Tag: cooking

Dos and Donts with cooking the Cabanatuan longganisa

Apr 28

ErinTop of my head cooking, kitchen No Comments

I am biased but ever since living in Metro Manila I never bought a single longganisa from the public market or grocery chains to be cooked at home. It has always been always the Cabanatuan longganisa (or “langgonisa” as it is called in most areas in Nueva Ecija) or bust in our household. There is already a few posts on how to cook it so here is just the quick rundown of what to do and what to avoid with this recado sausage. 🙂

DO use a pan that you can scrub after for cleanup. Trust me, those non-stick pans are not going to last. 🙂
DONT just fry the longganisa links in oil. That is not how to properly cook it and in most cases you wont need to add the extra oil.
DO cook the longganisa in water. About 1/4 to 1/3 or the links should be submerged in tap water, and turn it over now and then until all the water evaporates.
DO prick the skin of the longganisa once all the water has evaporated so that the rendered oil can get into the pan.
DO toast the skin but dont burn them.
DO put day-old rice into the pan to get all those toasty goodness into a fried rice to accompany the logganisa. And since the Cabanatuan longganisa is recado (“garlicky”) then there is no need to add anything except a bit of salt to your fried rice.

Caveat: We now cook the longganisa in the air fryer. I just put a parchment paper under it for easy cleanup and oil extraction since we have those circular basket type. I still put in water at the start. 15 minutes at 160 degrees centigrade, flip and then 7-8 minutes more at 170 degrees. Another benefit of this cooking route is that the logganisa can go straight from the freezer to the airfryer basket, just ensure there is a single layer of sausage so they all get boiled first.

Good for the Heart Sisig Recipe

Aug 29

ErinTop of my head cooking, recipe No Comments

Posting for Macy.

Caveat Lector:

I dubbed my cooking style as “Tantyamba” or “Tantyahang+Tsambahan” (Guesstimate+Luck-of-the-draw). I usually look at a recipe and then just follow the general procedures. You can do the same.
Be adventurous, you only live once. My cooking satisfies that criteria, depending on how you look at it.
Good for the Heart means its will make your heart take a break faster. Faster is good, no?

Required Cooking Equipment:
– Knife and chopping board
– Pressure cooker
– Grill (I use a stovetop grill as I’m too lazy to tend a real grill)
– Tongs, strainer (optional)

Ingredients:
– 1/2 kilo balingit (pig’s ears), can be swapped with fatty pork cuts with skin
– 1/4 kilo lean pork, which replaces the pork face mask.
– 4 cloves of garlic, or garlic powder
– onions (about 3/4 coffee cup when chopped)
– salt and pepper
– mayonnaise (2/3 cup)
– 3-5 pieces of calamansi (or lemon/lime)
– liquid seasoning (2 cap full)
– 1 finely chopped hot chili (siling labuyo), optional

Meat Preparation:
– Clean the pork balingit and mask.
– Put all the meat products in the pressure cooker, together with the crushed garlic/garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Cover with water, enough to cover the meat. If you are using both balingit/mask and normal pork cuts, don’t put the normal pork cuts yet.
– Put the pressure cooker on high-heat until it whistles. Once it starts whistling, put in low heat (enough to maintain the blasts of pressure every 5-10seconds) and maintain it for about 20-30minutes.
– If using normal pork cuts, add it on at the 15-20 minute mark and then bring the pressure up again. Resume the countdown when the cooker whistles again.
– Once the meat is soft enough (a bit gelatinous), strain them and let them cool enough to be handled without screaming.
– Once the meat is strained and cool enough, grill the meat until the skin pops and becomes crunchy (instant chicharon!). I like giving the whole meat pieces enough face time on the grill to dry them off.
– Once done, chop the meat into small pieces. Some people find it therapeutic to use cleavers but dont get carried away. The aim is to reduce them to small pieces and not to turn them to liquid.
– Mix 1/4 cup of the chopped onions to the chopped meat and set aside.

Sauce:
– Put the remaining chopped onions, mayonnaise, liquid seasoning, calamansi juice, and chili in a small saucepan. Mix well and season to taste with salt and pepper.
– Put the pan in low to medium heat and simmer until the onions are soft/wilted.

Serving:
– Coat the chopped meat with the sauce.
– Serve while it is hot. If it has already cooled down a bit, that is what microwave ovens are for. 😉
– Goes well as viand to freshly cooked rice and some ice-cold drinks, or as pulutan with alcoholic drinks. Greasy foods always goes well with alcoholic drinks!

sisig!