Or a year that wasn’t. As far as I can remember this website died around June last year.

I would like to blame the Lumpia series that started the whole mess leaving me in a comatose state but I am the one who plunged a blunt butcher’s knife into my own skull. I still blame the Lumpia series though. And by the way, thank you to those who came looking for me and asking me why myfilipinokitchen.com has not been updated especially that person who sent an email with a question mark as a subject and a content that only says – “Are you dead?” I appreciate and acknowledge your concern for the wellbeing of both the site and myself. Currently, I am writing from another world. I am still waiting for my soul to be dragged back to the kitchen where my lifeless flesh has been hanged like honey-cured ham. Ain’t that sweet?

So what in the freaking world happened last year?

By January, I finished writing about Filipino-Spanish stews. Click on this link to see where it all started 2 years ago. I can’t forget the thing because whenever we find ourselves in a conversation about this website with virtually anyone, my wife will not fail to say, “There was this one time that we ate Tomato-based stews for a week because my husband wants to write about Filipino-Spanish food in his website. It was a tomatoey torture.” And I say delicious at that.

The year also started with new authors writing for myfilipinokitchen. Click this to see the reckoning. Allow me to do an Oscar speech for a moment:

I would like to thank Joy Trebillo Babich for writing about Filipino Food in Filipino. Sure you raised up a resistance with your use of our national language but then “pakialam nila?” or where we just simply tell them – whatever?!

I would also like to thank our resident chef, Chef Mike Santiago. Chef, this site is not worthy of you but you showed us mightily that our readers are definitely worthy of a good Filipino grub. Thank you so much for reminding myself and other bloggers how to construct a recipe to which I fail miserably by bombarding my recipes with words that oftentimes confuse mothers whose only aim is to find simple recipe instructions… instead they find useless banter between “slice 3 tomatoes” and “sautee onions” and multitude of “really really really” added to every line.

I would also like to thank Jennifer Leonard with her superb potato salad recipe and who came all the way from California to Melbourne, Australia just to talk to me face to face about Filipino food (I would like to think so). Thank you for giving us the oppotunity to meet your “disapproving husband” and for sharing to us your family roots and what it feels like to be a Filipino who grew up outside of the Philippines.

Thank you very much guys.

And after two years of untangling web addresses, broken links, flashy, annoyingly popping and useless ads, lies, sometimes unreliable wiki information and self-glorifying content in the internet, I have finally finished the History of Filipino food with American influence and Japanese influence swept in the month of April. What a year finished in a quarter! (Maybe this is the reason why I stopped writing.)

I would like to finish this all in one post and get to the time when that blunt butcher’s knife landed in my skull around June but I am trying to shorten articles here in the site. So for now, I’ll have to end this so you will come back tomorrow and see the year’s aborted end.

And thank you to you too, dear reader for reading this. You are the reason why this blog is alive and I have to end this before I start with cliches and whatnots that will make you throw your computer (or your mobile) in revolt.

Ciao Siopao!

Isaw. That’s what we call them. I-saw. The first syllable is pronounced as E and the second one is pronounced as if you are saying Tao -more like saying E-sao. But that’s when you are in the northern parts of the Philippines. Both in the central and south, they are called either inihaw or inasal.

Before I go on with trivial things (Which is for you my dear regular readers who do not usually comment! I know you’re existing, you just have muted hands.) let’s accomodate our new readers by getting straight to the point. Here’s a list of Filipino street foods or Filipino barbecue I have made in this site so far:

Skewered Chicken Skin Barbecue. Which is one of the first posts I’ve made in this series. The post was made up when I was working on Saturdays in a relatives’ Charcoal Chicken shop, it’s one of those Greek chicken shops here in Australia. Until now I can say that they have the best Charcoal Chicken I’ve ever tasted in Melbourne… or even in Australia. Of course, I cook there! What i’ve noticed though, when they do prepare their Chicken Schnitzels is that throw the chicken skin away after peeling it off from “everyone’s meat” – which is the chiken breast. So I collected them all and made something more wonderful than a bland piece of meat.

I wasn’t suppose to talk there. I was just supposed to give a list of Filipino barbecued street foods. Here’s the rest -

Skewered Pork Barbecue. This is epic and in a 3-part series so don’t forget to click the next post. I’ll shut up now.

Skewered Chicken Liver Barbecue. You gotta know why Liver is the best food in the world.

Skewered Chicken Hearts Barbecue. Exotic, fun-tastic, tick-tocking delight.

Skewered Chicken Gizzard Barbecue. Juxtaposition in a grill.

Skewered Chitterlings Barbecue. This is where Isaw got its name.

So far I have 6 in the list. Read them all. I had fun writing them so you will have fun reading them too. And if you want to request for more please let me know. That is, if I have time to do it. And what I meant by that is, it’s winter from where I am already and making barbecue is next to impossible. Well unless you have something to bribe me with, we can do negotiations.

In line with our theme of Filipino celebrations, Chef Mike posted a Paella Negra Stuffed Squid with Cream Sauce Aligue, just the sound of those words coming out of my orifices turns me on. So I am obliged to make a Filipino Paella Recipe. Here are the things that you need to inject your brain before we continue:

1. This recipe will be mostly based on the readily available ingredients for Paella in the Filipino Market. So if you’re thinking that we will add Thyme later, you are dreaming.

2. Although I told you in number 1 that we will use Filipino ingredients only, I take my word back because I will be using real saffron. The one that I had a picture with in the previous post here.

3. We will not use a Paellera (a pan that is usually used to cook Spanish Paella). It is expensive and I don’t see a point (as of the moment) buying one pan that can be only used for one dish. I am not rich and dumb yet. But hopefully, I’ll get there. I’m excited to say “Duh! I have money!”.

4. Paella and Arroz Valenciana is different. You use rice in Paella and you use sticky rice in Arroz Valenciana.

5. I will screw up at the end of this post because I used real saffron. So read on to witness my impending destruction.

Ingredients for your Filipino Paella recipe

5 cups of cooked rice. Yes, we are going to pre-cook  our rice because cooking rice in a wok are only done by people with really really really high IQ.

5 really really really ripe tomatoes

1 really really really huge-as Spanish onion (alright I’ll stop with the really really really)

1 chopped red chili pepper

A head of garlic

half a cup of vegetable oil.

1/2 kilo of skinned and cubed chicken thighs. Be sure all the water is drained from the chicken after you wash it.

1 huge longganiza or chorizo. Clue, you can’t get it from your boyfriend.

1/2 kilo of raw monster-big prawns

1/2 a kilo of any combination of fish fillets, cubed. In this recipe, I used salmon and swordfish. Be sure you use fish that can hold its integrity. Tuna fillets are good contestants.

1/2 a kilo of mussels or green shells.

300 grams of squid or calamari. You can cut it any way you like as long as you clean and cut it. And when did it happen that we can only make rings out of them?

1 cup of chicken stock, or dissolve a chicken cube in a cup of water, or a cup of water. I prefer home-cooked chicken stock. Read here.

1 cup of green peas, preferably sweet peas

1 whole green bell pepper

1 teaspoon of orange-coloring. In this recipe I am a saffron-using-idiot. If you can’t get saffron, you can get that orange coloring that is also used for Arroz Valenciana. You can even add a little bit of paprika which is always available in your friendly cash-grabbing supermarket.

3 bay leaves crushed and torn into pieces like the plight of those Filipino Telenovela protagonists

A very wide and deep wok. They are cheap to buy. Just visit your local wet market and haggle. If you have a small wok, where are you going to cook kilos and kilos of these ingredients then?

Big and small containers because we will be cooking batches. Do not start cooking unless they are prepared. Do the scout salute.

How to Cook your Filipino Paella

1. Chop your tomaotes, Spanish onion, chili peppers and all your garlic cloves. Put them in separate containers. You don’t want the juices of the tomato to touch your chopped garlic. Heat up your wok and put all your oil in. Now saute your garlic in low heat. Watch out, right after it has turned golden brown, scoop it out of the wok and into your readily available container. Save that for later. As long as our oil is garlic-infused, it will be awesome. Turn up the heat to medium. Now drop in your onions, chorizo or longganisa and chicken. Wait for them to turn a little bit brown and then drop in only 3/4 of your chopped tomatoes but all your chopped red chili pepper. Cover it for 2-3 minutes until those tomatoes have given up all their juices for the cause. And then pour in your chicken stock and cover again until it boils.

2. Boiling? Crank the heat up and wait until the stock turns into a saucy consistency. Once it’s saucy, drop all your seafood in baby. Every 30 seconds you need to turn all the ingredients over and over to make sure that everything is cooked evenly. Is it crowded in the wok already? Wait till we put in your 5 cups of rice then you can panic. Alright, the seafood should only be in the wok for 3-4 minutes, so you should be turning and turning them. But be gentle, you don’t want to scar your fish cubes. Once everything has changed in color, all luminance gone from the fish, prawns turned orange and squid cuts have turned all-white and textured-up and all the mussels have opened, take everything off the wok except for the sauce. If after you’ve transfered them to your container and if the container has juices in it, pour those juices back in the wok. By then that thick sauce that we had a while ago has turned thin again because of all the juices of seafood that we’ve added. Add your coloring. If you are using saffron, you should have let them simmered in that cup of chicken stock 2 hours ago before you started cooking so the color and flavor will be released to the chicken stock. But if you are an idiot like me, you forgot about it, so you dropped your saffron in the wok hoping it will color the dish but wouldn’t. If you are not using saffron, then your coloring will do the job in a fraction of time. Wait for that stock in the wok to turn really thick, down to half a cup. You only need half a cup of very thick sauce for 5 cups of rice. You don’t want your rice to turn into porridge. And just like what Chef Mike said, “It’s just like making Sinangag!” That’s Filipino fried rice for you white-boy.

3. Thick to half a cup already? Taste it. If it lacks salt you know what to do. If it’s just salty, that’s ok because that will still be distributed to your 5 cups of rice. Put all your rice in if it’s thick-ready. Add your peas and bay leaves in as well. Mix, turn and scrape until everything is covered with that yellowish fantastic color. When they are colored evenly, drop in your seafood and mix. Remember you still have tomatoes left and green bell peppers? Just put them on top of your steaming Filipino Paella recipe and cover the wok. Cover. What we’re doing right now is for the flavors to meld and for that Paella “tutong” to form. Tutong is the overcooked and toasted rice on the bottom of the pot. A bonafide Filipino will join in a fistfight just to get this stuff. That will take 2-3 minutes in high heat. Take the cover off and sprinkle your toasted garlic pieces.

4. Serve on the wok. Do not even try to take your Filipino Paella off the wok. It would be barbaric not to serve Filipino Paella on a wok.

But here’s a picture of it on a plate.

My Paella did not have the desired color because again, I screwed up on using real saffron. What an ignoramus. I failed. I hope you won’t.

Paella Negra Stuffed Squid with Aligue Cream Sauce

When I was invited to be a partner of a Spanish-themed resort, I was asked to give a sample of a dish that I will be serving in my F&B outlet. I wanted to combine the flavors of Spain with the “Island” feel of the Philippines. Here’s what I came up with…

Good for 2

Ingredients

Paella Negra Stuffing:

200 grams Pre-cooked Paella Rice (Any Short Grained Rice will do)

30 mL Squid Ink  (Can be purchased in Cans)

50 grams Chopped Garlic

Salt

Black Pepper

Olive Oil

200 grams/1 pc.  Squid

Aligue Cream:

15 grams Crabfat

60 mL All Purpose Cream

Lemon Juice

Salt

Black Pepper

Procedure:

To make the Black Paella:

Saute Garlic in Olive oil over medium heat until golden brown. Add the the pre-cooked Paella rice and continue to saute (its just like making sinangag haha) Add the squid ink and stir until all of the rice is coated with the ink. Season with Salt and Pepper

Preparing the Squid:

Clean the squid by removing the tentacles, black layer of the skin, innards and the beak.

Season the squid with Salt and Black Pepper inside and out

Stuff the Squid with the prepared paella and Grill the squid on a charcoal grill. Set Aside

Aligue Cream Sauce:

On a pan over medium heat, saute garlic in olive oil until golden brown. Add crabfat and cream. Squeeze some lemon juice into the sauce (this is just to cut the richness of the crabfat) Season with Salt and Pepper.

Assembly:

Slice the Squid and arrange it on the crabfat sauce. Garnish with coriander/cilantro leaves

This week we will talk about Filipino classics, the big dishes, the ones that we only release when visitors camp out of our house waiting for the eve of the fiesta and then scramble on the table like animals. And the best way to open this week is of course to have our resident chef, Chef Mike to conduct the prelude. Enjoy! – Ziggy

Lamb Caldereta sa Gata

with Black Olives and Sautéed Peppers

In line with fiesta dishes, I have decided to post my specialty dish. I learned about having gata with caldereta through a Kapampangan friend, then I re-invented it by using Lamb and Black Olives. I once served this dish to the count of Germany, Helmut Matternich and our First Lady Imelda Marcos. I think it is festive enough haha!

Ingredients

250 grams Lamb Shoulder

15 grams Garlic

15 grams Onions

15 grams Ginger

30 grams Red bell Peppers

30 grams Green Bell Peppers

10 grams Tomato Paste

50 grams Potatoes

50 grams Carrots

30 grams Liver Spread

60 mL Gata

Vegetable Oil

Black Olives

Procedure

Cook the lamb in water with ginger until the first boiling point. Remove and drain the lamb, rinse it and replace the water. Boil it again for the second time and just when it reaches boiling point remove the lamb and set it aside.

Make the caldereta by sautéing some garlic in vegetable oil until golden brown. Add onions and ginger and mix well. Add the tomato paste and wait until the paste turns orange. Add the pre-boiled lamb shoulder and add water just enough to submerge the lamb. After it has boiled, add the potatoes and carrots into the mixture. Continue boiling until the potatoes and carrots are half way cooked then add the liver spread and gata. Garnish with sliced black olives and sautéed peppers.

Serve hot with steamed white rice.

You are what you eat. Raise your hands and eat money if you believe this!

If there is a Filipino street food where all the other street foods got their name it would be from intestines. Everyone calls it “Isaw” in the Philippines and it has somehow found it’s way to name every other animal meat organ barbecue after itself. Right. I thought I confused myself there.

It’s yucky, it’s icky, it’s ew-wy, it’s dirty, if you don’t clean it properly. In the Philippines where butchering and slaughtering in the household is a usual event, the cleaning of chicken or pig intestines takes most of the time. The intestine is plugged in the mouth of the faucet so the water can flow freely all throughout it’s canals and hidden places. And you can witness every unimaginable whatevers and thingamajigers come out of the other end worse than movies about Aliens and Predators.

You have to clean it carefully. Failure to clean the insides of this wonderful delicacy would lead to… how shall I put this? Death? Chicken and Pig intestines are home to tapeworms (should I continue?), E Coli, Salmonella and other cruel stuff that can beat your insides to pieces. The chitterlings (that’s what the English call their Isaw) that you buy from the supermarket have been cleaned from hell to heaven. Some of them have been simmered with a baking soda solution. Yep, the ones that your moms use to clean the carpet if some foul material found its way to your divine bare-foot path. Rumors in my local market in the Philippines tell that even chlorine is employed to edulcorate, elutriate, expurgate and launder these beauties before they are being sold for a virginal appeal. If ever you are the victim of this immaculate process, don’t fret, just imagine that you accidentaly drank water from a chlorine-filled swimming pool. It’s better than having to gulp E Coli or Salmonella.

Well, too much atrocities. Let’s talk about the good. Chitterlings, Isaw or intestines are rich in Zinc. A mineral that is also rich in oysters. If you click and go to this post, it will tell you about Zinc and oyster and having lots of baby-making time. Zinc also makes your tummy stronger. So that no matter how much dirty stuff you eat, the possibility of diarrhea is futile. But don’t take my word for it. I just realized that a lof of Filipinos can eat a lot of strange stuff but still survive unscathed. Although true enough, zinc difficiency can lead to frequent diarrhea which could of course, in really impoverished and malnourished areas in the world, cause death. So next time you see that “Donate a dollar and save a life” clip on TV, you have been informed. If you do not donate, you are guilty. You’ll feel bad the whole day because kids who can be saved from diarrhea did not have a chance because you did not give at least a dollar from your platic money.

Now you were wishing you haven’t read this article. And we are swaying too far away from what were supposed to talk about.

Where were we?

Aha! Skewering these stuff is the most difficult part. But to put it simply, you just need to fold and skewer. Fold and skewer. I have also marinated this using this marinade, so clickety-click. You have to grill them carefully around 12-15 minutes on each side in low heat. Just like what we did with our gizzards. Make sure that the insides are cooked. Just slice a piece of it and take a look if it’s moist and not wet or mushy because if they are that means it is still raw. Do not try biting through it. It’s not pasta. You will endanger yourself and the future of your unborn kids.

This is getting long. I resign.

Instead of ranting about people’s misconception on eating animal meat organs, like what I did on the previous post, I’d rather focus on what is good about our feature today which is skewered barbecued chicken hearts. Chicken hearts are one of the rarest Filipino street foods. Once you see them lying freely on the stall, grab them. They won’t last long. I don’t know why… it maybe because of its firm texture which confirms our being carnivores that we love to nibble on them. Or maybe each chicken only has one little heart that’s why it is a rare commodity.

So what do these chicken hearts have in relation to your existence? One word, Riboflavin. Although it is also rich with minerals and vitamins, Riboflavin or Vitamin B2 is its star. Think of Riboflavin as the super vitamin in your system. It converts all the important stuff that your body needs into usable stuff. You dig? It metabolizes the fats and proteins to fuel your body to repair and restore. It lights up what is “low-bat” to keep your system going and going and going. It is the energizer bunny . Not only that, it is an antioxidant. It kills aliens and radicals in your system which are responsible for heart disease, cancer and ageing. So in short, eating barbecued chicken hearts can make you stay younger and stronger. Yes! This sounds like a hard-sell advert.

I do encourage you though to try eating chicken hearts. Instead of throwing them to your pets. What will your pet do if you die because all the important nutrients from meat organs go to them instead of you? He will be alone, cold and wet in this unforgiving, cruel and careless world. Save your pets. Eat chicken hearts, gizzards and livers!

Why does it taste like? If you have tasted chicken liver, this is more subtle than that. The texture is unique. Although much softer than the gizzard, the sensation of biting through it is like saying the letter D. Well that’s my interpretation. You have to try it to merit yours.

How to cook those chicken hearts you ask? Well as you’ve seen on the picture above, skewer it, add salt and pepper, barbecue it and brush with your barbecue finishing sauce. Barbecuing it may take around 5 minutes on each side in medium  to high heat and 2 inches form your heat source. Don’t overcook them because they tend to go chewy and dry when overcooked. Look!

I marinated them using the marinade here, if you click on this post. With barbecuing, click this post for a rough guide. And click this post for the sauce.

I heart this very much, I hope you heart it too.

OK. Let me spell this out for you before you even try to think of it. Increased uric acid level by itself is not dangerous. If you don’t know what in the world I am talking about let me pull the reel back for you. Uric acid increases when you don’t eat, you exercise or strain yourself too much, when your kidneys do not flush out excess uric acid and when you eat a lot of foods that are high in purine. Let me pull the reel back further. A lot of Filipinos think that eating chicken liver increases uric acid in their system significantly. That may be true if you eat a kilo of chicken liver by yourself in one go… which doesn’t usually happen unless one has suicidal tendencies. Seafood is one of the foods that Filipinos usually chow on that have high purine levels. Sardines in oil have double the amount of purines compared to chicken liver. Mushrooms are on top of the ladder too. So do not scare nor deprive yourself of the wonderful creaminess of chicken liver by being ignorant. Intiendes?

Now since I got that out of my chest, let’s talk about what we needed to talk about.

The nutritional value of chicken liver is by far one of the highest in the known universe. I am not kidding. Chicken liver is the Manny Pacquiao of food-dom. Pound for pound or should I say gram for gram it contains the most vitamins, minerals and essential nutrients your human body needs compared to any food known to man. Let me get this inside your brain if it didn’t register the first time – Chicken liver is high in Vitamin B12, B6, A, and C. The vitamin B12 in 100 grams of liver is three times your RDA. Chicken liver is needed by kids in order to help growth and development… well unless your DNA says that you cannot grow anymore taller even if you drink all the vitamin B12s in the world, unfortunately my little padawan, they cannot help any further. Chicken liver is also high in minerals – manganese, zinc, niacin and of course, iron. I don’t know what they are but as far as I can remember (i’ve been reading for a week already about chicken livers) they help  give you more energy, produce more red blood cells in your system, fight stress and fatigue, fight anemia, etc. Remember when you were a kid when your mom brings you to the doctor and he checks ”the flesh under your eyes?” (What do they call them?) And if the doctor sees that they are pale, he would definitely recommend your mom to feed you chicken liver? It’s because these nutrients, vitamins and minerals that are present in chicken liver quickly disseminate in your system.

And don’t even get me started with cholesterol. I don’t want to go there. Let me just say that these cholesterol help produce a lot of testosterone in your system. Testosterone ladies and gents. And you should exercise first before blaming cholesterol. Bad fat, cholesterol or whatever are those rancid stuff that are sitting in your system exist because you have been bad to yourself, mate. Don’t blame the chicken livers.

Too much blabber. Take a look at a picture of what you usually see on the streets, the Filipino street food, grilled or as we call it, Barbecued liver or in Filipino, inihaw na atay. I want you to press Ctrl and then click the plus sign for about 10 times so you can see the picture closer and bigger. Do it. Now. If you have a Mac, you know what to do.

I hope you’ll make your own version of Filipino street food, like this chicken liver barbecue below.

If you want directions on how to cook them, ask me on the commnets below or click on this post so you will have a guide on how to do it.

Oh by the way, I forgot what’s the instruction on how to restore the normal size of what you see on the screen. Good luck!

Jared, Elena and Querida – the angels of street food. You need them in making a very good Filipino Barbecue.

If this is your first encounter with this series, click here first so you can catch up.

We are now making your Filipino barbecue sauce that can be used not only for pork barbecue but for every other skewered meat or Filipino streetfood on a bamboo stick.

Let’s get into action.

Yup, I said jars in the title. If you are observant enough to notice when you buy Filipino street food, there are always 2 jars at the end of the grill as ammunitions to the deed of making a Filipino barbecue. So–

Jar number 1

This is the jar where the consistency is watery. So why do they have it there, why is it there and if it is important why not a lot of Filipino barbecue stalls have Jar number 1?

Discuss!

Jar number 1 is utilized a lot during the grilling process. Let’s call this Jar (with a capital J) – Jared (that is such a bad choice for a name, the next sentence tells why). As you see, Jared is used a lot for grilling. If you observant, Jared is where the barbecue guy dips their brush into most of the time, around 2 to 3 times before he flips the barbecues to the other side. Usually, and if we’re talking about having a Filipino street food business, Jared just consists of water – this is to save money because the main purpose of Jared is to be a buffer so your barbecue won’t be heavily charred. But for the keen barbecue master, Jared can be a lot more. Aside from  being an anti-charring liquid, (Jared and “charring” can’t get a lot better and if you get my drift, this conversation is getting subliminal) when you mix sugar, salt, pepper and Calamansi with Jared, it becomes a catalyst of glory. Now, not only does Jared sees to it that your stick doesn’t get burned, Jared takes care that they get as much “lickability” as “eatability”.

If you’re not dipping into Jared and brushing Jared’s stuff in your barbecue, you are missing a lot.

Hail Jared!

Jar Number 2

Let’s name this Jar – Elena. It’s the first name that popped in my head so don’t ask. Elena is the finisher. Elena is the final sauce that you drizzle and brush on to your finished or let’s say Jared-ed barbecue. You know what I’m talking about don’t you. The usual mix is, a lot of ketchup, a quarter (of the ketchup) is oil or fat, a reinforcement of brown sugar, and sometimes, Calamansi. If you ask me here’s my Elena – UFC Sweet and Spicy Banana Ketchup, Melted Butter or Peanut Oil for fat, and brown sugar of course. I don’t use Calamansi because I want my drizzle to be all red and sweet. Period. (I shouldn’t have written that word… you’re disgusting.)

Jar Number 3

Some Filipino barbecue masters found out that not a lot of people are a fan of Elena. So they made a dipping Jar which we will call, in all its appropriateness – Querida. For those who doesn’t like the sweetness and saucyness that Elena brings, Querida was created. Querida is made up of water, cane vinegar, finely chopped red onions, a few finely chopped garlic cloves and a few whole bird’s eye chilies as well. You need to tell the barbecue guy that you would rather have Querida than Elena just when he begins to do your barbecue though. So you won’t end up with something that you didn’t order. Right after your stick is taken off the grill, it will be quickly dipped in Querida and you have to eat it quickly so you can have those juices running in your tongue.

Well, I hope you had fun reading stuff about Jared, Elena and Querida as much as I had fun writing it. The next posts will be 3 different Filipino barbecues for your eyes to feast and your hands to make.

And to close this article, the Filipino word for barbecue is either inihaw or inasal. Inihaw in the literal sense means butchered. But the term is always in the context of “freshly butchered meat on a grill”. Inasal on the other hand means skewered. If you didn’t learn anything in this post, at least your vocabulary widened. Let’s use that in a sentence – Jared inihaw Elena and inasal Querida.

Fin!

Not yet actually. There are no pictures in this post because I failed to take pictures. I even failed to take pictures of the actual pork barbecue itself. “The usual thing” happened to me. It’s when you are doing the barbecue and people drop by and take a few sticks until when you have just finished and you’re left with only a few skewers. I hate it when that happens. Next time, I will definitly put the pork in cage… or a trap that cuts fingers. Here’s a couple that was left on my plate. I’ll make it a big one to at least compensate.

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.