Pulutan! Filipino Bar Bites, Appetizers and Street Eats

September 3, 2018
Food blogger Gapultos (The Adobo Road Cookbook) exuberantly showcases Filipino pulutan—finger food—with more than 60 recipes accompanied with beer pairings and cocktails. Gapultos suggests plenty of tempting recipes for entertaining, such as pork meatballs with spicy coconut sauce (served with an American pale ale); fried green mangoes (with a Belgian Tripel); beer-and-Spam mac and cheese; and beer-steamed blue crabs (perfect with a pilsner). Other local recipes include an ingenious shrimp cocktail of gin and pomelo (a kind of grapefruit), grilled bacon skewers with pineapple glaze, and appetizers of crispy fried smelt, which Gapultos suggests pairing with an English pale ale. The book contains recipes for such sauces as a green mango hot sauce, garlic bagoong aioli (made with fish paste), and a sweet and sharp shallot sauce. Cocktails include rum and coconut water, and a frozen
cantaloupe cooler, a slushylike drink that includes calamansi, a local citrus fruit. Gapultos includes a generous description of specialty ingredients, though those without a local Asian market may be at a loss (he does offers substitutions for some items, such as vodka instead of Filipino coconut liquor for panantukan punch). This is a terrific, approachable collection of unexpected appetizers.