Chef Jose Andres Plans to Explore Spanish-Filipino Venture Next: Possible Combos

Culinary wizard Jose Andres was in Las Vegas this week to host a dine-around party with Aussie celebrity chef Curtis Stone. At the event, the renowned Spanish-American restaurateur revealed that his next venture will involve Spanish-Filipino dishes.

In an interview with Robin Leach from Las Vegas Sun, Andres said he is eager to fuse the rich tastes from Spain and the Philippines. He said Spain played a big part in introducing Latin-American food concepts to South East Asia.

"Listen, the next cuisine I'm going to marry is Spanish and Filipino. It's a story that needs to be told, it's a story that people are unaware of," said the 46-year old food connoisseur. "Spain I don't think ever got enough credit enough to bring in the Asian ingredients. It's not obvious in our cooking, nobody will disagree anymore that tempura was a Portuguese Spanish influence in Japan and in all Asia."

We can only speculate for now what Andres will serve at his upcoming Spanish-Filipino restaurant as his venture is still in the conceptual phase. One dish that will likely be part of the menu, however, is Adobo.

According to Tagalog Lang, the dish is derived from the Spanish word "adobo" which means to season and marinade before cooking. It often features pork, chicken meat or vegetables drowned in a homemade sauce usually consisting of salt, garlic, pepper, vinegar and soy sauce.

When the first batch of Spanish colonizers arrived in the Philippines some 500 years ago, they observed that locals stored their food in containers drenched in vinegar. They immediately recognized the process as "adobo." The name eventually stuck and countless variations of Adobo were created and perfected across the country's 18 regions.

Any Spanish-Filipino restaurant wouldn't be complete without the crispy and flavourful Lechon and the perfect beer party companion Sisig. The former is a stuffed and roasted whole pig which American celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain calls the best slow-cooked pig he has ever tasted. Meanwhile, the latter is a hodgepodge of minced and seasoned pig parts served on a sizzling plate, Inter Aksyon reported.

Another Spanish-influenced Filipino dish is the Bistek Tagalog. It's similar to the American beef steak but with smaller slices of beef. The Bistek Tagalog is cooked in a homemade sauce made from salt, garlic, onions, soy sauce and calamansi (or lemon) juice, as per Authentic Filipino Recipes.

There's also a dish called Laing, a kind of mushy soup featuring dried taro leaves, shrimp paste and coconut milk. Panlasang Pinoy pointed out that Laing can be eaten as it is or it can be turned into a meaty viand with the addition of thin pork cutlets or shrimp.