Crispy Pata, the Healthier Way

How do you cook crispy pata with less guilt? Use the oven!

No wasted gallons of cooking oil...no need for oversized pots....no splatters!

And you end up with crispy pata that has the crackled look on the skin, which has dripped some of its melted fat onto the pan it sits on (and you can even use the drippings to make pork gravy later)...

How to make crispy pata the healthier way?

This was a eureka moment for us... We were celebrating my friend Fe's birthday party last Saturday. As I said in my previous post, I brought pandan chiffon cake (which Fe and her son love!) Cecilia brought a big chunk of pork pata that she had been cooking since 3:30 am and still had not achieved the crunchy skin stage (we know about the skin being smooth and crunchy on traditional lechon...that's what we wanted to achieve). When we arrived at Fe's house, she was still out WORKING! But she was coming home soon, so we started to fiddle with her oven. We really did not know how to set the digital controls...We placed the pan on the lower third of the oven.

When she came back, we cooked rice...then she noticed the lechon...and that the oven was warm but not baking at that time she checked (off, in other words!). Cecilia went on to say, "Hindi pa malutong yung balat eh. Pano ba gamitin yang oven mo?" Fe checked, and said, "I-broil na lang natin." So she set her oven to broil.

After 5 minutes we took a look and saw what you see in the pictures on the slideshow above.

I then realized...the traditional way to cook chicharon or lechon kawali or crispy pata was to boil the pork/rind first in some mixture of water, vinegar and spices, then dry, then deep-fry. This accidental discovery was the short cut method in that you cook the pork first by roasting for about 3 hours to fully cook it (provided you brined the pork or flavored it somehow with spices prior, or placed spices like lemongrass, bay leaf, peppercorn, etc. underneath the roast while roasting, along with a sprinkle of garlic salt on the skin), then broil to create the crackled effect on the skin. (Did I not post about chicken skin chicharon, where I said I turn it to chicharon by using my nuwave to broil/bake the pre-cooked chicken skin? I also posted about smaller pork roast using the rotisserie after cooking/boiling and letting dry the chunk of pork pata.)

We wolfed down this roast in less than 30 minutes...nagpipigil pa so everyone (including our kids) can have his/her share! The thing was, we did not have Sarsa ni Mang Tomas! So we just made our own alternative dip of vinegar with chili, soy sauce, salt and pepper.

The cut that Cecilia brought had no skin underneath, but if you will try this method using pork pata with skin all around, I suggest that once the "cooking" phase is done and you are ready to broil the pata, use a wire rack to elevate the pata so the underside is open to hot air and is not soaked in juices, then after crisping the top, rotate so you crisp the bottom also (have not tried this, but it is an idea.)

Try it yourself! You won't regret it!

Lasagna

Hubby cooked this for my birthday. It's the best lasagna recipe that he's tasted. Last year, he made the same thing for my birthday, with chocolate cake that he made with the help of Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines. However, this time, I told him I'd bake my own cake, because I wanted to try the Crema de Fruta (thanks to Celia Kusinera for posting on this). I also baked biscuits to go with it. He felt uneasy that I had to do something on my birthday...haha...he's so sweet.

Ingredients:


2 lbs ground beef (they call it hamburg)
2 cloves minced garlic
1 6-oz can tomato paste
1 qt raw-packed tomatoes (which I canned; you may substitue with stewed tomatoes)
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp oregano
2 12-oz cottage cheese
2 16-oz pkg Aged Swiss cheese

Instructions:

Brown ground beef. Drain excess fluid. Add the garlic. Add tomatoes (if using tomatoes packed raw, drain the excess juice first), add a can of tomato paste and the spices, salt and pepper. Add more to taste.

Cook lasagna according to package directions. Place first layer of lasagna on bottom of 13 in x 9 in baking dish. Then divide the ground beef into two parts. Place the first layer of ground beef on top of the lasagna noodles,

then top with 1 package of cottage cheese, then top with 1 package of Aged Swiss cheese.

Repeat the layers.

Finalize with a double layer of lasagna noodles; the topmost used as a guard to avoid drying up the noodles below, and has to be discarded after baking (they will be tough and toasted, unsuitable for eating). Bake at 350 F for 30 minutes.

We (hubby, me and the boys) ate it with freshly-baked biscuits.

This is how we traditionally celebrate birthdays in our family, not quite different from what I had been doing in the PI before we moved here: I would cook to prepare for a special dinner usually consisting of lumpia, fried chicken, and spaghetti or pancit bihon, complemented with bought ice cream and cake. No luxurious and extravagant parties. No big and numerous gifts. I am glad my hubby and I agree on this. Our relatives would come later during the day to greet the birthday celebrant (me) and give their gifts and share the dessert (ice cream and cake) and chat.

There was not much left after the day. I divided this leftover into 4 serving portions and hubby had one for dinner the next day, and we had it for supper as well (as per kids' request).


The boys told me that "Papa's lasagna tastes yummier than yours." Funny, but I don't recall making lasagna, and neither did hubby when I told him about the boys' comment. They liked his lasagna so much that they (all 3 of us, actually, while hubby was out to bring my stepdaughter back to her other house) had it again for supper. While Ting-aling froze her leftover lasagna, I did not have the need to. Hubby requested it for dinner-at-work the next day; the boys requested to have it again for supper the next day (spared me from cooking!).

Lasagna

Hubby cooked this for my birthday. It's the best lasagna recipe that he's tasted. Last year, he made the same thing for my birthday, with chocolate cake that he made with the help of Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines. However, this time, I told him I'd bake my own cake, because I wanted to try the Crema de Fruta (thanks to Celia Kusinera for posting on this). I also baked biscuits to go with it. He felt uneasy that I had to do something on my birthday...haha...he's so sweet.

Ingredients:

2 lbs ground beef (they call it hamburg)
2 cloves minced garlic
1 6-oz can tomato paste
1 qt raw-packed tomatoes (which I canned; you may substitue with stewed tomatoes)
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp oregano
2 12-oz cottage cheese
2 16-oz pkg Aged Swiss cheese

Instructions:

Brown ground beef. Drain excess fluid. Add the garlic. Add tomatoes (if using tomatoes packed raw, drain the excess juice first), add a can of tomato paste and the spices, salt and pepper. Add more to taste.

Cook lasagna according to package directions. Place first layer of lasagna on bottom of 13 in x 9 in baking dish. Then divide the ground beef into two parts. Place the first layer of ground beef on top of the lasagna noodles,

then top with 1 package of cottage cheese, then top with 1 package of Aged Swiss cheese.

Repeat the layers.

Finalize with a double layer of lasagna noodles; the topmost used as a guard to avoid drying up the noodles below, and has to be discarded after baking (they will be tough and toasted, unsuitable for eating). Bake at 350 F for 30 minutes.

We (hubby, me and the boys) ate it with freshly-baked biscuits.

This is how we traditionally celebrate birthdays in our family, not quite different from what I had been doing in the PI before we moved here: I would cook to prepare for a special dinner usually consisting of lumpia, fried chicken, and spaghetti or pancit bihon, complemented with bought ice cream and cake. No luxurious and extravagant parties. No big and numerous gifts. I am glad my hubby and I agree on this. Our relatives would come later during the day to greet the birthday celebrant (me) and give their gifts and share the dessert (ice cream and cake) and chat.

There was not much left after the day. I divided this leftover into 4 serving portions and hubby had one for dinner the next day, and we had it for supper as well (as per kids' request).


The boys told me that "Papa's lasagna tastes yummier than yours." Funny, but I don't recall making lasagna, and neither did hubby when I told him about the boys' comment. They liked his lasagna so much that they (all 3 of us, actually, while hubby was out to bring my stepdaughter back to her other house) had it again for supper. While Ting-aling froze her leftover lasagna, I did not have the need to. Hubby requested it for dinner-at-work the next day; the boys requested to have it again for supper the next day (spared me from cooking!).