Lechon Kawali

The adobofest occurred at Pusod on Valentine's Day. Some would say that it was not very romantic to celebrate Valentine's Day by having a potluck. I tend to believe that if someone is going to feed you good Pin@y food, they must really love your butt.

The adobo party was to commemorate the adobo poetry written sometime last December. I imagined having to eat through 15 different types of adobo. Could you imagine adobo heaven? Sadly, the SO decided that people can bring other things besides adobo. With that in mind, I began to plan, plan and plan. What dish would challenge my skills?

I could cook kare-kare, but it would be too easy. Perhaps if I crushed the peanuts myself then it would be somewhat of a challenge. I thought maybe I could cook pinapaitan. Hmm, the main ingredient of pinapaitan is tripe which is one of the banned beef products due to the mad cow disease. Oh, the oxtails for the kare-kare were also a no-no because of the madcow thing.

Finally, I settled on cooking pork ala chicharon/lechon kawali as practiced by my mother and father in the 1980's Los Angeles. This was a challenge because I am afraid of getting hot boiling oil on my skin. Something about pain receptors being activated over and over again makes me cringe.

We shopped for some pork in the International Store in Union City. I boiled the pork in salted water. Dried up the pieces really well with paper towel. Measured four cups of canola oil. Set up the stove at medium/medium high. Sadly, I could not completely dry the pieces of pork. As I added them to the pot, the boiling oil would pop. I realized that I was ill-equipped for a grease fire. I had to be really careful the the popping oil did not accidentally trickle on the side of the pot and catch fire.

The lechon kawali turned out quite well. People seemed to enjoy their serving of heart disease. As the SO said, my gift went straight to the heart.