Filipino food gets a bad rap, but I love many of the dishes: adobo, kinilaw, lumpia and even dinuguan - the rich, dark stew made with pig’s blood and innards. One of my favourite dishes is sisig, made with chopped pork, onions and chillies, and served with vinegar and/or fresh calamansi to add a sharp flavour that balances the fattiness of the meat.
Sizzling sisig (sometimes called spicy sisig, or just sisig) is the first Filipino dish I ever cooked. After talking to friends and looking online and in my cookbooks, I realised that while the ingredients are similar from recipe to recipe, there's a lot of leeway in the technique: you can start with cooked meat (often leftovers from lechon - whole roast suckling pig) or with raw pork. If using raw meat, it's often boiled, then grilled or pan-fried, to crisp up the pieces before being chopped. I cook the boiled, chopped meat in a wok to brown it lightly, and then, for crunch, I mix in crumbled pieces of chicharrones (fried pork cracklings) at the end.
I like to start with a whole pig’s head because it has so many textures: lots of fat and skin, some meat, and a nice crunch from cartilage in the ears. But pig’s head isn’t always easy to get, so for this recipe, I use pork belly and add a couple of pig ears. I also like to mix in a couple of poached pig brains, which give the sisig a creamy texture. Like the head, though, pig brains are not easy to find, so I substitute chicken livers.
This recipe makes a lot, but I never halve the recipe. The leftovers can be chilled for about a week, or frozen for longer storage. Reheat the leftovers and serve with warm corn tortillas - sisig tacos are delicious.
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