Lechon Sauce

A dark sweet-sour liver sauce, thickened with breadcrumbs rather than flour.

Pork. Not vegetarian — contains pork.

Ingredients

• 200 g liver spread or smooth liver pâté
• 150 ml cane vinegar
• 80 g brown sugar
• 60 g fine dry breadcrumbs
• 1 onion and 8 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 300 ml water
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1 teaspoon salt

Method

1. Soften the onion and garlic in the oil for 10 minutes without colouring them.
2. Add the water and bring it to a simmer, then whisk in the liver spread until smooth.
3. Add the vinegar, sugar, pepper and salt and simmer 10 minutes.
4. THICKEN WITH BREADCRUMBS, NOT FLOUR. Rain them in while whisking and give it 5 minutes. Breadcrumbs give the slightly grainy body this sauce is supposed to have, where a flour roux makes it smooth and gravy-like.
5. Add them a little at a time and stop when it coats a spoon thickly — they keep swelling for several minutes after they go in.
6. Taste and balance: it should be noticeably SOUR and sweet at once, because it exists to cut through roast pork fat. A mild version does not do its job.
7. It keeps a week in the fridge and thickens cold; loosen it with water when reheating.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Philippines · All recipes