Lechon Kawali & Paksiw

Place pork piece in a casserole and pour enough water to cover it. Boil for 2 minutes.

Turn of heat and replace water. Make sure there is enough water to cover the piece of pork. Add the peeled carrot, ground pepper and salt. Simmer until pork is tender but still firm. You may use the cooked carrot for other dishes.

Once pork is tender, remove from hot water and let it drain for 5 minutes. You may store pork in the freezer if you don’t plan to cook it immediately.

Rub cooked pork with salt and pepper. You can also use other dry spices if you prefer. If cooking a larger piece of pork, you should make incisions on it and stuff it with spices and salt. Let the pork absorb the salt and spices for about 15 minutes.

Heat oil in a wok or deep fryer. There should be at least enough oil to reach up to ½ the height of the pork piece. Add more oil, if extra cooking oil is available.

Quickly deep fry pork until the whole piece is light brown and the skin is crunchy. Take extra precautions for hot oil spatter. Do not overcook the pork.

Set aside browned pork for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes chop the pork into approximately 3 cm cubes.

At this point the pork is already consumable as a dish called “Lechon Kawali” just add some pork liver sauce or spicy vinegar for dipping. We shall, however, continue cooking the pork further into “Lechon Paksiw”.

Place chopped pork into a pan. (You can use the same amount of Lechon if you have that available.)

Add vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, bay leaves, sugar and pork liver sauce / spread.

Simmer on low heat for 10 minutes. Mix well to ensure that all ingredients are distributed evenly. You may add water to adjust the sauce’s consistency.

Season with salt and pepper to desired taste.

Serve with hot plain rice.

Lechon Kawali & Paksiw