THE TABLE at Christmas is one of the most intimate moments in a Filipino family’s life. While everybody tries to act perfectly for the holidays, old jokes and old secrets always manage to bubble up to the surface, the effects of laughter or tears softened by the accompaniment of food made year after year at the family’s request, thanks to a devotion to tradition.

Celebrity chef Myrna Segismundo, who has the distinction of being one of the first Filipino chefs to present at Madrid Fusion in Spain, opened her heart by opening her kitchen and sharing some of her beloved Christmas recipes.

Ms. Segismundo presented her recipes as part of the Maya Kitchen Culinary Elite Series, a series of classes where chefs like Jessie Sincioco, Tatung Sarthou, Gene Gonzales, and Claude Tayag show off their favorites for people to learn and share on their own tables. The recipes, such as Mr. Gonzales’ Adobo Diablo and Ms. Sincioco’s Tiger Prawns with Laing are available on themayakitchen.com/culinary-elite-series.

Ms. Segismundo’s presented her Adobo Pate with Pepper Jelly and Toast Points, Salad of Young Ubod and Pomelo with Honey-Patis Dressing and a kinilaw of shrimps, with a dessert of Turrones de Manila topped off with Vanilla Gelato Spazzacamino.

Adorning this meal is Beef Morcon à la Emilia, a recipe she learned from her mother. The beef roll, made with beef sirloin and stuffed with chorizo, edam cheese, eggs, green olives and other things, was a frequent centerpiece at the Segismundo table. Ms. Segismundo, before her mother passed away, carefully documented each step of the process in order to successfully duplicate it for future Christmas feasts with her family.

“It defies the principles of cooking that I usually follow in a commercial operation,” she said. For example, her mother would spread butter on the cut of meat, or else rub the meat with the sofrito of tomatoes, garlic, and onions, as opposed to simply sauteeing it first, as Ms. Segismundo had been trained to do. Asked if her mother ever tasted her own version, Ms. Segismundo said no, and said: “At home, she and my yaya were the queens in the kitchen.”

“My cooking does not matter when she’s around,” she added. After all, wherever you go in the world, no matter who your mother was, apparently, she’s always the best cook. It’s not favoritism, she insists: “It’s tradition!”

While Ms. Segismundo might have ascended the heights of culinary service and pleasure in her cooking and her tasting — experience, we’re sure, which her family benefits from — the morcon still holds a precious place in all their hearts. “It’s the memory of what went into it and the thought that she’s still around by virtue of this dish is what makes it all the more special.”

While this morcon is a virtual relic from times that will never return, we asked Ms. Segismundo to explain how Christmas feasts have changed for families. Of course, more ingredients are available now, and catering is more accessible. “We don’t [always] have the luxury of househelp these days,” she said about the tedium of shopping, chopping, preparing, cooking, and then cleaning up after the feast.

“I have nothing against all this convenience food,” she said. “My only concern is that they [should] know what the traditional recipes call for. It’s good to tweak, but then again, you tweak from a classic.” One must, maybe, build the walls first before they can be brought down: a lesson in cooking and anything creative.

While Ms. Segismundo has fond memories of Christmas, resurrected every year because of her mother’s morcon, what memories do we create when our Noche Buena comes from a kitchen that is not one’s own? “Nothing wrong with that; it’s a matter of choice,” she said. “You [do] have to have an identity, kahit papaano.”

“Alam mo naman ’yan sa pagkain eh [You know how it is about food]. You go around. Catered food, hotel food, vs. food in a home where the cook is very good: laking difference ’di ba [huge difference, right]?” — Joseph L. Garcia

MORCON à la EMILIA
Serves 4 — 6

2 kgs. Beef Sirloin, cut into two portions, each measuring 8 x 5 x ½-inch slices (pound lightly if needed)

Juice from two lemons or limes or 10 pcs. calamansi

1 cup Soy Sauce

1 head Garlic, peeled and crushed

1 tsp. Black Peppercorns, cracked

1/2 cup Unsalted Butter

8-10 pcs. Sweet Pickles, quartered

4-6 pcs. Spanish Sausages (Chorizo) each cut into four horizontal strips

200 gms. Pork Fat, cut into 1/4 x 2-inch strips

1/3 kg. Edam Cheese or Queso de Bola cut into 1/4 x 2-inch strips

150 gms. Ham Strips

1 can Pimiento, sliced into strips

5 pcs. Eggs, boiled, peeled and wedged

Butcher’s Thread

2 pcs. White Onions, minced, sautéed in a little oil

4 pcs. Tomatoes, peeled, seeded, coarsely chopped, sautéed in a little oil

Enough Water to cover meat

1 cup Tomato Sauce

3 pcs. Potatoes, peeled and quartered

1/3 cup Green Olives

Salt and Pepper, to taste

1. Marinade beef slices in lemon, lime or calamansi juice, soy sauce, garlic and pepper for two hours

2. Remove beef from marinade and spread slices flat on tray. Reserve marinade. Spread top side of each slice with butter. Line each center of the slices horizontally with strips of pickles, sausages, pork fat, cheese, ham, pimientos and boiled eggs. Roll each slice into a cylinder and tie with butcher’s thread to bind beef and stuffing. Rub and coat rolls with the sautéed onions and tomatoes.

3. Place beef rolls in a pot or casserole . Pour marinade. Add water and tomato sauce. Cook rolls covered over medium heat for about 30 minutes until sauce thickens or until beef is half-done. Add quartered potatoes and olives and continue simmering till beef is tender. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Cool beef rolls thoroughly. Remove string. Carefully slice the rolled beef into half-inch thick cuts making sure the stuffing is intact. Arrange slices neatly on a platter. Heat sauce with potatoes and olives. Pour sauce over slices and garnish with the potatoes and olives. Serve warm.

NEW YORK has seen nothing in recent memory that compares to buzz for the Peking duck that will be the specialty at DaDong, set to open on Dec. 11.

The three-story, 450-seat behemoth at Three Bryant Park will be the first US outpost for the Michelin-starred chain that has 14 locations around China (10 in Beijing, four in Shanghai, plus one coming to Chengdu).

DaDong New York booked 2,500 reservations inside two hours when the restaurant opened for bookings on Oct. 11. The place is fully reserved until February, though the restaurant has room for daily walk-ins.

First off: What’s so great about this bird? Peking duck is a dish that originated in Beijing and is said to date back more than 700 years, to the Yuan Dynasty.

By the mid 1500s, the first roast duck restaurant had opened in Beijing. DaDong’s version of the dish — a combination of lacquered skin and succulent meat, usually wrapped in a pancake with scallions and hoisin sauce — is magnificently crispy but meatier than much of the competition.

One reason it stands out is the way it’s cooked. Chef/owner Dong Zhenxiang uses customized Justa ovens whose design is top-secret; they have indentations on the walls that bring the oven temperature up to 600°F.

The kitchen has a line of five such ovens, which can cook up to a dozen birds each; the ducks hang from a circular contraption on the top and rotate as they roast, so the fat drips. A battery of eight chefs sees to duck preparation: Two oversee the poultry cooking in the ovens, and six slicers present duck to guests and then carve it table-side: The neck meat is said to be the most tender.

At the table, various options are offered for eating the duck, which costs $98 complete and $58 for a half, cut four ways. Traditional-style comes with pancake, hoisin, and three to four pieces of duck meat (and skin), as well as watermelon radishes, cucumber, and scallion slices.

There’s also a sesame-puff bun, a flaky pastry shell that’s meant to be stuffed with the duck meat, a pungent garlic paste, and vegetable garnishes.

A further option is to dip the duck in a bowl of sugar and eat it plain. Finally, there’s the Kaluga caviar accompaniment, which costs an additional $42 and is meant to be spooned between the skin and the meat.

WHERE IT COMES FROM
Chef Zhenxiang sources the duck from Indiana-based Maple Leaf Farms, Inc. The chef worked for two years to procure enough ducks for the deluge that the New York opening requires. DaDong ordered 960 ducks, enough to fill two walk-in coolers.

To accompany the food, beverage director Michael Scaffidi has assembled a wine list of more than 300 bottles. He’s drawing inspiration from the 12-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac system. “The year 2018 is the year of the dog; we’ll be featuring wines from 2006 and corresponding vintages,” said Scaffidi.

There will be specialty mixed drinks, too. “It’s the sign of amazing people like Prince, Madonna, Michael Jackson; we’ll have some fun with that with the cocktail program.”

He highlights Champagne and white Burgundy on the list — noting that both are duck-friendly — with a few by-the-glass selections, including Krug ($48). A handful of Chinese wines will be on offer, including cabernet sauvignons from the LVMH-owned Ao Yun Cabernet Sauvignon (for about $777) and Shanghai Moser ($59).

More than 100 bottles will be priced at less than $60. “We’re not here just to sell baller wines,” he says. He’s also planning to serve Frozé from a machine at the terrace on the second floor, where he might also experiment with such drinks as a frozen Ferrari (a mix of Fernet and Campari).

SPRAWLING IN SIZE
Although the 17,500-square-foot, 450-seat space is huge for New York — by comparison, the massive Tao Downtown has just 300 seats — it’s tiny by DaDong’s standards. Their Chinese counterparts have up to 700 seats.

Size was Zhenxiang’s biggest challenge when he began scouting New York locations in 2015. He decided he could make the biggest splash in a space near Times Square that had the size to accommodate a vast number of guests (there are 182 seats on the main floor, along with 160 on the outdoor terrace and more than 100 upstairs, where the chef will offer tasting menus with sliding walls for private dining). Zhenxiang liked the array of people that visit the area and appreciated that the Bank of China’s new headquarters is nearby, at 7 Bryant Park, and the Bank of America Tower is across the street.

The noise at DaDong is all about the duck, yet 79 other items list on the hardcover menu, which is decorated with big color pictures and resembles a children’s book.

(As with the dining space, the menus in China are notably bigger, offering about 240 items; many dishes that didn’t make it to the US were deemed not especially appealing to American palates, such as stir-fried Chinese lasagna with powdered crab roe and crab fat and sweet and sour jellyfish with aged vinegar.)

Chef Andy Xu, a veteran of such esteemed New York kitchens as Cru, oversees the non-duck dishes. Xu predicts that the steamed Alaskan king crab (market price) will be the next best-seller, followed by Kung Pao chicken or shrimp. Yes, there’s Kung Pao shrimp on the menu. Word is, it’s really good. — Bloomberg