baby rambutan

“Paksiw” Lechon Turkey
We always do this to our leftover pork…when you order a roast pork, “lechon”, you get a tub or two of lechon sauce and lucky is the party host who gets stuck with leftover meat and sauce. That is, if your guests don’t take home the extra.
When I was around 11 I moved in with my Lola to run away from my heckler brothers.
She taught me how to cook then: while she typed upstairs in Lolo’s library-bedroom on her ancient Remington, she would holler down the instructions on what to chop up next.
“Mince the onions now.”
“Done, Lol! What’s next?”, and on and on until she could come down and show me how it all came together.
This was when I had an inkling that I’d found something I loved to do.
“Salsa ng lechon” is another one from Lola Ebeng. I would sniff my fingers and savor the garlic and onion scents. Since then I’ve had nothing but disdain for bottled Mang Tomas (it has no liver in it! the gall! hmmph).
To cook this dish I had to call my Ma for reassurance. (She had to learn from Lola, her biyenan-mother-in-law-to please her finicky husband and cook his favorite food). When Ma was here for Thanksgiving a few years back she had a sudden flash of inspiration and came up with this innovative dish.

First make liver sauce:
1 head of garlic, peeled and chopped finely
1 large onions or 8 shallots, chopped finely
1 small can of liver pate (I used Roland’s with green peppercorns)
3/4 cup of Filipino coconut vinegar
1 1/2 cups of water
1/2 cup sugar
Kasubha or Saffron threads, a pinch
2 bay leaves
1/3 cup bread crumbs
3/4 tsp. ground black pepper
salt

l. saffron r. kasubha
Mix liver pate, vinegar, water, sugar, pepper, and saffron or kasubha and blend well.
I used the stick blender.

Saute garlic in hot oil. (If desired set aside some golden fried garlic for topping the sauce. ) Add onions and saute until translucent. Pour in liver mixture, bread crumbs, and bay leaves and bring to a boil. Turn down heat. Without stirring let it simmer for about 15 minutes. Simmer until slightly reduced. Taste and adjust for seasonings, adding sugar, salt or pepper to taste.
For Paksiw:
Add your cut up leftover roast pork or turkey (pabo), 2 cloves of crushed garlic, 1/2 cup or more brown sugar, a splash of soy sauce, 1/4 cup of coconut vinegar, whole black peppercorns, 1 tsp. dried oregano. Let it simmer for half an hour or more. Taste and adjust seasonings. Add hot water a little at a time if sauce dries out too quickly.

This lets you prolong your enjoyment of your roast meat with the advantage of experiencing a different flavor.

paksiw
before you snicker, scoff or sneer, it looks a mess but listen here, it’s the best, with rice and beer!!!

This entry was posted on Friday, November 26th, 2004 at 8:04 pm and is filed under winged creatures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.