This is my recipe for homemade pancetta. It is extremely easy to do, but the ingredients, how you prep them, how long you cure them and where you cure them matters. Repeat, it matters. So please don’t make the recipe and substitute several ingredients (as many are tempted to or do) and then blame me for the odd results. It’s sort of like my Sister’s vaunted fruitcake recipe which folks always ask for, then replace specified dried fruit with things like dried pineapple and papaya then they have the nerve to bitch that it doesn’t taste the same as the original, duhhh. So you are forewarned. Once you have made a recipe or two and are confident about the results, feel free to alter ingredients to your own preferences, I do that from time to time for slight variations on the theme…

First start with 7.5-8.0 kilos of skin-on boneless belly (I buy in large slabs, you can do that from any decent grocery butcher). If you are anal, trim the slabs so that they are a uniform size and relatively uniform thickness. You will then have to remove the skin, so if you have a particularly good relationship with your butcher, ask him to remove the skin for you if possible. That will save you significant stress and grief as skinning the pork is not one of my favorite chores. I am assuming you will then have a cleaned slab or two of pork with a total cleaned weight of 7 kilos, give or take a few grams. Cut these into say 3-4 pieces of roughly 1.5-1.7 kilos each.

Next prepare your rub. Into a bowl, add 400-450 grams of kosher salt (available in good groceries, you can use other sea salt (NO IODINE PLEASE) but I am not responsible for translating weights due to different salts and moisture levels, it may rise or fall by as much as 25% depending on the type of salt you use… I know that sounds illogical, but that just seems to be the case for me); for the easy answer, buy kosher salt for your first attempt. Measure using a scale.

To the salt, add the following:

350 grams white granulated sugar
100 grams of dark muscovado sugar
130 grams of pink salt or curing salt
80 grams of peeled and smashed or roughly chopped garlic
several sprigs of fresh rosemary roughly chopped up

and mix this up well. Then into a frying pan, toast the following spices over medium high heat for a minute or two until fragrant but NOT burned.

20 grams of white peppercorns
20 grams of black peppercorns (or if you don’t have white peppercorns you can use all black peppercorns)
25 grams of dried juniper berries
40 grams of coriander seeds

Crush all of the spices above in a large mortar and pestle until roughly smashed up. Add to the salt/sugar mixture. Then add the following:

30 grams of dried bay leaves, crushed and broken up.
25 grams of dried thyme (or some fresh thyme chopped up, if you have it).

Dry your pieces of pork belly with paper towels. Then take your dry rub and coat all of the pieces well. Rubbing mixture onto all surfaces of the meat, including the sides, etc. I then place these in food pans and cover with plastic wrap and let them sit out on the kitchen counter for say 45 minutes or so to get the rub starting to dissolve. Then I place all the food pans in a fridge to marinate or cure for between 4.5-6.0 days. If the pieces of pork are quite thin, you will find that 4.5 days is enough; but if you have extra thick slabs of pork, you may need 6.0 days or so. The texture of the pork is what will give you the right cues. It should not be soft and squishy like the day you bought it; it should be firmer and harder, though not hard. Does that confuse you? :)

Flip the slabs of pork DAILY until you ascertain that they have cured long enough. If you let them go too long, they become very, very salty. If you don’t let them cure enough, they may lack salt and worse, may start to rot during the drying process. You may notice that you lose some liquid in this stage and that is good. Some slabs of pork lose more liquid that others.

Once you are happy with the degree of curing, then rinse the pieces of pork quickly and dry well with paper towels. At this stage, I just lay them on cookie racks on top of a cookie sheet and let them dry out uncovered in a clean fridge (I use one dedicated pre-cleaned fridge to cure 15 kilos of pancetta at a time) for say 6-8 days until quite firm. They are now ready for use. They will last several days in the fridge, wrapped up, or several months in the freezer, properly wrapped up. If you live in places where you might have a garage with a temperature of 50F or so at the moment, and no critters or bugs, then traditional recipes suggest you can just hang your slabs of pork to dry for 5-7 days until done. While I wish I could tell you I have tried this, I have not. Maybe if I had a cellar or mud room in New England just about now, I would. Most folks roll up pancetta before drying, but I find it a bother, it increases the risk of bacteria thriving, and in the end, it is just easier to cut flattish pancetta… so that’s up to you. I can only advise that if you roll it up, use some cracked black peppercorns inside the roll and do it so tightly that there is a minimum of air in there. It helps keep the cooties at bay. I kid you not. :)

My favorite use for the homemade pancetta? Bucatini or spaghetti a la Matriciana. Or you can use it in a clams and pancetta recipe. Cut it thinly and fry like bacon for sandwiches or to top salads. Use it as a base flavoring agent for minestrone. Top your pizzas with it. Saute cabbage and pancetta for a quick vegetable dish… Once you master this pancetta recipe, you won’t be tempted to buy pancetta from fancy purveyors for upwards of PHP1,200-1,500 a kilo. And it’s so much more satisfying to think you made it yourself. Enjoy!

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“Faster” is relative, of course. If you go back to my original callos recipe, here, it was rather involved, and took 6+ hours, at least. But since then, I have grown to love callos, the dish, and have had several versions here and abroad. I still prefer the hearty homemade versions (though we had an excellent one at the market in Florence once, and another brilliant version in a Rome market), and while I am not always up for the full-blown time-consuming recipe I first used, I realize too many shortcuts might yield a sub-standard result. Here’s a quicker version that we liked… First, clean the callos or trip thoroughly, slice into smaller pieces or strips and place in a pot with say two cups of white wine and water and bring this to a gentle boil, lower to a simmer and let the tripe soften over say 1.5-2.0 hours.

In another pot (preferably an enameled cast iron beast), saute onions, garlic, lots of chorizong hubad or sliced spanish chorizo, chopped lechon leftovers, a bit of paprika and saute for a few minutes. Add some tomato paste, de-glaze with white wine, add some chopped canned tomatoes or passatta, some beef stock and let that come to a simmer. Throw in any herbs you prefer. Add the tripe back in and let that all simmer until the flavors have melded, say 40-60 minutes. About halfway through the cooking I added a can of chickpeas and don’t forget to season generously with salt and pepper. This was really a much less involved version of callos, but the results were almost as good as the original recipe I used. Totally met the cravings, for less work. It tastes even better a day or two after you cook it (but refrigerate in the meantime, please)… :)

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Several people asked for this recipe. So here it is in brief…

Start with good cubed goat meat. Sprinkle with red wine vinegar, salt and pepper and let this sit for 20 minutes or so.

Heat up an enameled cast iron skillet and add olive oil. Brown the goat cubes well in the hot fat. Remove and set aside.

Using all the remaining fat (both olive oil and goat fat), saute lots of onions, shallots, celery and garlic on medium-high heat until they are fragrant and a bit translucent. The smell in your kitchen right about now should be wonderful.

Add a tablespoon of good tomato paste and “cook” this a bit for say 30-60 seconds. Then add 3/4 to 1 bottle of good red wine and let this simmer for a few minutes to burn off all the alcohol. Add 3 cups or so of chopped canned plum tomatoes, say 2 cups of good beef stock and bring this to a simmer.

Add the browned goat cubes, making sure that the liquid comes just about to the top of the meat. Add a little broth if necessary. Oops, I forgot season the veggies while sautéing, season the stew again now. Don’t overdo the salt, you can always add some later, but it’s hard to tone it down…

Cover the pot, and place it in a pre-heated 325-335F oven for say 2 hours or more until goat is almost fork tender. At the two-hour point, add in cubed potatoes, carrots, red bell pepper and 1-2 siling labuyo or bird’s eye chilies. Also add in some liver paste (either freshly made or canned) as a thickener. Put this back in the oven (uncovered if too watery) covered if it is about the right consistency (I like it quite stewy). Cook another half hour or so and check the potatoes and seasoning and make last adjustments.

Garnish with some Italian parsley if you have it, and serv with some nice crusty bread with butter or with steamed rice, like I prefer to enjoy this dish. Enjoy!

I have made and posted this before, though a variation of this one, here. I also have a kalderetang baka recipe (albeit needing improvements) in the archives, here.

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Sometimes we seek comfort in a bowl of soup. In this case, a 4+ hour slow-cooked beef bulalo that gurgled away on the stove while we puttered around with gingerbread, cookie dough and other kitchen duties. I have featured a similar recipe before, here, and a Cebuano-styled one here, or this “more-ish” version here, but this is an upgraded version that is sure to please most soupies…

I started with 5 pieces of Australian beef shank, rinsed then blanched in hot water to remove some of the impurities. Then we put it in a large heavy enameled pot, covered with water, and let it gurgle over low heat for some 4 hours or so, until the meat was really soft, softer than I have ever gotten it before. This was noting but beef and water. Season later as the salt may actually help to toughen the meat if introduced earlier rather than later. Keep the lid slightly askew so the broth boils down and the flavor is concentrated a bit. However, even at the end of 4 hours, the broth wasn’t flavorful enough, so I added two cans of beef broth with no added MSG. Then season generously with salt, a tablespoon or two of fish sauce and a tablespoon of soy sauce. Add freshly cracked black pepper, some sliced tomatoes (unusual for bulalo, but adds color and flavor) and onions and let this gurgle for another 10-15 minutes. Add the corn, then the cabbage and other greens if using them. Serve piping hot.

This bulalo was SUPERB. And oddly, even better the day after as the flavors melded even more and the cabbage actually tasted meaty. We serve this with lime or kalamansi, patis and chopped chilies on the side for sawsawan. We a couple of foreign friends over for dinner and they happily scooped out the fabulous bone marrow and enjoyed it on toast with lots of salt. Notice how much marrow is still intact, despite over four hours in gurgling liquid. I had this with way too much rice, thank you. :)

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It was my birthday. The daughter was home. Our good friends were game for dinner and their son was also home on a brief holiday. All are foodies. And I was feeling like some meat. So we decided to eat at the wagyu butcher/meat purveyor at Sunvar Plaza on Amorsolo Street in Makati. We’ve been meaning to eat at this place for the past year, and now we had a good excuse…

Think walking into a meat purveyor with a small display freezer filled with marvelous varieties and grades of wagyu. And that’s it. Don’t think about the ambience, the decor, the comfort of the seats, the variety on the menu. Just focus on the beef. There are no airs here.

We started off with an order of raw wagyu “sashimi” style. It was surprisingly good, but incredibly rich. Maybe 80 grams was split between 4 people. We got a few green salads, butternut squash croquettes and onigiri as well. Then three orders of the house specialty steamed wagyu on a bed of vegetables. I wouldn’t have guessed that steamed wagyu would be appealing, but it was utterly delicious. The vegetables were also sweeter than you would have expected, bathed in a bit of melted wagyu fat. I went whole hog, and ordered wagyu rice, a fried rice with bits of caramelized wagyu fat and seasoning. OMG. I was beginning to regret that I forgot to take my daily dosage of lipitor…

Next were three hot stones each with 100 grams of wagyu of another grade from the steamed dish, and these were seared and cooked to the level you desired, though rare is really the only way to go. These were delicious, but I must say the maximum fatty point was being reached rather quickly, at say just 120 grams per person of meat that evening.

This meat was terrific with their dipping sauces and three kinds of salt – some plum salt, lime salt and salt/pepper. Overall it was a very good meal. But not something I would seek more than once every few years. Friends of ours are far more regular consumers of wagyu and in one case, they described a huge bowl of wagyu bulalo (made from locally raised wagyu beef from Mindanao) they ate and the oil slick on the surface of the soup, and I thought… now that’s a recipe for a massive instantaneous heart attack. :)

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Chicken broth is universally recognized as being restorative. So when I am out like a light and the cook asks what I would like to eat for lunch, the automatic response is either chicken tinola or chicken arroz caldo. We eat this at least once a month, without illness, and I never tire of it. This version is a little more pungent and flavorful than a classic tinola that is more gentle and light, but with your tastebuds numbed by illness, it is the perfect antidote to the blahs…

First we brown some chicken parts in a heavy enamel coated iron pot. We only had chicken parts on this occasion so we did legs, wings and thighs. Otherwise, break down a whole small chicken and brown those parts in two batches.

Remove the chicken parts, and saute some garlic, onions, lots of ginger, lemongrass, the white part of leeks until softened and aromatic. Add a touch of fish sauce at this point, then return the chicken parts and add water (or better yet, a light homemade chicken stock with little salt).

Adjust fish sauce, season with salt (if necessary) and pepper and let this simmer for 10-15 minutes or so. Taste to ensure it’s just right.

Prepare lots of unripe papaya and a few minutes before sitting down to the table, add the papaya to the pot and let it cook until just softened. I always wondered who was the brilliant first cook who thought to cook raw papaya and pair it with chili leaves, but perhaps the explanation is as simple as a disgruntled cook who thought she had a ripe papaya and when it turned out to be hard and green, she threw it into a pot of chicken soup instead, liking the unlikely results…

We also add lots of chili leaves in our version, better still if a couple of little unripe chilies are included for a bit of heat. Serve hot. I can eat this just by itself, or if you prefer the full-on experience, with lots and lots of steamed rice and a dipping sauce of fresh lime juice with fish sauce in case you still can’t taste anything through that fog of sickness. :)

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My mother visited Fernando Amorsolo’s atelier in Malate several times during the 1950’s and 60’s. She was often tasked with touring foreign female spouses who were visiting or had been recently transferred to Manila, their husbands were either business colleagues of my Dad, or members of the diplomatic core. Mom would later express some wistful regret that she never purchased any of Amorsolo’s paintings from what turned out to be near the zenith of his career. His paintings were, even then, a bit more than her budget would have allowed, and my dad wasn’t interested in art at all. Instead, several of her guests had purchased paintings, impressed with the bucolic scenes, vibrant use of color and the masterful use of “light”… They also probably thought it was rather PC to have a local painting hanging in their expat home. Today, their heirs (in all parts of North America) are probably pleasantly surprised (if not shocked) that the native scenes with mangoes, riverside maidens and carabaos are easily worth a small house in a rural American town. I happen to like many of Amorsolo’s pieces from the 1950’s and I suppose I was channeling Amorsolo during our recent visit to the Catmon hills….

One of the reasons we headed to hills was to hunt down kabog or millet. But I figured we would kill two birds with one stone and also check on the “backyard pig suppliers” that represent the backbone of Zubuchon’s business. One of our scouts is based in this area, and she is responsible for consolidating pigs that are brought down to Cebu by truck. We pay a premium for “backyard raised pigs” but I sometimes think a few of our suppliers are either intentionally or unintentionally supplying us with some pigs that are raised in more piggery/pen style conditions.

So off to the hills we go. Amidst beautiful countryside settings, verdant from weeks of early rains in Cebu, an Amorsolo-esque scene greeted us at nearly every turn on the twisting hillside roads and paths. Nearest the main road, a pile of traditionally made charcoal was being assembled for us, and we in turn give business to several dozen makers of charcoal in this area. They don’t clear cut healthy trees for this, rather they forage fallen branches and trim some trees. It’s not the most environmentally sound fuel source, but it is traditional, it is made as it’s been made for centuries, and it provides income directly to those who make it, with few middlemen involved.

We found several pig raisers who had 6, 8 or 10 pigs in their backyards, literally, and that was just amazing to see. A simple bahay kubo or cement home, and nearby was their equivalent of a bank account of say PHP20-30,000 worth of pigs. When the pigs reach the right size, they are brought to our scout and transported to Cebu. These pigs are not strictly “organic” and we have never claimed them to be so. They are fed a combination of natural and pellet style food, but more importantly, have more room to roam, play in the mud, and live a more “natural” life before we unfortunately or fortunately, roast them to a crisp.

I was so happy so see most of the pigs eventually headed to Zubuchon were indeed in real “rural settings” and generally happy (or as happy as a fattened pig is that he will soon come to meet his maker). But more importantly, it was nice to see the REAL effect of our strong corporate belief that the way we source our ingredients has a direct impact on our community and environment. Here you could see that the community made money from their pigs, from raising corn and kabog, making charcoal in the off-season, and it was not high populated at all with only a few homes scattered here and there, and everyone looking healthier than city folk…

Some of the pigs were untethered, while most had a leash (residents said it wasn’t a joke to go hunt them down an hour after they decided to wander off). They always seemed to have a shady spot (they sunburn easily) and again, I thought they looked pretty darned happy and lively. Even when penned up, they were in bamboo staked pens, often on dirt (they like mud) and covered with a nipa roof or tarp so that they could remain cool. When do I get curious about the particular source of a particular pig? Commercial piggery raised pigs often have more fat, their meat is incredibly pale or white almost, and there is less muscle build up. And if you are buying lechon de leche in Manila, the vast majority of them are neither true lechon de leches nor locally sourced (they are imported from places like Vietnam frozen)…

Some 98% of our restaurant clients probably don’t realize the difference between going out of your way to find pigs raised like this, versus the pigs raised in commercial piggeries in tight cement quarters. But we do. And increasingly, I hope they (the customers) do as well. This is direct flow down to the grassroots, not trickle down through a large corporation. This is knowing the hundreds of people you end up helping out, and just as you are dependent on them, they are likewise reliant on us. It isn’t about the 250+ people we directly employ, it is about the thousands of people we indirectly impact through purchasing policies for our basic ingredients and materials such as charcoal, wood, pigs, vegetables, grains, etc. I was really smiling widely by the end of the visit to the Catmon hills the other day. But also apprehensive that there is a finite amount of pigs sourced this way, and I dread the day we run out of supply. But this setting in Catmon just all seemed right. So right.

And that Amorsolo moment? Around an hour into the hills, we turned around a steep bend, and this vision of green on my right made us abruptly stop the car and get out. Bamboo trees, verdant plant growth, nice morning light. A male barako or stud in his Presidential “suite” where he serviced the neighborhood maidens and ladies. Nearby were some females and their piglets in deluxe nipa accommodations. If Fernando Amorsolo were still around, I am sure he would have been happy to paint this scene in his unmistakable style. And I would be willing to pay a minor ransom for that painting, and I suspect, my mom from her perch wherever, would smile with amused approval. :)

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This is one of the easiest dishes I have EVER made. A few people sent me an email after I posted a picture of this dish the other night requesting more details on how to make it. I am embarrassed to say it barely warrants a recipe, but here it is for the insistent ones. Take good hanger steak, also known as onglet, and cut it into say two inch wide slices. Cut and marinate just enough meat for the number of people eating at that meal. I cut four pieces, or around 1.4 pounds worth, and well, that was a bit much for two. Then put it in a plastic zip lock bag, add say 1.5 tablespoons of kikkoman soy sauce, say 1 heaping tablespoon of homemade tamarind puree or paste, a half tablespoon of balsamic vinegar and a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce. Add some freshly cracked black pepper, a bit of salt and smush this all together and let it sit in the fridge for two hours or so. Heat up a cast iron pan or the grill if you are doing other items, then sear the meat and cook it to the desired state. I seared for about 2 minutes on one side, flipped it over and stuck it in a 375F oven for say 5 more minutes. Let it rest for a few minutes (say 5-7 minutes) and slice against the grain and serve. Quick, easy and incredibly delicious for the tiniest amount of effort.

We had this with a large green salad. But honestly, I could have easily eaten this with several cups of rice. :)

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This is an extremely rare photo of Mrs. MM sitting on a low seat in a somewhat grimy alley in Xi’an, China. Let me stress, this is NOT her comfort zone. But when traveling, we almost always do things that we rarely, if ever, do at home, it’s just part of the adventure. Actually, the alley wasn’t that bad really, but just before we managed to get this particular table, it was filled with other people, and let’s just say there were projectile this and that which was enough to make one’s eyes roll here and there. :)

Stop #2 on the Lost Plate Food Tour that morning was a ginormous cauldron (batya or filipino laundry basin more accurately describes it actually) of steaming soup. Thick enough to be a stew, it was a stick to your ribs (literally) type of breakfast treat. This couldn’t have been much past 9 in the morning or so, and there were lines for this particular purveyor.

The soup, made with little lamb meatballs, cabbage and various other vegetables, probably a starch thickener of some sort, or one of the veggies acted as a natural thickener, was heady with aroma and chockfull of stuff. at about $1 or just a little more, it seemed like an incredible bargain, all over again.

Several ladles full of soup are placed in a large bowl. The man serving it makes very, very pointed efforts to count the number of meatballs that get included in each bowl, then you can choose a little or a lot of chili sauce, chopped herbs and greens to go on top of it.

I love how abundant these servings are, you don’t get the feeling that it’s all carefully costed and measured to the gram (except for the meatballs, of course)… and it definitely looked like one got his money’s worth. It’s heavily vegetable inclusive, but the strong flavors of lamb also make this meaty at the same time.

You get an old or dry piece of bread for each bowl (we split one order into three bowls) and you break this bread up into little pieces. Ladle the soup over this and mix until the bread absorbs the liquid and it all gets even thicker and heartier. It’s got your carbohydrates, vegetables and protein all in one bowl. I found this a bit heavy and I have never liked starch-thickened soups, but I must say, it was delicious nonetheless. I don’t think I could have finished a whole order, but it was definitely worth the experience. It was still a bit cool the morning we set out on this tour, so a bowl of hot soup was a welcome treat.

We were increasingly flabbergasted by how economical and abundant the meals on this tour were turning out to be. I can’t imagine doing a similar tour anywhere in the Philippines with the same kind of reaction, perhaps only in places like Bacolod or Pampanga, but at PHP40-60 per large serving of anything? Not so easy… After the soup we got back in the tuktuk and headed to the nearby Muslim market…

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The lure of freshly grilled or grilling meat is almost always irresistible. It was no different on Muslim Street in Xi’an, where stall after stall offer local delicacies prepped for the tens of thousands of tourists who walk its length daily. I am told that few if any locals would ever eat here, but this was our first evening, so we were doing the touristy thing. The lines for grilled lamb skewers were often 20-30 folks long, so we took this as a sign of a good thing.

Chunky pieces of mutton are skewered on fresh branches (I never found out from what tree) and grilled over coals. The meat is heavily spiced with cumin, chili, szechuan peppercorns and other spices. It is fragrant, looks terrific and is freshly cooked, all of the hallmarks of to die for noshing.

It was NOT particularly good. So long lines are NOT always a good sign. The wooden sticks burn and that doesn’t enhance the meat. The mutton is chewy, tough and fatty, with an occasional bit of cartilage(?) somehow included. The spices were delicious and assertive but they needed much better meat (or a tenderizing marinade), and perhaps a smaller skewer. The same recipe executed on better cut or selected lamb on metal skewer would have been fabulous.

Not to worry, there was LOTS of other wonderful items to sample and we just headed to next interesting stall or two or three…

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