Laudico couple promotes Pinoy cuisine to the world

FOR ABS-CBN’s Pinoy Masterchef co-host Rolando Laudico, or popularly known as Chef Lau, cooking every single day is a learning experience.

“Kami every day, we learn from cooking. Marami pang kailangang malaman about cooking and you can never learn everything about cooking,” Chef Lau shared.

Together with his wife Jacky, the power couple in the Filipino culinary and restaurant scene, took time off from their busy schedules in managing their restaurants as they motivated University of Baguio’s School of International Hospitality and Tourism Management students in a two-day demonstration last February 11 and 12.

Chef Lau took his culinary training by enrolling in the Culinary Institute of America. But although he took a course abroad, he admits that he always learns something new about cooking, especially about Filipino cuisine.

He urged students who at some point were just like him a few decades ago, to continue developing Filipino dishes than can be recognized worldwide.

But he told them being a chef isn’t easy. It’s a combination of hard work and really finding the niche in the culinary scene. “There’s a glamour part being a celebrity chef but behind a celebrity chef is dedication and hard-work,” he stressed.

He expressed love for Cordilleran food after the win of Barlig, Mt. Province-native JR Royol in the latest season of Master Chef who made known not only to the entire country his Igorot and Bicolano roots through his Bigorot dish.

“From the start of the show, I immediately saw the potential,” Laudico shared about Royol’s cooking talent.

During the demonstration, Chef Lau prepared highland salted and smoked preserved meat popularly known as etag with native ingredients such as mung bean and pork innards.

“There are lots of ingredients from the Cordilleras that can be used for remarkable recipes such as etag, which gives the uniquely distinct flavor to the dish,” he said.

He believes local ingredients such as etag elevates Filipino cuisine not just as a tradition from the Spanish and Chinese but more looking toward food used even before we were colonized.

Together with kitchen staff in g-strings, Chef Lau prepared mung bean flavored etag with crispy pork innards served with adobo coco cream shake which for him is a recipe which Cordillerans should try to explore.

Meanwhile, his wife, Chef Jacky, an executive pastry chef at the couple’s Bistro Filipino restaurant, also showed through a cooking tutorial of a Filipino dessert, suman or rice cake topped with panna cotta and mango and covered in coconut. The suman was coupled with gelatine.

Suman is her favorite Filipino dessert, Chef Jacky shared.

“So that basic suman is very versatile, marami ka talagang magagawa and nakakabusog. Hindi lang pang dessert, pangmeryenda na rin,”she explained.

“Kailangan lang natin, kaunting imagination,” imparting on the students to use their imagination in making Filipino desserts.

Biko, suman and kakanin are just few foods which are well-known in the Philippines which she said have already reached consciousness in the very particular palette of the international community.

“Our country is loaded with natural resources which can be used to develop a Filipino recipe,” which she shared is important if Filipino cuisine wants to be known worldwide,

The couple shared they are planning to put up a bistro in Baguio City and they hope to return in the Summer Capital next year for another cooking demonstration.

Food sampling followed after the demonstration where the audience was given sample plates of the suman. The activity was organized by the UB-SIHTM led by Dean Melanie Rulla-Saro to promote local and Cordillera dishes. (Ryan Fernandez/University of Baguio Intern)