Peru
SEASONINGS
Peruvian seasoning and spice combinations are quite distinctive, with several key elements that make them unique:
AJÍ PEPPERS are the most defining element – particularly ají amarillo — yellow pepper, ají panca — dark red, smoky pepper, ají rocoto — spicy red pepper, and ají limo — very hot pepper. These give Peruvian food its characteristic heat and depth that’s different from other Latin American cuisines. While some dishes can be spicy, Peruvian food generally has a balance of flavors, including sweet, sour, salty, and spicy.
Unique herb varieties from coasts, mountains, jungles:
HUACATAY – black mint, an Andean herb that’s neither quite like mint nor basil, but has its own complex, slightly anise-like quality.
EPAZOTE – Used in the Andes for soups and stews
MUÑA – Andean mint used for altitude sickness and cooking
CHINCO – a native herb essential for pachamanca preparation, it has aromatic, anise-like flavor
Peruvian cuisine has less emphasis on dry spice blends compared to other Latin American cuisines and a strong focus on fresh paste-based seasonings rather than dried spices, extensive use of lime in coastal cuisine, and integration of fermented ingredients like chicha de jora — corn beer, or pisco — grape brandy, in marinades and sauces. Many of these seasonings, especially the native peppers and herbs, are difficult to substitute.
Interestingly, garlic and onions, while not native to Peru, are used in such large quantities that they’ve become fundamental to the cuisine’s flavor profile. They often form the base of dishes along with ají peppers.
Cumin, oregano, and black pepper were introduced by Europeans but are now used in distinctly Peruvian ways – in marinades for anticuchos and in meat dishes. These spices are used more subtly than in other Latin American cuisines.
Unique seasoning combinations emerged from cultural fusion. For instance, the use of soy sauce was introduced by Chinese immigrants and created new flavor profiles.
SAUCES
LECHE DE TIGRE – Though technically the marinade for ceviche, it’s often served as a sauce or even drunk on its own. Contains lime juice, fish juice, chilies, garlic, cilantro, and other seasonings.
HUANCAÍNA SAUCE – A creamy, spicy yellow sauce made with ají amarillo, queso fresco — fresh cheese, milk, saltine crackers, and garlic. It’s famous as the sauce for Papa a la Huancaína but is used widely.
OCOPA SAUCE – A sauce from Arequipa similar to huancaína but distinctly flavored with huacatay — black mint, and ground peanuts, often including evaporated milk and crackers.
AJÍ VERDE – A fresh, spicy green sauce made with cilantro, jalapeños or ají amarillo, lime juice, and garlic. It’s commonly served as a table condiment and used particularly with grilled meats.
SALSA CRIOLLA – A fresh sauce/relish made with sliced red onions, lime juice, chilies, and cilantro. It’s served with many dishes, particularly grilled meats and anticuchos.
CHALACA – A fresh condiment of diced onions, chilies, corn, and lime juice.
Philippines
SEASONINGS
Filipino flavors are built in layers, then finished at the table. First, the cook builds the base in the pot, but the diner also cooperates and participates while choosing and adding sawsawans (dippings) entirely to his liking, and that transforms the whole taste and experience.
Filipino cooking is organized among the three dominant axes of sour, salty-umami, and sweet. The very core flavors are salty and sour, as sweetness appears, but rarely dominates. Heat is optional and very personal (except for Bicol region and Mindanao, where spice pastes and chilies are prominent). Filipino cooking also conspicuously skips fresh herbs as a finishing element, which Thai, Vietnamese, and Indonesian cuisines rely on heavily.
Salt is fundamentally important to preserve from spoilage, it comes through patis fish sauce, bagoong isda fermented fish paste, bagoong alamang fermented shrimp paste, and soy sauce. Salt as a bare mineral is the condiment of last resort. Umami comes from those same fermented ingredients, from long-cooked meat broths, from dried and smoked fish added to stews, and from annatto-colored fat used to start dishes.
Then the saltiness is paired with sourness, which also helps preserve. The Philippines uses vinegar on a fundamentally different scale and in a structurally different way than its neighbors do. Neighboring cuisines use chili to wake up the senses, but Filipinos use vinegar, and this is the core distinction. Vinegars come from palm sap, coconuts, sugarcane, and sugarcane wine. Sourness extensively comes from fruits – tamarind (sour fruit pod), calamansi (tangy citrus), kamias (cucumber tree, acidic green fruit), guava, green mango, batuan (small green sour fruit).
Anato (achiotte) is a coloring spice. It consists of annatto seeds fried in oil, which turn dishes a bright orange-red color. Simmering ingredients in coconut milk — a technique called ginataan — appears often. Coconut milk gata absorbs and carries fat-soluble flavors, softens acidity, and adds richness. Ginger deodorizes fish and meat, warms broths; bay leaves, a direct inheritance from Spanish cooking, feature braises — adobo, mechado, kaldereta. At the table, achara — green papaya pickled in vinegar and spices — sits apart from the sawsawan lineup to cleanse the palate.
Filipinos flavor building starts with gisa. The gisa is the base for adobo, kare-kare, mechado, afritada, monggo, pancit, many soups. From its contents, it has a lot of ties with Spanish sofrito. Garlic goes first, browning until golden and fragrant. Onion follows, softening in the garlic-infused oil. Tomato goes last, its liquid is released to form the base liquid of the dish.
One of the most personal parts of a Filipino meal is sawsawan, a fundamental Filipino dipping sauce, and ultimate flavor customization tool. Some common elements in the sawsawan lineup include:
Suka (vinegar) — usually cane or coconut, sometimes spiced with garlic and labuyo. Used with virtually everything fried or fatty. The vinegar cuts grease and provides the sour axis.
Toyo (soy sauce) — thinner and saltier than Japanese soy sauce, provides the salty-umami axis. Often combined with calamansi to make toyomansi, the most common everyday condiment.
Patis (fish sauce) — patis has many uses in the Filipino kitchen: as a dipping sauce, as a source of salt, and as a flavoring agent. Many Filipino cooks use it instead of salt. In sinigang, for example, there is no salt in the ingredients list; the dish is finished with patis, which adds salinity as well as its own distinctive flavor.
Calamansi — provides the bright, floral citrus note that lime and lemon cannot replicate. It is squeezed directly over anything that needs brightness.
Bagoong — Fermented fish or shrimp paste for deep, complex umami. It has specific pairings, most notably kare-kare and green mango.
Most sawsawan are assembled raw at the table. Lechon sauce is the major exception, and it is a genuinely unusual preparation as it includes water, sugar, breadcrumbs, vinegar, salt, liver, spices, and pepper. Ground roasted liver is the most important ingredient.
BANANA KETCHUP— condiment made from banana, sugar, vinegar, and spices. Its natural color is brownish-yellow, but it is often dyed red to resemble tomato ketchup. Uniquely Filipino, paired with fried chicken, hot dogs, and fast food
PALAPA — a traditional condiment from the Maranao people of Mindanao, consisting of a spicy and aromatic blend from chopped scallion bulbs, ginger, turmeric, chilies, and often toasted coconut.
