Maritime Southeast Asia · Volume 50, The Vinegar Line, the Sizzling Plate and the Whole Roast Pig

Sisig

Kapampangan Pampanga

Illustration

Researched: Researched from 124 sources in the brief

Sisig took its modern grilled, chopped and sizzling-plate form from Lucia “Aling Lucing” Cunanan in Pampanga. Her 2008 death is reported two ways this chapter will not resolve: a widely repeated robbery account, and parricide charges filed against her husband days after an initial robbery-homicide finding, reported in contemporary Philippine press. No source found here reports how, or whether, that case concluded.

by Kapampangan Pampanga

Several claims in this history are genuinely contested and this chapter says so rather than picking a side. Whether “Filipino cuisine” as a single national category obscures real regional difference is a live question inside the Philippines itself: the country has no legislated national dish, and food professionals interviewed on the subject are reportedly reluctant to name one, on the reasoning that a good national dish cannot belong to any one region. Bicol Express, treated by most foreign accounts as ancient Bicolano cooking, was in fact invented in the 1970s by Cely Kalaw, a Laguna-born restaurateur, at her restaurant in Malate, Manila, and named as a pun on the PNR train line for the dish's heat, though chef Myke Sarthou has noted Bicol had a related coconut-chilli preparation that made the borrowed name feel less like an imposition than it might have. And the death of Lucia “Aling Lucing” Cunanan, the woman who gave sisig its modern form, is reported two different ways by sources this chapter trusts unevenly: a widely repeated diaspora account calls it a robbery gone wrong, while contemporary Philippine press from April 2008 reports parricide charges filed against her husband days after an initial robbery-homicide finding, on the strength of undisclosed circumstantial evidence and a housemaid's account of a commotion she says she ignored because the couple fought often. No source found here reports how, or whether, that case concluded. This chapter repeats neither the clean version nor an unproven accusation as settled fact, and says so plainly rather than choosing the tidier story.

Read the history

As tradition built it

Around 2 hours, boiling and grilling, then a fast finish at the table.

Ingredients

900g (2 lb) pig's head, ears, jowl and cheek
1 head, crushed garlic
1 whole, plus 1 small, chopped onion, whole (for boiling) and chopped (for sautéing)
2 bay leaf
1 tsp black peppercorn
1 tbsp, plus more to taste salt
2 tbsp cooking oil, for sautéing
200g chicken liver
4 tbsp calamansi juice
2 tbsp vinegar
¼ tsp ground black pepper
1 per serving raw egg
2 to 3, sliced sliced chilli, to finish

Method

Boil pig's head, ears, jowl and cheek in water with garlic, onion, bay leaf, black peppercorn and salt until tender, around an hour to 90 minutes.
Drain and grill the boiled meat over charcoal until it takes real colour and a little char, then chop it fine by hand, the characteristic rough, varied texture a food processor cannot replicate.
Sauté chopped onion in oil, add the chopped meat and chicken liver, and season aggressively with calamansi juice, vinegar, salt and ground black pepper.
Preheat a metal plate on the stove or in the oven until it is properly hot.
Transfer the sisig to the sizzling plate at the table, crack a raw egg on top, and let the residual heat of the plate cook it gently as it is folded through, finishing with more calamansi and sliced chilli to taste.

What a modern chef changes

The cheek and ear cooked apart, and the liver rebuilt as a parfait

Rung 4

Method

Sous vide pork cheek and ear separately, the cheek at 75°C for 12 hours until meltingly tender while holding its shape, the ear at 85°C for 8 hours to soften its cartilage without dissolving it entirely.
Dry both thoroughly, then flash-fry the ear until it crisps into shards, chopped fine as the traditional crunch element.
Blend the chicken liver into a smooth parfait with butter and a little of the pork cooking liquor, passed through a chinois, quenelled onto the plate rather than chopped through the meat, giving a pooling richness the traditional version only hints at.
Dehydrate a portion of the pork skin separately and fry it to a shattering crumble, scattered over the top for the crackling texture true sisig relies on incidentally.
Reduce calamansi juice with a little sugar into a light gel, dotted around the plate rather than squeezed on wholesale, so its acidity reads as a controlled counterpoint rather than a blanket seasoning.
The sizzling metal plate itself is not optional and is not changed: per Rung 4, it remains the dish's real final cooking step, finishing the composed elements at the table exactly as tradition demands.

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