One of A‘s favorite – lechon kawali (crispy deep-fried parboiled pork belly)! Every time I come across a pork dish A loves, the words ‘sinfully delicious’ come to my mind. Oh well so much for man’s carnivorous nature.
Ingredients for the Lechon Kawali:
1 kilo pork belly, sliced but not cut through
1 clove of garlic, crushed
salt
about 10 pc of peppercorns
Ingredients for the soup:
Reserved stock
1 small onion, cut into quarters
1 large potato, cut into small cubes
1 bowl of shredded cabbage
1 small carrot, cut into small cubes
Drop the pork in boiling water and continue boiling for 2 minutes. Add in the rest of the ingredients and simmer until the meat is tender (approx. 30 minutes). Remove pork from heat and drain. Reserve the stock. Chill the pork for atleast 2 hours.
Deep fry the chilled pork in hot oil until brownish and the rind is crisp with tiny blisters. (This is the time to cook the vegetable soup.) To make it crispier, sprinkle water on the hot oil when the pork is almost done. Serve with lechon sauce, ketchup, condiment of vinegar, salt, pepper and crushed garlic, or home-made sweet & sour sauce.
While cooking the lechon kawali, boil the potatoes and onion using the reserved pork stock. Adjust the taste. When the potatoes are almost cooked, add in the cabbage and carrots and cook till the cabbage is al dente. Serve hot alongside lechon kawali and plain rice. Try some sweet and sour sauce as condiment.
Note:Â Main photo above is an update.
I am not a professional cook. My only claim to having a culinary background is a short stint as my dad’s teen ‘sous chef’ in his carinderia ages ago. Dad ran small eateries since I was a young kid - serving standard ‘turo-turo’ food ranging from the likes of menudo, adobo, pritong isda, dinuguan, binagoongan, bopis, munggo, pinakbet and giniling to merienda fares like goto, ginataan, pancit bihon, halu-halo and saging con yelo.
My father, a farmer in his hometown before working his way to becoming an accountant, definitely influenced my cooking in a lot of ways than I thought. My siblings and I were raised in a backyard full of fruit trees and vegetable garden. We spent weekends and the summer breaks running around with ducks, chickens, goats and pigs. I had wonderful memories of gathering eggs, butchering chickens, selling vegetables and the sweet aroma of preserved fruits. But my love for art led me to a degree in Architecture. Just few months after getting my license, I went abroad and lived independently at age 23. Definitely no maid, no cook, and a totally different food culture. Along the way I met lots of friends and spent what seemed a lifetime learning new tricks and recipes.
Now living in Auckland, I am a work-from-home mum who juggles time between work, fun and family - in pursuit of work-life balance. No matter how busy I am, I love the idea of cooking for my family. My blog chronicles home cooking greatly influenced by life outside my home country from Southeast Asia to Beijing and Auckland. And most of the time, being busy also means easy (sometimes quick), affordable meals.
carnivorous nature ei? mwahahaha! somehow i get all green with those words! but this is a GP site so… erase erase…
back to the lechon kawali… ganda ng pagka-chop! i can’t seem to managedoing this when i make lechon kawali…
looks very crispy also, ginutom tuloy ako kahit katatapos ko lang maglunch.
The things you can do with a slab of pork belly – DELISH! Do pay my blog a visit, Iska: I have a pork belly recipe pending that’s quite tasty.