Sisig

Pork boiled, then grilled, then chopped and served on a plate hot enough to sizzle.

Chicken, Pork, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains chicken, pork.

Ingredients

• 1 kg pig's face and ears, or pork belly and ears
• 200 g chicken livers
• 2 onions, finely chopped
• 6 bird's eye chillies, chopped
• juice of 8 calamansi, or 3 limes
• 2 bay leaves and 1 tablespoon peppercorns, for the boil
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 40 g butter
• 1 egg, to finish
• 1.5 teaspoons salt

Method

1. THREE COOKINGS, AND SKIPPING ANY ONE OF THEM MAKES SOMETHING ELSE. Boil, then grill, then sizzle.
2. First: simmer the pork with the bay and peppercorns for 90 minutes until a knife goes through the ear cartilage. Cool it completely.
3. Second: GRILL THE BOILED PIECES over charcoal or under a hot grill until the skin blisters and chars in places. This is where the smoke comes from and a boiled-only sisig tastes flat and gelatinous.
4. Grill the livers briefly and chop them very finely.
5. Chop the grilled pork into 5 mm dice BY HAND with a heavy knife. A processor turns it to paste and the texture is the dish.
6. Mix with the onion, chillies, livers, soy and most of the calamansi juice, and season.
7. Third: get a cast-iron plate smoking hot, melt the butter on it, and tip the sisig on so it SIZZLES AND CRISPS at the edges. Crack the egg over at the table and stir it through the heat of the plate, with the last of the calamansi.

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