Cooking with Cecilia: Filipino Barbecue Pork

We’ve had a heat wave in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, which is per­fect weath­er for bar­be­cu­ing. My fam­i­ly loves bar­be­cue pork, so I fixed this over the week­end. Here’s a recipe. To be hon­est with you I don’t mea­sure ingre­di­ents and just add stuff into a huge bowl. For my fam­i­ly of 12, I cooked 10 lbs of pork butt; my men gob­bled up most of it.

Ingre­di­ents:

1 lb pork (butt or bel­ly, cut into chunks or slices; slices cook faster)

1/2 cup vine­gar

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup banana ketchup

6 to 8 cloves, gar­lic, minced or mac­er­at­ed

1 tbsp brown sug­ar

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pep­per

dash of chili seeds

bay leaf

bam­boo sticks

addi­tion­al banana ketchup for bast­ing

Pro­ce­dure:

Com­bine vine­gar, soy sauce, banana cat­sup, gar­lic, brown sug­ar, lemon juice, salt and pep­per, chili, bay leaf, in a large bowl, and stir. This is your mari­nade for your pork slices.  I mar­i­nate the pork overnight in the refrig­er­a­tor, turn­ing it over on occa­sions so the meat soaks up the mari­nade.

Before bar­be­cu­ing I soak the bam­boo sticks in water for an hour; this pre­vents the sticks from burn­ing on the grill.

Skew­er the pork in bam­boo sticks; don’t pack the meat tight­ly togeth­er, but allow it to “breathe” so the meat cooks;

Make your bast­ing sauce from banana ketchup and the mari­nade. You can add a bit of cook­ing oil to make your pork glis­ten and look absolute­ly yum­my — this is a trick I learned from a pro­fes­sion­al cook.

Pre­heat grill over medi­um heat.

Grill the pork and baste as you do so.

If you are prepar­ing a lot, you can pre-cook the skew­ered pork in the oven and fin­ish off over the grill. This allows for quick­er cook­ing time.

I like to serve bar­be­cue pork with rice, pancit, and sal­ad. Some peo­ple like to eat the pork with vine­gar. For dessert, serve leche flan — check out my spe­cial recipe.