Written by: seigfredtristan on May 11, 2011

Did you come back from this article yesterday? Because if you did, you can actually say hi to me, i’m getting bored talking to myself. But if you came here too late and arrived in this article, you need to click the first sentence of this post. I have changed it to blue in case you haven’t noticed.

So let’s get on with how to skewer and grill your Filipino Pork Barbecue, which is a common street food in the Philippines, starting with -

Skewering your marinated pork pieces:

It’s not that simple I tell you.

First thing that you need to know are the words - across and against. I want you to say it loud soldier. Across. Against. If you check my previous post (yup, click on the first sentence of this post), the 4th sentence to the bottom says there to cut the meat against the grain. If you don’t know what that means I’ll spell it out for you – N-O-T A-C-R-O-S-S. Take a look at the meat of your pork or any other meat. Take a look at the muscle tissues. You can see that they form some sort of strand to make up a of course, a muscle. If you take a look at closer, there are muscle fibers in it that looks like smooth lines accross. Cutting against it means, you cut the fibers, you cut the grain, you do not follow the smooth line of the muscles, you cut it, you are against it. I think you get the picture now. So yeah, cut against the grain and not across. What’s the reason you ask? Well cutting the meat against the grain makes it easy for anyone to chew the meat, in your case, your pork barbecue. Try eating cheap beef jerky. They are the ones that are cut across the grain and it is so awful to chew, it encourages lockjaw. Ever had pork barbecue and almost had a lockjaw? Yep, they didn’t cut the meat across the grain.

So what does this have to do with skewering the freaking pork?

You need to skewer against where you cut the grain and not through the fiber. So you won’t spear your finger, stab yourself or turn that bamboo stick into a projectile that can poke anyone’s eyes. You need to skewer down first on one end of the meat, then let the stick skewer up on the other end of the meat and flatten the meat on the stick. Did I just lose you there? Here let me show you some pictures.

First, skewer down on one end on the surface where you cut the meat

Then skewer upwards

And flatten the meat

And you must have the patience and the finger muscles to do it over and over and over and over.

Don’t they look lovely?

Now on to the grilling part.

Things you need to remember while grilling your Filipino Pork Barbecue Skewers… specially if you are selling them on the street. So we can avoid a food fight and save a brawl.

1. The gap between your fire/coal/heated coil and your skewers should not be less than 2 inches.

2. From time to time brush your Pork barbecue skewers with your thin-liquid barbecue mix. Do this as many as you like. Have fun.

3. Cook both sides. (Goodness, do I need to write that?)

4. As soon as you see charred spots on all your Filipino skewered pork pieces, it’s time to turn them to the other side.

5. Remember, you are grilling to make Pork barbecue. So do not turn your skewered pork into coal or indible black stuff that are hanging for their lives in a burnt bamboo stick.

6. Right after it’s cooked, rub your Finishing Sauce using your kitchen brush on your meat immediately. And quickly, grub.

Done!

Oh wait, I did mention thin-liquid barbecue mix and finishing sauce did I? Great. I need to make instructions for that too.

Let me just disappear against the grain so I can you get you across… next time.