Pinoys love to eat out. But with many restaurants still closed for dine-in, people are elevating their dining experiences at home. Since times are tough, most people are choosing to find joy in the simple comforts of food. The pandemic has unleashed the creativity of home cooks and brought to light a number of interesting food trends and quarantine cravings. In this time of stress and uncertainty, people are making the most of their pantry staples, going back to traditional homebaked food preparation, and choosing familiar and feel-good comfort food.
With bars closed, chilling out and drinking at home has become the norm. Delivery services are also upping up their Instagram game with DIY meal kits and ready-to-eat meals that look good and taste even better to get repeat customers. Here are some of the most popular food trends in the Philippines that have come out of the quarantine.
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Sushi Bake
Sushi Bake or Baked Sushi is the latest food craze making the rounds on social media. This deconstructed maki is baked in a pan, similar to a salmon casserole with Japanese flavorings. It’s like a huge flattened out sushi or maki, made with layers of fluffy Japanese rice, baked and shredded fish, topped with tobiko eggs. Once baked, it’s served and wrapped with nori sheets.
The way you eat is that you scoop a spoonful of this baked sushi and wrap it a nori sheet, like tacos. There are loads of different toppings available right now on the market, including mango, torched salmon, uni (sea urchin), scallops, and more! The DIY element makes this a fun dining experience to try at home.
Beer-to-go & DIY cocktails kits
With the closure of many bars and restaurants everywhere, people have no recourse but to drink at home. In the past 3 months, local breweries have transitioned to home delivery of their beer in craft beer packs, bottles, cans, and kegs. Even rare, hard-to-find regional brews like those from The Cebruery in Cebu and Baguio Craft Brewery are making their way to Metro Manila through online sellers and platforms. Instead of offering 6-packs of the same variety of beer, assorted packs are more fun since they give people something different to sample for tastings or pair with meals at home.
I’ve also been seeing a lot of ready-to-drink cocktail mixes from bars and DIY cocktail kits being sold online. Soju and Yakult, anyone? People are getting experimental at home with their drinks and online sellers can make it a more fun experience by putting together everything you need for a good drinking experience at home.
DIY Samgyupsal
For many families and barkadas, dining out in samgyupsal restaurants after a long week was a bonding activity and cause for celebration. There’s really something festive about chowing down on unlimited slices of pork and beef with an array of Korean side dishes. With the popularity of Korean TV shows, people need a way to get their samgyupsal fix, which has resulted in many restos offering DIY samgyupsal home kits for delivery. By buying slices of plain and marinated meats from local meat shops, and cooking up their own side dishes such as kimchi, you can replicate the KBBQ experience without having to go out.
Ube Cheese Pandesal
We all love ordinary pan de sal or breakfast rolls, but then home bakers around the country started making Ube Cheese Pandesal. This deliciously soft and pillowy purple bread rolls with melty cheese filling just took the country by storm. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t succumbed to ordering a dozen or so of these bread rolls to binge on. This exciting take on the Filipino breakfast staple reminds a lot of us of our childhood. The vibrant purple color and melted cheese inside also makes for a great food photo, which has boosted its popularity on social media, inspiring more home bakers to try their own versions of it.
Fancy-fied Canned Goods and Instant Noodles
As people try to save money and stretch out resources, it makes sense to make the most of canned goods and instant noodles at home. Adding vegetables, meat and other spices ingredients can help make typical relief good foods more appetizing and healthy. Thus, we saw the popularity of recipes like Corned beef hash, Hotdog sisig, Sardine nuggets, homemade fishballs, and more. Making a pack of instant noodles look like a fancy ramen dish from a Japanese restaurant by loading veggies and toppings on it was a good way to make use of pantry staples and repurpose leftover viands and vegetables.
Dalgona Coffee
Dalgona coffee is a drink made by whipping equal proportions of instant coffee powder, sugar, and hot water until it becomes creamy and then adding it to cold or hot milk. Occasionally, it’s topped with coffee powder, cocoa, crumbled biscuits, or honey. This viral beverage that originated in South Korea has spawned a whole slew of Dalgona-inspired recipes – from Dalgona Coffee Cake, Dalgona Milo, Dalgona Juice using instant powdered juice drinks, and more.
I think this drink became so popular during the early days of the lockdown because it makes use of easily available ingredients and doesn’t require advanced cooking skills, so anyone could do it. Since people have a lot of time on their hands and couldn’t go out to their favorite coffee shop, whipping up a cup of coffee seemed like a productive way to pass the time.
Sourdough Bread
In the first few weeks of the lockdown, when popular bread brands became scarce in grocery stores, home bakers around the world started a sourdough bread craze. This bread makes use of a live fermented culture of flour and water, a sourdough starter, which acts as a natural leavening agent. Sourdough is known for its characteristic flavor ranging from mild to strong, chewy texture, and crisp crust. Why is everyone baking sourdough at home during the quarantine? Well, carbs are very comforting. Plus, baking bread can be very therapeutic since it requires a lot of time to practice.
Banana Bread
Banana bread has been around for ages, but it seems like everyone’s baking loaves of this moist, sweet, cake-like bread. Since grocery and market trips were limited, most of us ended up with more produce at home than we could eat before they spoiled. Interestingly, banana bread is a recipe that can be traced back to the Great Depression. It was created as a way to make use of overripe bananas. Unlike other fruits, when bananas go limp and mushy, they can be repurposed. Baking banana bread is actually a way to avoid food waste.
Cinnamon Rolls
I don’t have a sweet tooth, but I keep seeing cinnamon rolls on my feed which has led me to crave for them! Cinnamon rolls consist of a rolled sheet of yeast-leavened dough with cinnamon, sugar, and raisins and other is sprinkled over a thin coat of butter. Cinnamon rolls are one of the easy things you can bake using pantry staples. Cinnamon rolls seem to have become more popular than ever because they’re just good old-fashioned comfort food that reminds us all of better days. In times of stress, we’re wired to seek out comfort food.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Any type of comfort food that brings back good childhood memories have become popular again. Chocolate Chip Cookies are easy to make and come out great as long as you use good quality ingredients and dark chocolate. Nothing beats getting a pack of homemade cookies for home delivery. These treats make great care packages from friends. Eating chocolate chip cookies is like getting a hug from a friend, which is badly needed in these times.
Which of these quarantine food trends are you currently craving?
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