Filipino bar food — savory snacks and small plates meant to be eaten alongside drinks, usually beer, during a casual gathering.
Pulutan (from "pulot," to pick up) covers the food that accompanies drinking sessions — dishes meant to be shared from the center of the table and eaten with your hands or a toothpick rather than as a full plated meal. Sisig, chicharon, and lumpia are all classic pulutan, valued as much for being salty, crunchy, and easy to keep eating as for any particular technique.
It's a social category more than a culinary one — almost any savory dish can become pulutan depending on the setting, but a few, like sizzling sisig, are so strongly associated with drinking sessions that they're rarely served any other way.
Recipes on Pancit.com that call for pulutan.
Pork skin boiled, dried, and double-fried until puffed and crackling-crisp.
Thin, crispy Filipino spring rolls filled with seasoned ground pork — a party-table staple.
Chopped pork, onion, and chili sizzled on a hot plate with calamansi and a raw egg on top.
