Spain
SEASONINGS
Spanish dishes are straightforward in flavor, allowing the quality of the ingredients to shine through. Herbs and spices enhance but don’t overpower the primary ingredients.
Paprika PIMENTÓN is a cornerstone of culinary identity. While it is also used in Hungarian or Portuguese cuisines, Spanish paprika stands out for its deep, smoky flavor. Comes in two varieties: pimentón de la vera and pimentón de murcia.
DE LA VERA is a district in Western Spain famous for drying and smoking red peppers over an oak fire and then grinding them. This method imparts a smoky, woodsy flavor to food without requiring the food to be smoked. The peppers are also earthy, with just a hint of fruitiness and brightness.
PMENTON DE MURCIA is usually sun-dried and provides a sweet, rich, and fruity flavor. Both varieties come in three types: sweet–dulce, bittersweet–agridulce, and hot–picante.
In addition to paprika, Spanish cuisine uses bay leaves, saffron, garlic, parsley, and ñora, a unique Spanish red round pepper that is sweet and mild (500 Scoville heat units). It is typically dried in the sun and ground alone, or it can be ground with garlic or soaked in hot water and rehydrated.
SAUCES
SOFRITO – a classic Spanish flavor base made from onions, garlic, tomatoes, bell peppers, and olive oil. It is used as a base for stews, soups, and rice dishes like paella and can be varied with ingredients such as orange, saffron, and garlic.
ROMESCO is a sauce made from roasted tomatoes, garlic, almonds, hazelnuts, olive oil, red wine vinegar, and ñora peppers. It is used as a dip for vegetables, seafood, and meats and as a condiment for grilled foods.
ALLIOLI – a cold emulsified garlic, olive oil, egg yolks (optional in some regions), lemon juice, and salt sauce found on the Mediterranean coast of Spain and France.
SALSA BRAVA – tomato sauce, paprika, chili powder, vinegar, and olive oil; this is the iconic sauce for patatas bravas.
MOJO – The Canary Islands sauce comes in green or red varieties, the latter being spicy. These sauces are commonly served with salty boiled potatoes and papas arugadas, as well as a dip for bread. Both green and red mojos are made from garlic, lime juice, olive oil, cumin, white wine vinegar, and salt; the green mojo also contains green bell pepper, cilantro, and/or parsley, while the red mojo uses red bell pepper, red wine vinegar, and chili pepper or jalapeño.
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.
