Philippine – Crispy Pata

by Dwi Lias Susanty

Visiting a foreign country to enjoy a tourist attraction or local cuisine can be an alternative activity during the holiday. When you decide to visit Southeast Asia, Philippine maybe your best choice. Have many beautiful beaches and delicious traditional dish make Philippine one of the top tourist destination in Southeast Asia.

Philippine is one of a country that has authentic food taste that can’t be found anywhere else. In Manila, the Philippine capital city, there is a dish called Crispy Pata, a seasoned pig’s knuckle. Cooking Crispy Pata is a little bit difficult, so people prefer to buy it directly from the restaurant rather than cooking by itself. It has a savory taste and tender texture, produce from various kinds of spice. They use a bay leaf, pepper, salt, black pepper, garlic powder, and cooking oil. Tourist usually orders it for dinner, since Crispy Pata give a warm feeling to our body.

There are several steps in cooking Crispy Pata start from boiling pig meat with spices for 50 minutes, rubbing pig meat with garlic, black pepper, and salt, and marinating and frying in high heat. Crispy Pata serves with a side of garlic rice to make a complete meal. For getting perfectly cooked Crispy Pata, the pig meat has to soak entirely in the cooking oil.

Even cooking Crispy Pata needs extra effort, but there are several ways to get a delicious and crispy pork knuckle. So, follow this step to cook Crispy Pata.

Ingredient

• 1,5 kg pork knuckles
• 6 clove garlic
• 1 onion
• 1 piece carrot
• 4-liter water
• 2 tablespoon salt
• 1 tablespoon chicken broth powder
• Cooking oil for frying.

Rubbing ingredient

• 1 tablespoon salt
• 3 tablespoon vinegar

Garlic rice ingredient

• 8 clove garlic, chopped roughly
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 425-gram rice, wash clean
• 700 ml chicken broth.
• 1 onion leaf, chopped for topping.
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon pepper

Garlic rice preparation

1. Melt unsalted butter in a Teflon pan.
2. Add garlic, stir fry until its color turns brownish. Set aside.
3. Add rice and stir fry for 1 minute.
4. Pour chicken broth, and boil.
5. Add salt and pepper, stir well.
6. Lower the heat and close the pan. Cook again for 10 minutes.
7. Turn off the fire, and keep the pan close for 10 minutes.
8. Pour the rice with fried garlic.
9. Garlic rice ready to be served.

How to cook

1. Wash clean pork knuckles, prick the meat.
2. Steam pork knuckles with crushed garlic, salt, broth powder, and sliced onion. Steam for 30 minutes
3. Add carrot and boil for 5 minutes.
4. Remove the pork knuckle, prick with a fork several times.
5. After drying, rub it with spice, and put it in a refrigerator, or you can hang it up. Dry it for 30 minutes.
6. After drying, rub it again until the ingredient empty.
7. Put it again in a refrigerator for 30 minutes to make it dried faster.
8. Heat cooking oil enough for deep frying.
9. Pick the pork knuckles and remove the salt from the surface.
10. Deep fry the knuckles until crispy.
11. Crispy Pata ready to serve with garlic rice.