How A Filipino Chef Makes Traditional Pork Sisig

Sisig is the street food dish in the Philippines.

Traditional sisig is made out of chopped pork

with calamansi juice, chilies, onion,

little bit of garlic, and soy.

It hits all notes in the Filipino palate,

like crispy, sour, porky, soft, creamy.

My name's Anton Dayrit.

My family's from Pampanga, Philippines.

And this is how we make pork sisig.

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Sisig originated in Pampanga,

which is the culinary capital of the Philippines.

Traditional sisig from Pampanga is made

with pork belly and pork maskara, as we call it.

So we're gonna start by cutting up this pig maskara

to make the cooking time quicker.

So using a pig mask adds a lot of texture into sisig.

It definitely adds this beautiful, succulent,

fatty texture that you cannot get

from any other protein.

And now we're gonna blow torch this

and then remove any hairs

that are still evident in it.

So here we've cut the pork belly

into your desired size

and then we're gonna braise it separately

with the same aromatics,

but into two different pots.

So here are aromatics.

These are aromatics for both the pork face

and pork belly.

We have bay leaves here, black peppercorns,

two Spanish onions, and half a bulb garlic.

And then we cover with water.

Turn the heat on into medium-low

and then we cover with a lid.

So this will cook for approximately one hour and a half.

And now here on this side,

we have our pork belly, same aromatics, and then water.

Turn the flame on again to medium-low.

This one will cook a lot faster.

So we're simmering for about one hour,

and in the meantime, we're gonna get all

our vegetables and aromatics ready

sisig混合物。

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Our first ingredient here is calamansi,

which for me is one of the most important

ingredients of the recipe of sisig.

It has a lime and tangerine flavor,

which is really irreplaceable.

So in the Philippines we used the calamansi a lot

as a juice for breakfast in the morning

or even to mix with a little gin.

You know, I can use one right now [laughs]

We're gonna probably use three tablespoons of calamansi.

We're gonna dice the garlic.

You can never have too much garlic in sisig.

It's much easier to crush garlic with a cleaver.

[cleaver clanking]

We're gonna mince this garlic.

We're gonna small dice this onion.

So the onions eventually would add like a little bit

of crisp and sweetness later on to our sisig dish.

So we have all aromatics done here and ready to go.

Let's set this aside.

Let's get back to the pork.

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We're gonna be checking up on the pig mascara.

So right now, it's tender.

We're gonna remove it and we'll set it aside

to cool it down in the refrigerator.

So our pork mask just cooled off.

We all have different portions here

so we're gonna cut it into similar thinness

so we can grill it all evenly and dice it up altogether.

You can actually use a whole pig face

because all of the different parts

of the pig face have different textures

and it just adds more to the dish.

Makes the dish much better.

The grill is smoking, smoking hot.

So we're gonna get this on right now.

Skin side down first,

because if you put the fat side down right now,

it's gonna smoke up this room.

The reason why we're we're grilling this

is because it's much easier to work with after grilling.

And number two,

it imparts this really smokey flavor to the sisig

This is exactly how my family used to make it

in the Philippines.

This step in the seasoning process is very, very important.

You need to dry out the pork face,

just because of the gelatinous texture from the cartilage.

That's the whole point of doing this,

because you don't want to end up

with a really gummy, wet and gross sisig.

So we're starting to get there.

We're achieving char.

So I'm gonna flip these guys over.

My favorite piece is the cheek and also the snout,

because they're much fattier, they have like a really,

really good texture and flavor in my opinion.

So the pig mask is all done.

Now we're gonna cool this off

for about an hour or just until it's cold.

And then we're gonna move on to the pork belly.

Pig face is cooled down now let's dice it.

I'm gonna start up with my favorite part, the cheek.

Ooh, look at that.

So good, you hear that crunch?

Oh, I already know this is gonna be good.

It's a pretty laborious job to make sisig,

但我想告诉你

that all this labor that we're doing right now,

it's definitely gonna be worth it.

Now let's move on to the pork belly.

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Our pork belly's done, I'm gonna take them out,

set them in a sheet tray here with a rack.

We're gonna season it with salt, like a good amount of salt.

So when we pop it in the oven,

it's gonna dry out the skin and make it crispy.

We're gonna pop this into a 350 degree oven

for one hour and 20 minutes until the pork is dry.

The pork belly is out of the oven and cooled off.

We're gonna cut off a little piece here,

因为我们要使它成为一个小chicharron

to top off our sisig there.

Now we're gonna deep fry.

You need to make sure it's patted down dry

before you drop it in here, 'cause it may explode.

So just be very, very careful.

Lay it in there gently as so.

对的,we're gonna deep fry this for about 10 minutes.

While this is happening,

we're gonna cut our leftover pork belly

into small pieces for our chicharron later on.

I'm gonna set this aside.

So you can see how beautiful it's getting right now.

So we're getting there.

Almost 10 minutes are up.

That's all ready, drop that in.

Everything that goes out of the fryer,

rule of thumb, season with salt.

Now we're gonna deep fry our chicharron.

Sisig basically has like multiple preparations of pork.

There's grilled pig face,

deep fried pork belly, pork cracklings,

and then you put it all together.

Basically it's like the ultimate pork dish for me.

All different textures and flavors put together.

Our chicharron is ready,

so now we're gonna add some salt to it.

Our pork belly's now cooled off.

We're gonna take this pork belly,

chop it up, Morimoto style.

Just so you see, you see that crunch?

That's what you want.

This is what I mean when I mean more Morimoto style.

All right, Chef Morimoto used to do should do this,

an Iron Chef, when he used to chop up like proteins.

This is exactly how they do it in Pampanga

in the Philippines.

When they make sisig, they do it with two cleavers.

Our pork belly is all minced, let's move on.

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Before we cook the fried rice, we're gonna season our wok.

Put a little bit of salt in.

So when you're season the wok, it cleans the wok,

at the same time, it also imparts more flavor into the food.

So we're gonna use a whisk.

Normally it's used with a brush,

with the Chinese brush, it was like a bamboo brush.

We don't have that right now

so we're using a whisk to do that.

Dump that out.

Little bit of oil up with this butter.

I know that looks like a lot, half of that garlic in there.

All right, so we're gonna get that butter,

we're get to go brown a little bit.

So now we're gonna add your rice, right?

We're gonna season it with some of our magic seasoning.

The mushroom seasoning is not very traditional.

I just feel like you know, it's an organic MSG.

It's actually just dehydrated mushrooms

and salt, and it adds like an umami flavor.

Philippine fried rice is super simple,

just because Filipino food already has a lot

of flavor already in it.

So you don't want like an overpowering rice to go with that.

Fried rice is done, right?

So that's why you season a wok.

See, nothing sticks, nothing left over.

We have our garlic fried rice.

Let's move on, let's finish our sisig.

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It's time to put everything together.

We got our ingredients set aside here.

So put all of our pork belly in, some of our pig face.

So put a little bit of onion in, a little bit of garlic

a little bit of soy sauce.

This one is Satu Puti soy sauce.

It's a Filipino soy sauce that you can get it

in any Filipino or Asian market.

It's very traditional to cooking adobo

or making sisig or anything that uses soy sauce

in the Philippines

We're gonna use some of our calamnsi juice as well.

And then little bit

of your magic mushroom seasoning to a touch of salt.

So Knorr is kind of like soy sauce, but also kind

of different in the way it has a little bit more umami,

little bit more sugar, but it's very traditional

to using for Sisig.

Traditionally, Pampanga sisig started off

by using pig brain.

They used to take the pig brains, pulse it with a little bit

of garlic and then fold it into the sisig.

But because I don't like using pig brain,

that's why we use mayonnaise.

I like using Kewpie mayonnaise.

You can us Hellmanns or whatever brand may you like.

What the mayo does, also binds the whole sisig together

when you eat it.

Don't forget a black pepper.

All right, so we're gonna mix this baby up.

I already know this is probably gonna be the one

of the best sisigs I've ever made.

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So we have our platter heated up.

We're gonna put the butter in the sisig mixture, right?

[pan sizzles]

对的,let's crack the egg in.

If you can have sisig without an egg.

But growing up, this is how it's done.

Add some of the green onions, Spanish onions

some of the chilies.

I like it spicy.

If you don't have green, you can use red.

And then we'll put the little bit of chicharron here on top.

And then our beautiful calamnsi here.

There you go.

And this here is traditional Pampanga sisig.

Let me take my spoon and fork here.

This is how we do it in the Philippines.

See that bottom part all crusted up?

Oh yeah.

Let's see.

That's good.

Oh yeah.

This is the best sisig I've ever had.

The meatiness, the fattiest from the pig face,

the sourness from calamsi, the soy sauce, everything.

Everything just comes together with the garlic fried rice.

It's another level.

Just reminds me of my childhood, basically.

If you've never had sisig before,

I think you should try it because it's probably one

of the most complex dishes in the Philippines.

It's basically the history in the Philippines in a plate.

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