Crispy pata or deep fried pig trotters are a Filipino delicacy
I distinctly remember the year when I was a teen-ager in Manila when crispy pata became the rage and Filipinos discovered one more way to enjoy an otherwise ignored part of the pig. This dish, along with sisig (sizzling pig cheeks, snout & ears marinated in lime juice and spiked with chopped onions and chiles) illustrates how we Filipinos do not like to waste anything and how imaginative cooks can create new cravings that have withstood the test of time.
The trotter is boiled with garlic, onions, black peppercorns and bay leaves until tender (about 1- 1/2 hours) seasoned with sea salt (or patis or fish sauce if you prefer), and then air dried on a rack. Or you can brush it lightly with some rice vinegar and roast in an oven until the skin is dry. Once the trotter is thoroughly dry, you can deep fry until the skin is crispy.
Note: the secret to deep frying is whatever you are frying has to be thoroughly dry or else the moisture will defeat the process of creating something crispy.
Serve with a delicious dip of soy sauce, rice vinegar, sliced garlic, scallions and chopped chiles.
Our Melissa enjoying the red (raspberry), white (coconut) and blue (blueberries) dessert at PY
Chill out with our homemade ice creams and sorbets at Purple Yam. Melissa Gregoli (my nephew Tim Quirino’s love of his life) tried our triple hitter: raspberry & coconut sorbets with blueberries.
Chef Romy has also come up with a delicious sour cherry-blueberry caramel sauce that can be paired with our vanilla bean ice cream (or any ice cream such as macapuno or jackfruit ice cream) to match the red, white and blue motif of the weekend.
Happy Fourth of July everyone! Enjoy the ‘cue and the fireworks.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
That crispy pata looks better than a lot of the crispy patas I see here in the Philippines! Wow! Now I have this sudden urge to go hunting crispy pata. I’m also trying to imagine the taste of that sour cherry-blueberry caramel sauce– fruity? tart? buttery sweet with a slightly bitter burnt sugar note at the end? Oh please bring some home in October!
I was suggesting to Cyrene that we do this at Enderun. I am sure we can do BETTER than most!
Ceej, re: the sour cherry-blueberry sauce, sorry, that’s gone. The sour cherry season is past. What we can do is hunt for native sour berries and cook that in caramel and heavy cream. The flavors are all of the above. Find out what native berries are in season in Oct – bignay, daguey and in Bicol, they have balig-ang which Romy once cooked as a tart asuce for his salt-roasted duck.