Ah, Crispy Pata. You make my heart sing! Crispy pata is pork leg, often fried and served on a Filipino table. It’s the usual pulutan and served in parties. But you can have it any day you like, why not! For #putokbatok concerns, that is the beauty of this recipe. It’s baked not fried! (wait, I think I heard this in a commercial, lol)

I can’t really remember when I first tasted Crispy Pata, but there’s one that is forever sealed to my memory. There’s a hidden Crispy Pata vendor in Kalentong in Mandaluyong that sells to dies for Crispy Pata. Once we visited a relative and they had nothing to feed us and you know us, we;d do anything to feed a visitor, so off they ran to the Pata place. Coupled with Coke, and newly cooked rice, it was a Pata Meal to remember. The fat was almost melting inside and biting into it sends an oozing flavor inside your mouth. The skin is so crispy, it could crack with a small hit of the back of a spoon.

So that was the bench point for any Crispy Pata I tasted ever after.

Crispy Pata Recipe in the Oven

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 kilos pork pata
• 6-8 cups water
• 1 pork bouillon (or Magic Sarap)
• 1 small carrot, sliced, 1 stalk celery, sliced (ore replace with 1 cup Sprite)
• 1 medium-sized onion, sliced
• 1/4 tsp peppercorns
• 2 tbsp rock salt
• 1 tbsp ground pepper
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• oil for frying
• simple sugar syrup 1 : 2 sugar to water ratio boiled for 3-5 minutes
• Pickles

Sauce:

• 1/2 cup vinegar
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon crushed garlic
• 2 teaspoons patis
• 2 pieces siling labuyo, crushed

Instructions:

1. In a big kettle,  put the pata add water and boil for 15 minutes. Throw water with scum and wash pata. In the same kettle, add back pata and stock, carrots, celery, onions and peppercorns. Boil until tender. Add 1/2 tsp baking soda 15 minutes before turning off fire. ( I used pressure cooker for 30 minutes and removed pressure before putting back to boil for another 15 minutes.) 
2. Drain well and towel dry.
3. Rub salt and ground pepper all over the pigs feet surface.
4. Leave for a few hours in the refrigerator or overnight if possible.
5. Heat your oven to 350 degrees F then bake pata for an hour or up the when your pata is crispy enough for you.
6. Remove from oven and let rest for 15 minutes.
7. Pour sugar syrup and top with sliced pickles.
8. Make the sauce by combining all the ingredients.
9. Serve with crispy pata.

So, does this compare to the Kalentong Pata? First, that one is fried. Seems to me that that one made a lot of difference. Maybe I’d increase the pressure cooker time to an hour. Make sure to really dry it. Then increase temp to 350 at the last 30 minutes to make the skin crispier. It was crispy for the first 5 – 10 minutes but got chewy after.

And just to be nerdy, maybe Ill try sous vide instead of boiling the pata. Hehe. I’ll tell you about it when I try it again.