Featured Dish: SISIG from Central Luzon

Featured Dish: Sisig from Central luzon

Recipe created and prepared by Chef Ed Grajo, CFBE

Chef Ed Grajo works as Hospitality Consultant servicing various hotels and restaurants. He is a Chef Instructor at the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena, Kitchen Academy in Sacramento and Center of American Studies in Manila. He was also the Banquet Chef at Meritage Hotel and Resort for the last 5 years.

    Chef Ed graduated with a B.S. in Hotel and Restaurant Management from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, CA. He also completed the Arts in Garde Manager program in Contra Costa College, French Culinary School in Sausalito, CA and Post Graduate Studies in Culinary Arts at Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena, CA.
 

WHEN it comes to innovative cuisines that are distinctively Filipino, Pampanga ranks first among the provinces in the Philippines that make great tasting delicacies especially when it comes to animal meat like pork and beef.

Among its most sought after dishes is the sisig, which is a Kapampangan term that means “to snack on something sour.” Sisig usually pertains to unripe fruits that are naturally sour like mangoes, guavas, tamarinds that are dipped in vinegar like unripe papaya.

Sisig rose to popularity when Lucia Cunanan of Angeles City, Pampanga, reinvented it in 1974.  Lucia earned the moniker “Sisig Queen” because of her innovative technique of boiling the pork’s head parts together --- snout, brain, and ears as well as its liver--- first before chopping and seasoning it with vinegar, calamansi juice, chopped onions, and chicken liver. It is served on a sizzling plate seasoned with calamansi and chili peppers. Thus, coming up with the term “sizzling sisig.”

Lucia’s sisig became so much of a sensation that her open-air eatery paved way for people from all walks of life to walk in and eat regardless of its modest ambience. Aling Lucing’s eatery also paved the way for the Department of Tourism to endorse and promote Angeles City as the “Sisig Capital of the Philippines. This then drove natives to hold an annual “Sisig Festival” every December, since it started holding one in 2004. Chefs from all over the country compete in this festival with their own take of the popular foods, especially sisig.

Today, local chefs have come up with their own version of sisig by replacing the pork with chicken, tofu, tuna, and squid. Other variations of this famous dish also include adding supplemental ingredients like eggs, mayonnaise, ox brains, and chicharon or pork cracklings. 

Sisig is usually served as an appetizer and paired with alcoholic beverages because of its sour taste and crunchy bits. It is also goes well with rice.

Enjoy your sisig!

Sisig

Ingredients:
2 lbs pork (face, ear, cheek, tongue)
2 lbs pork liempo
1/4 cup liver; broiled and cut in cubes
1 tablespoon garlic; minced
1 small onion; chopped
2 bay leaves
thyme
rosemarie
1/2 cup vinegar
1 tablespoon red bell pepper; chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 kalamansi; sliced
3 siling labuyo; chopped
Salt or fish sauce to taste

Method:
Boil all pork meat with thyme, rosemarie, bay leaves, salt and pepper, until tender “al dente”,  grill and then cut in small cubes.  Set aside
Sauté garlic, onion, red bell pepper. Add liver and pork. Season with salt, vinegar, and pepper. Bring to a boil, then simmer until little sauce is left. Adjust seasoning according to taste.
Garnish with kalamansi, and siling labuyo on a sizzling plate. Squeeze the kalamansi and stir the chopped siling labuyo over the plate if desired.


Catch us again next week for another recipe that you'll surely love. Don’t miss it!

Isla Kulinarya lets you explore the islands, taste the food, relive the memories--- all made possible by Island Pacific Supermarket. Go and visit an Island Pacific near you with branches in Southern California located at Cerritos, Canoga Park, North and South Vernon in Los Angeles, Panorama City and West Covina; Union City and Vallejo in Northern California. Check out our website at www.islandpacificmarket.com. Stay connected with us--like us on Facebook (island pacific market), follow us on Twitter (islandpacificUS) and Blogger (island pacific market). For your comments, suggestions, and request for recipes that you want us to feature, please email info@islandpacificmarket.com. "Presyong Sulit...sa Island Pacific."

Featured Recipe: Hipon sa Gata (Shrimp in coconut milk)

Featured Recipe: Hipon sa Gata (Shrimp in coconut milk)

Prepared and created by Chef Reggie Torres

Chef Reggie Torres has a long and distinguished career in the culinary arts industry. He has lived in Paris, France for three years and has mastered the French menu interpretation along with preparation of classical French cuisine and advance French pastries.

He has traveled Europe learning and honing food design, Hors d'oeurves, theme buffet, tallow sculpture, meat and fish decorations. He has worked with Chinese instructor Kem Home, blending Eastern and Western influences and with Italian Chef Giovanni Leoni, mixing the northern and southern Italian cuisine.

Holy Week culminates the Lenten Season that started on Ash Wednesday. Holy Week begins on a Palm Sunday, which is the day that we remember the "triumphal entry" of Jesus into Jerusalem, exactly one week before His death and resurrection.

In remembrance of this event, Catholics all over the world celebrate Palm Sunday wherein palm leaves or palaspas of different designs are waved in the air and blessed by the priest before the beginning of each masses. This represent Jesus’ entrance in Jerusalem, wherein he was greeted with Palm leaves by the people. As the Bible reveals, when Jesus entered Jerusalem, the crowds greeted him by waving and covering his path with palm branches. After the palm leaves are blessed, Pinoys hang the palaspas by their doors until the next Ash Wednesday as a sign of welcoming

Jesus into their homes. 

Aside from preparing to meditate somewhere faraway for the Holidays that falls

on a Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, some Filipino families usually hold the

Pabasa during Holy Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, wherein groups of readers

exchange reading verses about the Passion of Christ in a chant-like manner.

Because the reading of pabasa could take for days depending on the reading

tempo, several meatless dishes are served for the volunteer readers. Among the

popular table fare include dishes out of vegetables like the chopsuey or fish

like the rellenong bangus (deboned milkfish), or other seafood like the hipon sa

gata (shrimp in coconut milk).

When a food is cooked in “gata,” it is done with coconut milk. Aside from

shrimps, several main ingredients like squash, fish, sweet potato, mud crabs,

are also preferred; thus calling it ginataang + (whatever it is cooked with). In

the Philippines, Pinoys prefer serving the shrimp with its shell because they do

not mind eating with their bare hands (kamayan). Hipon sa gata is also a very

flexible dish, for squash or green chili peppers can also be added until the

flavor is perfect to taste.

Isla Kulinarya shares with you another meatless recipe that you can prepare this week-- Hipon sa Gata.

Hipon sa Gata (Shrimp in coconut milk)

HIPON SA GATA

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cooking Time: 30 minutes

Serves 4

2 tbsp     ginger, sliced thinly

2 cups    coconut milk

1 cup      chicken stock

2 lbs       shrimps, large

1             sili (chilli), chopped

2 tbsp     patis (fish sauce)

1 tsp       sugar

1/2 cup   fresh cilantro leaves

1. In a deep pot, combine ginger, coconut milk, chicken stock. Bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes

2. Add shrimp, add sili (chilli). Simmer for 5 minutes.

3. Add patis (fish sauce), sugar.

4. Serve with cilnatro

Next week, we continue on with our featured recipe from Region 3 or Central Luzon. Don't miss it!

Isla Kulinarya lets you explore the islands, taste the food, and relive the

memories--- all made possible by Island Pacific Supermarket. Go and visit an

Island Pacific near you with branches in Southern California located at

Cerritos, Canoga Park, North and South Vernon in Los Angeles, Panorama City and West Covina; Union City and Vallejo in Northern California. Check out our

website at www.islandpacificmarket.com. Stay connected with us--like us on

Facebook (island pacific market), follow us on Twitter (islandpacificUS) and

Blogger (island pacific market). Fro your comments, suggestions, and request for

recipes that you want us to feature, please email info@islandpacificmarket.com.

"Presyong Sulit...sa Isalnd Pacific."