is always like a warm hug, like arroz caldo. You are de-stressed and so relaxed, I guess that’s the feeling you’re looking for, especially coming home. It’s an emotional dish for me, and it makes me happy—it makes my tummy, mind, and heart happy.

Related: The Culinary Capitals of the Philippines: Chef JP Anglo’s guide to Negros Occidental

Chef Francis Tolentino is a relative newcomer to the fine dining scene but has quickly impressed diners with his new restaurant Taupe in BGC

My mum didn’t do a lot of home cooking when I was growing up because of her busy schedule. Most meals were premade—frozen lasagnas, ordered pizzas, boxed mac and cheese— something ordered in, or eaten out at a restaurant. There were a few things that she did make, and I would have to say my favourite was her spicy pork and chicken adobo with lots of garlic, and probably her biscuits and gravy. Yes, the biscuits were ready-to-bake biscuits or whipped together Bisquick, but the gravy was homemade and, with a bit of added seasoning, quite tasty. It’s a meal that I look forward to, even today, and even if I know I can make a much better gravy it’s still a humble flavour that reminds me of home and my childhood.

Read more: Fine dining in BGC: Taupe by Chef Francis Tolentino

Chef Alex Tan represents half of the duo behind Tandem, one of the metro’s most exciting tasting menu restaurants, which he helms with his fianceé chef Mikee Lopez

My mum is a fantastic cook who was always so open to learning anything and everything. My siblings and I didn’t grow up eating only one particular cuisine because my mum would cook random stuff, and it would typically come out pretty good. There was a phase when she was super into crepes filled with mango, topped with vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup. She’d make that for us for breakfast on the way to school—wild. She’d make Bicol express when I would crave it. She learned how to make kimchi jjigae and japchae because at one point my family was obsessed with Korean food. Anything to do with soups was always great.

There was one time when I was a kid, I remember it was lunch time and a friend pulled out his packed lunch which consisted of rice and those processed Dino nuggets you see in the freezers of supermarkets. He shared them with me, and I absolutely loved them. I asked my mum if I could please have chicken nuggets for lunch the next day. So of course, she makes homemade chicken nuggets, of course using real chicken meat, cut into nice chunks and lovingly breaded and fried so nicely, served on top of warm fluffy rice. I took a bite... and I was incredibly disappointed, haha! It didn’t taste like the overly processed frozen section Dino nuggets my friend had.

But this goes to show how much time and effort my mum would take to cook for us. And because of how versatile she was with her cooking, it’s really hard for me to pick just one specific dish. And thinking back now, possibly the reason I eat anything and everything is because that’s exactly what my mum would cook as we grew up. And we’re lucky that 95 per cent of the time, the food she’d make was great. And so that’s what I got used to, and that’s also affected the way I approach cooking even in the restaurant—not cuisine-specific but with global influences because there is just so much great food out there in the world.

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