I sometimes make it seem like the Philippines and I are best friends. Like I know my mother’s country inside and out. I do not. Even though it’s half of me.
When I started cooking, I made pesto and guacamole and standing rib roasts ladled with au jus. Instead of sisig and sinigang, I taught myself béchamel and Bolognese. I learned the recipes I aspired to have ingrained in me, the ones that nudged at the white, European half of my roots, the roots I lost when my dad died a month after my ninth birthday.
I ran away from the foods I grew up with, the ones that infused the walls of our fatherless home with their tangy, fish-saucy funk.
Now, I’m trying to make up for lost time.
A couple years ago, I interviewed a Food Network chef who told me I should write a Filipino cookbook. “I’m sure you have a million recipes,” he said. “And Filipino food is so hot right now.”
I nodded as he spoke, neglecting to tell him I knew maybe three Filipino recipes at the time: adobo, lumpia and (with a few texts to my mom) perhaps pancit.
Instead, I told him this was a great idea: I have Google and a library card, I thought, I can make it work.
But what lures people to food isn’t a regurgitation of recipes from the internet. We’re drawn to the connections from which dishes are born. We use food to enmesh ourselves in parts of the world we may never visit, into the lives of people we may never meet.
In lieu of merely Googling recipes, I’m trying to reconnect with the Filipino dishes I grew up eating. And, as I do, I promise to share them.
If I give you this recipe for pandesal without context, then this Filipino morning staple is reduced to any other breakfast roll. If I tell you how warm bags of pandesal from the corner bakery, their clear plastic fogged with condensation, marked almost every morning I spent at our families’ homes in Manila and Quezon City, then this recipe becomes something more — a connection.
The first time I remember visiting the Philippines, when I was 12 and scared to leave my grandparents’ house in San Andres Bukid, pandesal helped show me what I was missing. The sweetly steamy rolls, slathered in gobs of Jif peanut butter Mom lugged over in our checked boxes, tasted just familiar enough. When I was back in the Philippines in 2008, I made the pandesal runs to the bakery, handing over a few pesos for dozens of pale-golden spheres plucked fresh from the ovens.
I rediscovered pandesal during the thick of the pandemic, when we were all seeking comfort. This recipe was inspired by the good people at Foxy Folksy, a blog run by a Filipina woman and her German/Swiss/Austrian husband. A blog that feels a bit like my life.
I’m more of a cook than a baker, but even in my inexperienced hands, these pandesal tasted like all the cooking clichés: like family; like humid Manila mornings spent waiting for the oscillating fan to turn my way; like reconnecting with the half of my roots that never died, but that I’ve also never truly lived.
Ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour (can substitute some or all of this for bread flour; the more bread flour, the chewier the pandesal gets; AP flour makes the rolls more tender and slightly denser)
¼ cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk, lukewarm (not hot)
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 ½ teaspoon active dry yeast
¼ cup breadcrumbs
Directions
Take ½ cup of the lukewarm milk and mix it with 1 teaspoon of the sugar and the active dry yeast. Stir. Let the yeast proof for 5-10 minutes until foamy.
In a large bowl, mix flour, salt and the remaining sugar. Add milk, egg and melted butter. Mix until the dough is shaggy and starting to come together. Add the activated milk-sugar-yeast mix and fold until a sticky dough forms — add more lukewarm milk if the dough is too dry or more flour if it’s too wet.
Dust a large, clean surface with flour. Turn out the dough and knead it for 5-10 minutes until smooth and elastic.
Form the dough into a ball and lightly coat it with oil. Set the dough in a bowl and cover it with a kitchen towel or plastic wrap to keep it from drying out. Place it in a warm area and let it rise until it’s doubled in size, about 45 minutes to 1 hour or longer depending on the temperature.
Once the dough has doubled, punch it down and divide it into 2 equal parts (I like to use a scale to make sure they’re equal). Roll each into a log.Cut each log into 6 smaller pieces for a total of 12 rolls (again, a scale will help keep them consistent).
Shape each piece into a ball and roll it in breadcrumbs, completely covering all sides. Arrange the pieces on a baking sheet leaving at least an inch of space between them. Cover the sheet in plastic wrap or a dish towel and let the dough rise for a second time until once again doubled in size — another 20-30 minutes.
While waiting, preheat your oven to 370 degrees. Bake the pandesal for 13-15 minutes or until the sides are lightly browned.
How to eat pandesal?
Pandesal are best eaten directly from the oven. You can store them for 2-3 days in an airtight container and reheat them in a toaster oven — if you happen to have any leftovers. They’re delicious with peanut butter (as I’ve told you) or smeared with salted butter and honey or jam.
Pandesal make a lightly sweet counterpoint to a savory breakfast sandwich, and while I haven’t tried this yet, I think pandesal and sausage gravy might be the Deep South-Filipino fusion dish the world needs.
I’ve had an incredible week, pandesal aside.
The legendary Renee Gilmore of ABC7 in Sarasota invited me to talk food, race and representation with fellow Filipina Nerissa Lamison Tuesday night. You can watch me and my giant, Slavic, ever-moving hands at this link.
We had such a good time, Renee invited me back to talk AND COOK with her for a segment that ran Saturday morning. I seriously messed up some mango lassis — talking while cooking is hard. But Renee graciously pretended to enjoy them, and for that I’ll be forever grateful. I haven’t watched this yet, but you can! Here’s the link.
