Filipino Whole30 Eats: Slow Cooker Lechon Manok

Sunday lunch again at my mother’s place. (I promised my family I would cook for them every Sunday this month while I’m doing this Filipino-themed Whole30; they’re my first audience and taste testers for a lot of these recipes.) This time I made a party favorite: lechon manok.

Lechon manok is rotisserie slow-roasted whole chicken usually seasoned with lemon grass and other spices. It reached the peak of its popularity about when I was in college (so, way back when). I remember you could barely walk a street in Metro Manila then without passing rows of smoky, aromatic food stalls with lechon manok in long bamboo skewers slowly turning over hot coals. Other food fads have since taken its place, but it’s still a Filipino favorite, specially during gatherings when you want to serve good, homey comfort food.

Not everyone has a rotisserie or a charcoal pit, so most homemade recipes for lechon manok call for oven-roasting the chicken instead. I thought I’d go a different route and cook it in a slow cooker, to try to attain the tenderness and juiciness you get from slow-roasting. I think I got pretty close; anyway, my family loved it.

The marinade is adapted from the blog Simple Comfort Food.

My lunch plate: lechon manok and spaghetti squash pancit, with guinataang halo-halo on the side

Translations
Lechon (leh-chohn): one of our most popular foods: roasted whole suckling pig; also, the manner of its cooking (rotisserie slow-roasting over hot coals)
Lechon manok (leh-chohn mah-nok): rotisserie slow-roasted whole chicken
Pancit (pahn-sit): Filipino noodle dishes
Kalamansi (kah-lah-mahn-si): small, very tart citrus fruit (it’s sometimes translated as “calamondin,” but I’ve never seen a calamondin that looked like the kalamansi that I know)

Ingredients

• 1 4 lb. whole chicken
• 6 cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped
• 2 stalks of lemon grass, trimmed, tough outer layers peeled off, and coarsely chopped
• 1 shallot, coarsely chopped
• 1 tablespoon coarsely chopped ginger
• 1/4 cup puréed Asian pear (you can use other sweet fruit like mango, apple, or pear)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 3 tablespoons patis (fish sauce)
• 1/2 teaspoon tumeric powder
• 2 tablespoons kalamansi juice (or 3 tablespoons lemon juice)
• 3 bay leaves

Instructions

1. To marinate the chicken: Put all ingredients except the chicken and bay leaves in a food processor and blitz them until you end up with a smooth paste. Rub the chicken all over with the paste, including inside the cavity. Place the chicken in a pan, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and store in the fridge at least overnight and up to 2 days.
2. Pour the excess marinade and juices from the pan into your slow cooker, then place the chicken inside, breast side down. Put the bay leaves on top of the chicken. Set the slow cooker on low and the timer to 4-6 hours. (Actual time depends on the size of your chicken and the heating qualities of your slow cooker. My chicken was 4 lbs. and my slow cooker is a little underpowered, so I went for 5 1/2 hours. Do not cook the chicken more than 6 hours or it will become dry and fall apart.)
3. Pre-heat your oven to broil a few minutes before the slow cooker times out. Once the slow cooker shuts off, remove the chicken and place on a roasting pan or other oven-proof pan lined with a baking rack. Broil the chicken for 10 minutes or so, flipping it over midway.
4. Remove from the oven, let stand for 5 minutes before carving away.

Alternative cooking method: If you don’t have a slow cooker, or the time to slow cook your chicken, you can also oven-roast it at 350 degrees for 20 minutes each pound (so 80 minutes for a 4 lb. chicken), plus 10 more minutes at the end at 450 degrees to crisp the skin.

Makes 4-6 servings. Our lechon manok was picked clean by the time we finished.

How this is Whole30
Sugar was replaced with a fruit purée. Also, some lechon manok recipes call for soy sauce; this one uses patis instead.

• About Whole30

Filipino Whole30 Eats: Guinataang Halo-Halo

Talk about grazing: with our carb-centric diet, we Filipinos typically eat 4 or 5 times a day, with meriendas (snacks or mini-meals) interspersed between our main meals. Guinataang halo-halo is one of those cloyingly sweet Filipino snacks that we came up with in our centuries-long effort to keep our ravenous, carb- and sugar-fueled bodies going. I remember this dish fondly from childhood: my sisters and I would often have this mid-afternoon after school, and the sugar would propel us like high-octane into the street for playtime with our neighborhood friends. (Homework? What homework?)

When I switched to Paleo, and went even further to Whole30, I found myself eating lots of sweet potatoes, plantains, and other dense sources of complex carbs to take the place of the rice, bread, and pasta I had given up. It wasn’t too big of a leap to recall this old childhood snack and realize, hey!, this was made from sweet potatoes and plantains and another dense carb, taro. Plus, jackfruit, yum. And add to all that the fact that it’s cooked in one of the healthiest fats around: coconut milk.

So I set myself to tinkering with the recipe to make it Whole30 compliant. One important note: it’s essential not just to change the composition of this dish, but also to repurpose it. I.e., this should not be eaten as a snack (snacks are not encouraged in Whole30), the way it is traditionally. Rather, it should accompany your meal as a side dish, to be eaten with your other food or right after.

Try this at breakfast alongside your protein source. I guarantee: it will power you all the way to lunch!

Translations
Guinataan (ghee-nah-tah-ahn): cooked in coconut milk
Guinataang halo-halo (ghee-nah-tah-ahng hah-loh hah-loh): literally, a variety of things cooked in coconut milk; colloquially, this dish
Saging (sah-ging – first “g” is a hard “g”): banana
Saging na saba (sah-ging nah sah-bah): sweet plantain, aka saba banana, also sometimes called cardaba banana

Ingredients

• 1 ripe (as in spotted with black) medium saging na saba, cut into 1/4-inch thick slices (about 1 to 1 1/2 cups)
• 1 medium yellow sweet potato, diced into 1-inch cubes (about 1 cup)
• 1 cup of diced taro (1-inch cubes)
• 1 cup whole (or 1/2 cup chopped or shredded) jackfruit
• 1 3/4 cups of water
• 1 14 oz. can of coconut milk
• pinch of anise seeds (optional)

Substitutions: you can replace the saging na saba with a very ripe plantain, and the yellow sweet potato with any other type of sweet potato; if you can’t find jackfruit (available frozen in many Asian groceries), do without, or try cubed butternut squash; cubed cassava can also complement or take the place of the other root crops.

Instructions

1. Bring the water to a boil in a saucepan. Add the root crops (cubed saging na saba and taro), close the lid, and simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring once or twice.
2. Add the coconut milk and the rest of the ingredients, and bring back to a boil. Let simmer uncovered, stirring often, until the root crops are tender but not mushy – anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes.
3. Let stand for a few minutes before serving in bowls.

Makes 3 servings. Remember to have this as part of your meal and not as a standalone snack!

How this is Whole30
No added sugar! You wouldn’t believe how much sugar usually goes into these things. But I’ve learned it doesn’t need it; with the saging na saba and jackfruit, the concoction is already just the right amount of sweet. Also, I excluded other typical ingredients, such as bilo-bilo or glutinous rice balls (non-Whole30 compliant) and sago or tapioca pearls (technically compliant but nutritionally empty).

• About Whole30

Filipino Whole30 Eats: Stir-Fried Kangkong (Quickie Veggie)

The basic Whole30 meal template requires you to start by placing a protein source (1-2 palm-sized servings of meat, chicken, or fish, or as many eggs as you can hold in one hand) onto your plate, and then filling the rest of your plate with veggies and occasionally some fruit (making sure some good fat is included in the mix). Let’s focus on the veggies part of that formula for a moment and note that this does not mean a desultory smattering of carrot sticks and celery around your pork chop, carefully spread out to cover the maximum area; it usually means 2 or more cups of veggies heaped on your plate per meal. Including breakfast.

That’s a lot of veggies.

So most Whole30ers learn quickly to roast, stir-fry, bake, boil, steam, grill, microwave, and otherwise prepare loads of veggies at a time, often keeping stocks in the fridge and just doling them out as needed during mealtimes — or they buy salad greens in bulk and munch through astonishing amounts of plant matter until they find the bottoms of their salad bowls.

It’s also handy to have easy, quick, go-to recipes for when you’re starving and you need to have your veggies on your plate pronto. So here’s one recipe for a Filipino Quickie Veggie (the first of a weekly series) to help fill that need.

Translation

Kangkong (kahng-kong): water spinach, a semi-aquatic tropical plant grown as a veggie

Ingredients

• 1 bunch of kangkong (about 1 lb.)
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon minced ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (or chopped red or green chilis) 
• coconut aminos (soy sauce substitute)

Instructions

1. Trim the stem ends and cut thick stems into 2-inch lengths. Set these 2-inch stems aside. Cut the rest (leafy portions and thinner stems) into manageable lengths (no longer than the diameter of your pan). 
2. Heat your pan with your favorite cooking fat in medium heat. When the fat starts shimmering, add the garlic and ginger and sauté until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
3. Add your kangkong stems and cook about 2-3 minutes, stirring often, until the stems start to soften.
4. Add your leaves and thinner stems and continue cooking until the leaves start to wilt. (Kangkong is like spinach; it wilts fast once it gets started.)
5. Dust your kangkong with black pepper and add the coconut aminos to taste (start with one tablespoon and sprinkle more if needed). Continue stirring.
6. When the stems are tender-crisp and the leaves are all wilted, sprinkle with red pepper flakes. Give it one last good mix, and then transfer to a plate.

Makes about 3 servings.

How this is Whole30
Replacing the usual soy sauce with coconut aminos made all the ingredients Whole30 compliant.

• About Whole30

Filipino Whole30 Eats: Salmon Sinigang

Sinigang is one of those really healthy, traditional foods screwed over by modern times. Once people started to hurry up and run out of time, they started reaching for those admittedly handy, time-saving packets of sinigang mix to save themselves the trouble of making the soup base from scratch. Or I should say we, because I’ve done it myself. But this is what we bought for the sake of convenience:

Thankfully, the fix for this is easy. Just follow our grandmothers’ lead and make sinigang the old fashioned way!

Or, you know, close to it. I suppose I could have bought unripe tamarind fruit and boiled it, and mashed it, and strained it – rinse and repeat – like they used to do. But I found some tamarind preserve that came in plastic-wrapped blocks in a nearby Asian grocery store and decided to use that instead. Saved me a step or two. (Others have used tamarind concentrate and saved themselves even more time, still without resorting to any MSG-laden sinigang mix. You are welcome to use their technique, too.)

Sinigang is more typically made with pork or prawns, but I happened to have some frozen salmon filets in my freezer, so that’s the way I went.

Translations

Sinigang (see-neeh-gahng): sour soup or stew (usually tamarind-flavored) cooked with pork, prawns, or fish, along with boatload of veggies

Patis (pah-tis): fish sauce

Kangkong (kahng-kong): water spinach, a semi-aquatic tropical plant grown as a veggie

Ingredients

For the broth –

• tamarind preserve (only ingredient: unripe tamarind)
• 5 cups of water
• 1 teaspoon minced ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons patis

For the soup –

• 2 salmon filets
• 1 tomato, quartered
• half a small onion, coarsely chopped
• 5-6 cups of other veggies, such as bok choy, sliced Chinese eggplant, sliced daikon radish, and sitaw (long string beans) cut in 6-8 inch lengths (see photo below). You can also use other veggies such as okra, cubed taro, and kangkong (water spinach), and you can add hot chili finger pepper or horseradish if you like it sour and hot.

Instructions

For the broth –

1. Boil the water in a pot and add some tamarind preserve. The amount is really variable, dependent on how sour the tamarind is and how sour you want the broth to be. I like ending up with a broth that is mouth-puckeringly sour, which in this case meant about 5-6 tablespoons of the tamarind preserve I bought. You can adjust the sourness as needed, and keep in mind the tartness also gets somewhat diluted later when you add the veggies.
2. Add the patis, ginger, and pepper. Lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. 
3. Adjust the taste, adding more water or more tamarind preserve to modulate the sourness, and add more patis or pepper to taste if necessary. When you have it the way you want it, strain the broth in a fine mesh strainer and discard the tamarind residue.

For the soup –

1. Return the broth into the pot and bring back to a boil. Add your tomato and onion. Then add the veggies that take the longest to cook; in this case, the radish and the long beans. Lower the heat and let simmer for 10 minutes. (Side note: if making pork sinigang, add the pork at this point and lengthen the simmering time to about 45 minutes.)
2. Add the salmon filets, stirring the pot to make sure they are submerged. Simmer an additional 5 minutes.
3. Add the eggplant and bok choy. Simmer an additional 3-4 minutes.
4. Ladle the soup into a bowl and soup’s on!

Makes 2 servings. You can have the soup by itself, if you like, but you’ll probably want something bland to blunt the tartness. Normally it would be rice, but for Whole30, try cauliflower rice as your side dish. Have a small saucer of patis on the side as a dipping sauce for the fish and veggies.

How this is Whole30

No sinigang packet means no MSG or other preservatives you need a Chemistry degree to decipher. End result? A whole lot of healthy sour goodness!

• About Whole30

Filipino Whole30 Eats: Homemade Atchara

Whole30 encourages the eating of fermented, probiotic foods such as sauerkraut, kimchi, pickles, etc. to enhance the beneficial bacteria in our guts and improve our digestion. Let’s add to the list with a contribution from Filipino cuisine: atchara.

Similar to the Vietnamese do chua but using green papaya instead of daikon radish, atchara is a common side dish in Filipino meals. Restaurants often include them in meal plates or serve them on the side; they are the constant sidekicks to our breakfasts. They provide a refreshing sweet and sour complement to our more savory dishes, such as our grilled pork chops and fried chicken – the way cole slaw does, I suppose, to many an American barbecue.

I would just buy atchara if I could, since it does take a bit of effort to make it, but I haven’t been able to find any store-bought atchara that doesn’t have added sugar (and often other preservatives as well). So I set aside time a couple of weeks ago and went ahead and made my own.

My conclusion: so totally worth it to be able to spoon heaps of the pickled mixture onto my breakfasts. As you may have noticed, it was also part of the meal I prepared for my family Sunday brunch yesterday. And it was a hit; my teenage niece proclaimed that she could eat it on its own as a snack. I could ask for no greater compliment than that!

Translation

Atchara (aht-chah-rah): green papaya and other veggies pickled in vinegar

Ingredients

• 4 cups grated or julienned green papaya (about 1 small papaya; I don’t have a grater, so I just julienned mine)
• 1/4 cup salt + 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 carrot, peeled and grated or julienned
• 1 red bell pepper, sliced into long, thin strips
• 1 tablespoon chopped ginger
• 1/2 of a shallot, sliced thinly
• 4-5 garlic cloves, sliced thinly
• 1 oz. raisins
• 1 teaspoon red chili pepper flakes
• 1 1/4 cup water
• 3/4 cup white vinegar (I used cane vinegar)
• 1 20 oz. can of pineapple chunks with juice

Instructions

1. To prepare the green papaya: peel the skin, cut in half, remove the seeds, then cut into long slices. Grate with a box grater, or julienne using a julienne peeler. Or cheat and use a spiralizer or your food processor with the julienne slicer blade. Any way is fine, as long as you end up with strands or noodles of green papaya. The thinner the strand, the better.
2. Place the green papaya strands in a bowl and toss with 1/4 cup of salt. Refrigerate for a least 1 hour. This will draw out the moisture from the papaya.
3. Rinse the papaya thoroughly with water. Drain the water, then wrap batches of the papaya in a cheese cloth (or any clean cloth) and squeeze and twist with all your might to remove as much of the remaining moisture as possible. You want it bone dry to prevent the papaya from turning bitter during the pickling process. (Make no mistake: this is a bit of a forearm workout. But that’s good for you, right?)
4. Put the papaya, carrot, red bell pepper, chopped ginger, sliced shallot, sliced garlic, raisins, and red chili pepper flakes in a large bowl.
5. To prepare the pickling juice: mix the water, vinegar, pineapple juice (squeeze as much of the juice from the pineapple chunks as you can), and 1 teaspoon salt in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes.
6. While the pickling juice is simmering, add the pineapple chunks to your bowl of veggies and mix thoroughly. Then place the mixture inside clean, dry jars.
7. Remove the saucepan from the heat and let the pickling juice cool down.
8. When the pickling juice is merely warm and no longer hot, pour into the jars with the veggies, making sure the veggies are completely submerged. (Do not pour it in hot! This will cook the veggies and kill off most of the helpful bacteria that will ferment your atchara.) Close the lids tight.
9. Keep the bottles in your fridge for at least 1 week, preferably longer, to allow the fermentation to take hold.
10. After the waiting period, spoon bunches into your meal plate or in a bowl as a side dish and enjoy!

Makes about 6 cups, or about 12 1/2 cup servings.

How this is Whole30

Virtually all commercially available atchara contains sugar, and most recipes call for heaps of sugar as well. Substituting pineapple juice took care of making this version Whole30 compliant. Plus, the pineapple juice and pulp added sweet-tart notes to the atchara that enhanced the flavor (IMO). 

• About Whole30

Filipino Whole30 Eats: Mango Pork Tocino

Mango pork tocino, served with fried eggs over purple cauliflower rice and homemade atchara

During my Whole30 in April, several of my meals were Filipino dishes that I made compliant to Whole30 specifications. Since then, I’ve been thinking it would be fun to go even further and hack even more traditional Filipino dishes to make them Whole30 approved. I enjoy a challenge now and then, and I also thought this would be a nice way for me to go back to my food tradition and find ways to refresh and renew it, making it healthier in the process.

So for the next month, I’ll be testing and sharing recipes, trying out new meal combinations out of traditional Filipino foods, and who knows? maybe even come up with new and innovative dishes out of elements from Filipino cuisine. I’ll be explaining why my versions are Whole30 compliant and occasionally making the argument as to why I think they are healthier. Join me; it’ll be interesting!

To start off, I prepared this tocino dish for a Sunday family brunch today at my mother’s house. Since we’re talking about Filipino traditions here, of course I had to start with food prepared for a family gathering.

Translations

Tocino (toh-see-noh): sweet cured meat, most often pork, sometimes chicken

Atchara (aht-chah-rah): green papaya and other veggies pickled in vinegar

Ingredients

• 1 lb. pork butt or shoulder sliced thinly into 1/4 inch thick strips
• 1/2 cup mango purée (about one ripe medium Manila mango diced and blitzed in a food processor)
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar (I used cane vinegar)
• 1 tablespoon coconut aminos (soy sauce substitute)

Instructions 

1. Combine all ingredients except the pork in a small bowl. Place the pork strips in a ziploc bag or container and pour the liquid over the pork pieces. Massage the pork to make sure all the pieces are coated. Refrigerate for 1-2 days.
2. Fry the pork pieces in your favorite cooking fat (I used ghee) in medium-high heat until they are fully cooked, browned, and the pork fat has rendered and turned somewhat crispy. (You can also grill the meat if you prefer.)

Makes 2-3 servings. Tocino is typically served at breakfast with garlic rice and fried eggs. For Whole30, cauliflower rice is a good substitute for regular rice.

How this is Whole30
Tocino is normally loaded with sugar; this recipe uses a mango purée marinade to add just the right touch of sweetness. Coconut aminos took the place of soy sauce. No preservatives were used; traditionally, tocino is cured and preserved with saltpeter, which gives it its distinctive red color. (Not-so-fun fact: saltpeter, or potassium nitrate, is an ingredient in gunpowder, fertilizer, and aerosol fire suppression systems. So, yeah, definitely stuff to keep away from your food.)

• About Whole30