Tocino is one of many Filipino breakfast favorites. It’s made out of pork meat, basically taken from pig’s butt part, then thinly sliced, and cured. You combine pork with sugar, garlic powder, salt, pepper and a red coloring (Anato seeds) on a bowl of pineapple juice or vinegar and anise wine. The result is a tangy-sweet, flavorful, garlicky taste. Curing the marinated meat by keeping them in the fridge for 24 hours. Leftovers need to be sealed in plastic bags and freezed.
We’re not actually focusing on the Tocino preparation for this one. We just want to share how to cook a perfect Tocino dish for breakfast.
Ingredients: 2-3 servings
1 packet of tocino
1/4 cup water
1 tsp cooking oil (optional)
1 small sliced tomatoes
3 scrambled eggs
3 cups steamed or fried rice, your choice
Cooking Procedure:
- Assuming Pork Tocino is coming from your freezer, thaw it first, then cut tocino in smaller slices.
- On a deep frying pan, place the tocino, organize them as if they seat flat on the pan separately. Pour enough amount of water where meat lies below the water level.
- Heat stove and simply let the tocino boil on one side for at least 15 minutes without draining the water, then flip it once to allow the other side of the meat to cook evenly. Let it simmer for another 5 minutes until water is barely drained.
- As water dries up, caramelized sauce will appear from the meat. It’s tendency is to burn from the heat. Don’t be alarm, stir the meat a few times, check the bottom side to see if meat is fully cooked. If so, flip each piece one at a time to cook the upper side. Cooked pork tocino will appear brownish-red with slight burns on corners.
- Avoid overcooking the meat or it will not result to the great taste you desire it to be. Also, they should be fork tender when fully cooked.
- Turn off heat, transfer tocino meat to a serving plate. Serve it hot with scrambled or easy over eggs and steamed or fried rice.
Tip: Ready-to-cook Pork Tocinos are sold in Asian stores only. Best dip for tocino is spicy vinegar with small amount of fish sauce, but tomatoes alone is also good.
Delicious Longaniza(Filipino Sausage) and Tocino Breakfast Combo
