More than the Midnight Mass, and perhaps second only to the glee of ripping open Christmas presents, the Noche Buena meal is one of the anticipated highlights of Christmas Eve in the

          Philippines. The food is as varied as the household that serves it but, like the Thanksgiving turkey, tradition makes much of having glazed ham and queso de bola on the table.

          But what of a celebrated chef and foodie? What do they serve on Christmas? ONE PHILIPPINES asked chef Claude Tayag and his wife Mary Ann, and New York-based cookbook author Reynaldo Alejandro to share with you what’s cooking for Christmas.

          And also because as food historian Doreen Fernandez observed, “More important than what is eaten is the fact of eating together, of the coming home of sons working in Saudi Arabia, daughters who are nurses in the US, and of whole sets of cousins and brethren from whatever part of the world has sheltered them before Christmas.”

          So, on these pages at least, ONE PHILIPPINES invites you to come home and share in the Christmas repast of our special guests. Claude and Mary Ann Tayag’s Nilagang Pasko

          We have our family Christmas dinners or Noche Buena in my mom’s house and we have the same food year after year. I think this is not only the case in our family but in most families. It is almost like science that if you change the menu, family members will growl because before coming to my mother’s house, their minds are already set on what to eat. In a way that makes life easy for me, being the one who is always in charge of the menu and the one who happily volunteers to help in my mother’s kitchen.

          We are a big family of over 50 members. That includes us 12 children with our spouses and children and grandchildren. So for our December 24 dinner, I prepare what is easy to prepare but popular with all. Especially during the holidays, our household help go home to their own families as well.

The food has to be something light because there would be other family dinners to go to after. What we do is have early dinner in my mother’s house and then we all leave by 8 pm to hear Christmas Mass and then have dinner again with our other families

          We have assorted bread nicely put in a bread basket. We have pate, different cheeses, ham and sausages. And to add a Filipino touch to our Noche Buena, I serve Claude’9 Taba ng Talangka which my family enjoys spreading on hot bread. We then open a few bottles of wine and serve iced tea for the children. Everyone then leaves to join their respective family gatherings as our mother rests for the following day’s lunch.

          Year after year, lunch on December 25 is simple and never varies. The same group who came for the eve would come but this time hungrier and with a hangover from the previous night’s parties. I make a big cauldron of Cocido de Madrilena. That is our nilaga, but more complicated since it has assorted meats (chicken, beef brisket and pork ribs) with chorizo morzilla (blood sausage) and garbanzos and fideos noodles. And I bring out my bottled Claude’9 Xtra Ordinary Chili Sauce which adds flavor and heat to the soup. And in the Tayag family, we “partner” nilaga with lechon so there should be lechon every Christmas day.

          (Note: It is because of our yearly nilaga that I decided to make and bottle Xtra Ordinary [XO] Chili Sauce. We are a big family and the Chinese XO is just too expensive for us so I decided to make my own version and eventually bottled it because it became popular among my family and their guests.)

          Noche Buena is special to every Filipino family. It is the day in a year where the whole clan gathers and shares a meal together. But what may be interesting to add here is in almost every Kapampangan home, our food for Christmas day is nilaga. Maybe all over the Philipinnes, the highest demand for chicken during Christmas is highest in our province. I would say 8 out of 10 houses serve nilagang manok on Christmas eve or Christmas day. Even for my workers at my shop, I make sure they have nilaga for their families. So every year, I give them chicken and all the ingredients to cook nilaga at home.

A new dish for Ronnie Alejandro’s New York Christmas dinner

Mushroom Orientale
Stuffed Cornish Hen
Veal Roulade
Banana Cheese Cake

          I don’t celebrate Noche Buena but invite some friends for an early Christmas dinner. The menu above is one set of my festive fare.

          I am experimenting with Stuffed Cornish Hen (one for each guest since the chicken is small). Stuffing will include malagkit, chorizong intsik and chorizo bilbao with Chinese mushroom and spices. I will marinate first the chicken in soy sauce and lemon overnight. The stuffing will be cooked separately and when done, I stuff it in the Cornish Hen.

          So, that’s how I celebrate Christmas: with a new dish each year.