The Filipino sour soup known as Sinigang can contain any variety of meats, poultry and seafood, and is typically studded with a variety of local vegetables. Depending on the region of the Philippines, a range of native fruits can be used to give Sinigang its trademark tang. And although vinegar is a vital ingredient in Filipino cooking, it is never used as a souring agent for Sinigang.
The typical souring agents that can be used include unripe tamarind pods and leaves, kamias (a very sour green fruit pod native to the Philippines), guava, starfruit, tomatoes, as well as lemon, calamansi and dayap (another variety of Philippine lime).
But since Rhubarb is so plentiful this time of year in my neck of the woods (and also because tamarind, kamias, guava, starfruit and dayap don't grow in my neck of the woods), I decided to try and use the sour red stalks to bring the tang for a Pork Sinigang.
Rhubarb? In soup? Yes. And it works wonderfully! Although rhubarb is typically used in desserts, a savory Sinigang application isn't as crazy as it sounds. Besides lending the necessary sourness for a proper Sinigang, rhubarb also provides a nice crunchy texture in much the same way that daikon or taro traditionally would in the Filipino sour soup.
And besides, using Rhubarb in Sinigang will trip out even the most palate-progressive of all your Filipino friends. It's a culinary curveball!
Despite nearly 20 wide-eyed, watery-mouthed, hungry Filipino porkaphiles hacking away at a whole-roasted pig this past Thanksgiving at my grandmother's, there was still plenty of pork to go around after everyone's forks and spoons were laid down.
Nope, my family could not put away 200+lbs of porcine goodness in one sitting, which was fine by me because the only thing better than lechon is leftover lechon. What to do with leftover lechon?
Well, on many an occassion I've been known to drizzle some good olive oil, sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper on some leftover lechon meat and then throwing the whole lot on a hot grill--juuuust for a minute or two until the meat is branded with grill marks and the skin re-crisps. Mmmm, almost as good as new.
And then there's always Paksiw na Lechon: a tasty stew of roast pig leftovers simmered in vinegar, sugar, spices, and lechon liver sauce.
But for this go-around, I decided to utilize my latest bounty of lechon in a pot of Sinigang. Sinigang is a sour soup that often contains fish, shrimp, or pork. Sinigang is also perhaps the most beloved and comforting of Filipino comfort foods. So I figured what could be more comforting than a Sinigang chock full of lechon?
During the lifespan of this here Filipino Food Blog, I've made some
food that I never thought I'd have the skill, chops, or know-how, to
make. I'm not saying any of this food has been perfect, I'm an
inexperienced hack
after all, but I've at least been able to avoid self-induced food
poisoning that could have been caused by my overwhelming lack of said
skill,
chops, or know-how. But it turns out that with a little research, and a
lot of patience, seemingly difficult dishes can be prepared with
relative ease.
Take for instance, the Filipino pork sausage known as Longanisa (also spelled longanissa, longganisa, longannisa, and everything in between). Almost 2 years ago, I made my own homemade Longanisa from scratch. This initial foray into sausage making, while daunting, resulted in some dang tasty pork links. Overall, it was a satisfying enough experience that I had to pat myself on the back a la Barry Horowitz.
However, after a visit to the Philippines last year and sampling the awesomely fatty Ilocano sausages of Batac, and after Josh Bousel of Serious Eats adapted my longanisa recipe with fantastic results, I realized that there was still much room for improvement in my original recipe (let's call that one Homemade Longanisa v1.0, or HL1).
So after some tinkering and fine-tuning here at the Burnt Lumpia Worldwide Headquarters, I've finally devised a better sausage--a tastier, fattier sausage more evocative of the Longanisa I enjoyed in the Northern Philippines last summer. Ah yes, by streamlining a few ingredients while simultaneously adding more pork fat(!), I was able to evolve my old recipe into a new and improved version: Homemade Longanisa v2.0!
And with this New and Improved (Now with 50% MORE Fat!) version of Longanisa, I am happy to add it to my personal list of Porky Pinoy Pavorites...
If there's one comfort food that both Americans and Filipinos can identify with, it's meatloaf. I have some fond memories from my childhood of stabbing a piece of my mother's meatloaf
with my fork, dipping it in some ketchup, and then plunging the
tomato-clad meat into my mouth, followed by a forkful of steamed rice.
Oh yes, we Filipinos loves us some meatloaf--or more specifically, Filipino Meatloaf known as Embutido.
What makes Embutido different from regular ol' meatloaf?
Well firstly, instead of being baked in a loaf pan like meatloaf, Embutido is usually rolled into a log shape in cheese cloth or foil and then baked or steamed. I've read that Embutido is cooked in this way because in its original form (a long, long time ago) Embutido was nothing more than ground meat stuffed into big hog casings--much like a giant sausage (hence the current practice of rolling it in cheese cloth or foil).
Embutido also sets itself apart from regular ol' meatloaf in that Embutido is usually stuffed with whole hard boiled eggs and whole hotdogs!
I'm sure there are some of you out there scratching your domes over the thought of a meatloaf studded with whole eggs and wieners. In fact, when serving Filipino Meatloaf to someone who's never had it
before, they are likely to say something like:
"Why, there's whole eggs and wieners in
this meatloaf! Either this is some sort of cruel joke or [takes bite of Embutido] this is the awesomest meatloaf known to man!"
Indeed, Embutido is the awesomest meatloaf known to man.
Not only does the filling of wieners and eggs make for a striking presentation when the Embutido is sliced, but wieners and eggs taste good too. Mmmm, wieners and eggs.
As a food blogger and natural glutton, I've often found myself invoking the name of God after my many many stints of pain-inducing overindulgence. For instance, the following phrases have passed through my lips on more than one occasion:
"Please God, don't let me barf all over myself."
"Please God, don't let me shit myself."
"Please God, don't let me die."
"Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em."
The first invocation above is usually mumbled and slurred after an extended period of alchohol-fueled carousing, or what I like to refer to as "Tuesday." The second in the list is almost always expressed through clenched teeth and with a cold sweat covering my brow--usually after eating something passed it's prime that I knew I shouldn't have eaten. And finally, the third invocation on the list is reserved for when my belly has been stuffed with terribly unhealthy, yet terribly delicious, pork products.
I've been asking the Big Guy to spare my life more and more these days as I've been clogging my arteries at an alarming rate via the Five Point Pork Exploding Heart Technique.
Photo illustration and overall awesomeness by Rasa Malaysia
I couldn't help but to giggle a bit when Rasa Malaysia asked me to be a
guest writer for her blog--especially because she specifically
requested that I write about the Filipino spring rolls known as Lumpia.
Quite apropos, I thought, considering the name of my own blog. Though I tried vigilantly to avoid any charring of any spring
rolls for this post, the last one or two in my frying pan did set off
the old smoke alarm (sometimes I can't help myself)...
So I decided to do a recipe for Lumpiang Shanghai--a small, thin type of fried lumpia.
Lumpiang Shanghai is a favorite of mine because it is fairly easy to
make--just roll the wrapper over the meat, no fancy folding is required
so the spring rolls are left open-ended.
To learn more about different types of Lumpia, and to find my easy recipe for Lumpiang Shanghai, hop on over to Bee's wonderful blog, Rasa Malaysia, to read my guest post.
***
Fresh on the heels of Joey'sguest post about adobo, I was ecstatic when Bee asked me if I'd like to introduce even more Filipino food to
her readers. Of course I would! After all, everyone deserves a little bit of Filipino food in their bellies!
Some of you may remember my Lechon story from last year in which I explained that the wife and I alternate between our families each Thanksgiving. Since we spent last Thanksgiving eating Lechon (Filipino roasted pig) and other goodies with my family, we spent this past Thanksgiving eating turkey and other goodies with my wife's family.
As usual, I had a wonderful time with the in-laws this year, and as usual I couldn't help but have fatty pork on the brain. Knowing that I'd be needing to satisfy a serious lechon fix, I called my grandmother with specific instructions to send a heapful of leftovers back with my parents since I'd be seeing them the next day. Usually requests like this are futile--any goodies meant for me are almost always intercepted by rogue vultures (i.e. my brothers) long before they are within my grasp. This time however, the pork gods smiled upon me as the foil-wrapped piggy package arrived safely, unscathed and uneaten.
Speaking of magazines, I also wanted to mention that the December issue of Yummy Magazine in the Philippines features a new recipe by yours truly (and for great comedic effect, there's an accompanying picture of me as well--so I'm told).
The recipe I contributed to Yummy is a Bitter Melon and Bacon Quiche,
which is pretty much my take on the classic Pinoy dish of Eggs and
Ampalaya, combined with the more western Quiche Lorraine (ooh lar lar).
Mmmm. Bitter melon and bacon, together at last.
This all came to be when, a couple months back, one of the kind folks at Yummy emailed and asked me if I had any ideas for a holiday side dish. So I sent them back a long, drawn-out recipe that is now (understandably, and thankfully) a whittled down and more streamlined version of what I sent them. I gather that the editors at Yummy must frown upon unnecessary parenthetical statements and vague references to cartoons and little-known rap lyrics (I kid, I submitted only a very straight-forward recipe).
There are quite a few food-related stories from my childhood that I have long forgotten, yet have remained firmly entrenched in the memories of the rest of my family (they never fail to remind me, and everyone else, about these supposedly "true" tales).
For instance, one of my aunts claims that I once poked my index finger through an entire carton of eggs that my grandfather just brought back from the market (since there's no memory of an ass-whoopin' that my grandpa would have surely given me, I don't believe this story for one second).
Also, according to my younger brother there was a time that I was so pissed off at him that I allegedly dumped a family serving of shrimp onto my own plate and quickly ate them just so he wouldn't have any (again, because I have no recollection of the smackdown my shrimp-loving father would have certainly laid upon me had this really happened, I don't believe this story either. And besides, I wouldn't have eaten ALL of the shrimp--leaving only one lone shrimp behind sounds more like my style).
And then there's the yarn that my mom often spins about how when I was a wee lad I used to eat only the chicken skin off of my chicken, or just the pork fat from my pork and not the meat. Although the image of a 5-year old stuffing his face with animal blubber is kind of disturbing, I do have some faint recollection of this actually happening (perhaps because a violent spanking wasn't involved, I didn't have to repress anything in the deep recesses of my brain).
Although these memories of fat indulgence were fuzzy at best, they all became crystal-clear after recently making my own adobo from fatty pork belly. After my first bite of jiggly pork fat layered between meat and skin, the memories of my lard eating youth came rushing back like an Anton Ego/Ratatouille-like epiphany.
Needless to say, it's been a while since I've eaten pork belly adobo.
As mentioned in my previous post, I will be introducing, one at a time, 5 utterly fatty Filipino pork dishes I have deemed as the Five Point Pork Exploding Heart Technique. The first fatty pork dish I'd like to present to you in this series is Spicy Sizzling Sisig.
Sisig is a spicy and sourish Filipino dish usually comprised of pig ears, snout, and cheeks (and sometimes brain!) that have been boiled, grilled, and fried (yes, it's cooked thrice) with spicy chilies and then served on a hot sizzling platter. In other words, it's a platter of sizzling pig's face (and sometimes brain!).
Before any of you turn your own noses up at this dish, let me say that after I've had it in the Philippines in Boracay, and after making it myself, I can certainly attest that Sisig is a damn fine and tasty dish. (Market Manila also has some great Sisig posts here, here, and here.)
Ok fine, you'll give Sisig a try, but how does one obtain a pig's face you ask? Well, if you happen to have access to a severed pig's head, you yourself can easily butcher the face off, as shown in the following Gourmet Magazine video that shows Chef Chris Cosentino butchering a pig's head to make the Italian dish, Porchetta di Testa. Warning: the following video can be disturbing if you don't like to see meat being butchered, but it's pretty awesome and informative nonetheless:
See, Filipinos aren't the only ones to eat pig's face!
Of course, many of us probably don't have access to the severed head of a little piggy, let alone are we willing enough to butcher it ourselves. So making Sisig sans snout with just pork ears and jowl is the next best thing.
If you happen to have some pork ears with hair on them, just shave them with a razor and/or burn them off with a blowtorch as was shown in the Gourmet Magazine video above. Luckily for me, the ears I purchased were already clean-shaven.
To make my Sisig, I first boiled some pork ears for a couple of hours in some water along with a couple of dried chipotle chilies and bay leaves (the chilies and bay were more for aromatic purposes as I didn't want my place smelling like boiling pig ears).
Are you listening to me?
Some Sisig recipes I've seen say to grill the ears first to get rid of any stray hairs, and then boil them. But that seemed counterintuitive to me in that the boiling would probably wash away any desired char and smokiness from the grill.
I also took one of my pork jowls and trimmed away much (a whole friggin lot) of the fat because I thought it would be a shame to waste all the delicious jowl fat to the flames of my grill. Don't fret though, there was still plenty of fat left on the jowl and I saved the trimmed fat for another use down the road (another post for another time).
Fatty Jowl
For those of you unfamiliar with pork jowl, it is used to make the Italian cured meat called Guanciale--which is basically face bacon (rather than bacon made from pork belly). Luckily I ordered two jowls, one for Sisig and one for Guanciale. As soon as the weather cools down around here, I will be curing my own homemade Guanciale with the other pork jowl I have (yet another post for another time).
I then marinated the boiled ears and the trimmed jowl (no need to boil the jowl) in some soy, vinegar, kalamansi juice, garlic, and red pepper flakes overnight. After marinating, I grilled the ears and jowl over high heat until they were nice and charred. I tasted the ears and jowl at this point, and they were so good already--especially the 'qued jowl:
The pork ears were no slouch either, as they seemed to take up a lot of the flavor from the marinade. Although the ears are, of course, all cartiledge, they weren't tough to chew on at all as they were rendered tender from the earlier boiling. Although I used four pork ears for my recipe, feel free to tone it down to two ears.
Soft ears
After I removed the pork from the grill, I chopped everything up into small pieces. Along with some chopped onions and some thai and serrano chilies, I sauteed the pork jowls in a hot skillet--some of the fat renders out from the jowls and ends up caramelizing the onions into sweet bits. I added the chopped ears to the pan at the last minute, then presented everything on a hot sizzling platter as Sisig should be served. Sisig, it's spicy, smoky, tangy, and utterly porky delicious.
Sizzle fer shizzle, home skillet!
And that friends, is the first dish for my Five Point Pork Exploding Heart Technique. Use it with caution. Although there are four more dishes to go, I won't reveal them all here at once because there is indeed a rather effective defense against the lethal Five Point Pork Exploding Heart Technique: Moderation.
Spicy Sizzling Sisig
Serves 4-6
2-4 pork ears, cleaned and rinsed 2 dried chipotle peppers 2 bay leaves 1/2 cup soy sauce 1/4 cup cane vinegar 1/4 cup kalamansi juice (or a mixture of lemon and lime juice) 3 garlic cloves, smashed 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes 1 pound pork jowl, trimmed of excess fat (save trimmed fat for another use) 1 onion, diced 1 thai bird chili, sliced 1 serrano chili, sliced 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika (pimenton)
Place the pork ears, chipotle peppers, and bay leaves in a large pot and cover with water. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Cover the pot and continue simmering for 2 hours until the ears become tender. Drain the ears and allow to cool to room temperature.
Combine the soy, vinegar, kalamansi juice, garlic, and pepper flakes to make a marinade. Place the pork ears and jowl in a large zip-top bag, or in a shallow dish, and pour the marinade over the pork. Marinate the pork overnight.
Remove the pork from the marinade then discard the marinade. Pat the ears dry with paper towels, then brush them with oil (no oil is needed for the already fatty jowl). Place the ears and the jowl on a very hot grill and cook for a total of 15-20 minutes, turning the ears and the jowl frequently. Remove pork from grill and allow to rest until they are cool enough to handle.
Chop the pork ears into small pieces and set aside. Chop the pork jowl into small pieces and set aside, making sure to keep the jowl separate from the ears.
Add the pork jowls to a large skillet over high heat and saute for 3-5 minutes. At this point, you can pour off some of the rendered fat that collects in the pan, but I left it in there. Add the onions, chilies, and paprika to the hot pan and cook until the onions soften. Add the chopped ears to the pan and mix everything to combine. Cook for 1 more minute, then place the Sisig on a pre-heated sizzling hot platter.
Provide some fresh kalamansi (or lime or lemon) on the side for spritzing onto the Sisig. Serve the Sisig with rice and an ice cold beer.
