Last month, Tsibog.com’s resident wanderer Gerry D visited the Ilocos region (northern Luzon) for a photo tour and came back with these wonderful shots of a certified Filipino favorite  – Empanada! So Tsibog.com is photo-blogging on his behalf, here’s an up close and personal look at the genuine Empanada of Ilocos.

An empanada is easily recognizable as street food in the Ilocos region, sold most likely in a food stall business like this one here — in Batac, Ilocos Norte — that demonstrated the empanada cooking process.

The empanada recipe traces itself back to our Spanish heritage, but the recipe varies from country to country (at least, those who have histories of Spanish colonization). Commonly, an empanada is stuffing wrapped in bread. In the Philippines, particularly, they usually contain ground beef or chicken meat, potato, chopped onion, and raisins (somewhat similar to the Cuban “picadillo”) in a sweetish wheat flour dough. There are “bready” baked versions, as well as flaky oil fried versions.

In Manila, empanadas are sold in bakeries and restaurants and are typically small in size. However, empanadas in the northern Ilocos region are very different. These ones can fill a small plate, and is already a small meal in itself. The unusually savory filling is made up of green papaya, monggo beans and, upon request, chopped Ilocano longganisa (Chorizo) and whole egg, to top it off. Rather than the soft, sweet dough favored in the Tagalog versions, the dough used to enclose the filling is thin and crisp, mostly because Ilocano empanada uses rice flour, coloured orange with achuete (annatto), and is deep-fried rather than baked.

I haven’t tasted this personally yet, but Gerry D and Anna, our true-blue Ilocana here at Tsibog.com, swear to its savory taste. This is another reason why I have to go and visit the Ilocos region soon. Do you have any Ilocos empanada stories? Feel free to comment below.

Visit our photostream for more pictures of Ilocos empanada.