Recipe: How to Make Lechon or Crispy Pork Roast (in your oven!)

Lechon....mmmmmm. What can better describe the heavenly taste of Lechon with its crunchy skin with its delicate crispness that is covering the layer of melting fat which introduces the diner to the further tenderness of a slow roasted lean pork?  All that with the blend of the charcoal smoke, the stimulation of salt and the background flavors of tamarind leaves.  Delicious is not enough of an adjective to describe it...just well, mmmmmm. 

Lechon..crispy skin...mmmm.

Unfortunately, here in America, it is a hassle to get lechon -- no Mang Tomas around.  Not even Andok. And if one wants a "do-it-yourself" kit, well, a whole pig for the roasting is not available, unless one knows the local butcher. 

Forget having one of these unless the Desperate Housewives
of the Women's Auxiliary would give a permit.

When I first arrived about twenty years ago landing in Chicago on the way to Milwaukee, my uncle gave me a first hand tour of the wonders of the American supermarket, where cereals come not just in various presentations but in multiple brands including "supermarket-white product" lines that therefore the same corn flakes occupy all the six shelves that span about six feet from the floor up.  Here, I was introduced to "flyless" shopping where meats are in shelves wrapped in Saran wrapped Styrofoam trays. No need for haggling either - for the sticker price is what you pay for what you get!  With this pristine shopping experience, I was very much amused by the seemingly sanitary even sterile conditions that meat is sold.  But I am quite dismayed as well -- after all, what is meat without skin or bones or fat that make the lean flavorful.  What is Adobo without skin but a dull mix of lean with no fat in vinegar and soy sauce.  Skin and  fat in meat - they are the stuff that makes "magic" in Adobo and in any other Filipino dish - including Lechon. 

See what I mean - cereal varieties occupying
a whole aisle!

The problem with Filipinos, it seems, is that we are very proud, sometimes to a fault, to attach to ourselves the moniker, "Brown, Little Americans".  Yes we are brown (some fair or yellow but you get what I mean...). And we are little (though that has changed a lot recently with good nutrition).  But American?  I am American because I adopted US as my home...but for the time when I was in the Philippines and still having my Philippine passport under my possession, I was still and always have been a Filipino. And now, I have stopped being one in 2010 (except at heart and nationality).  But I brought up this point because of we sort of just "go with the flow" with the American milieu when we are in America.  Well, I guess there is nothing wrong with that, it is just like, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."  But going back again to the experience of American grocery shopping -- since I have been accustomed to buying meats with no skin, fat or bones, the taste of my Adobo, for sometime, changed from flavorful to dull.  Even the Afritada was boring as with other of my Filipino dishes. 

So - Thank God for other cultures.  There is hope.  With the increasing influx of other ethnicities in the US even to the point of equalizing the proportions with the Caucasian Anglo-Saxon (or even not AS) majority - remember that some of what is now considered "white" used to be not in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - no offense, but that's how those blurts like "Those Italians!" or "Those (insert race, nationality, color or religion here)!" came to be - so did the need to supply in supermarkets provisions that are reminiscent of food preparation of other cultures.  Take for example, pork shoulder which usually comes with skin and fat trimmed off packaged neatly in a Styrofoam tray and wrapped with shrink-wrap.   Because the supermarket needs to accommodate to consumers that demand these with skin on, hence we are seeing the presence of "intact" pork shoulders - skin and bone intact. 

With that -- now we can make lechon.  Still not the same, the home version is at least an approximation and I finally found out that the trick to making great lechon with its crunchy skin is the process of dehydration.  With this note, the cook's best friend to achieve this end is salt. 

Why salt?  Because it attracts water.  To illustrate, for example, snow in winter.  As one scatters salt, one would notice the attraction of water to the salt particles as it melts the ice crystals.  To be just scientific about it, simply stated, it is osmolality - the ability of particles to attract and therefore move, water molecules. 

In this recipe, we will use this principle of osmolality to dehydrate the pork skin thus making lechon that is crispy on the outside yet juicy and tender on the inside. 

Oven Style Lechon (Crispy Roast Pork) 

• 1 pork shoulder or pork belly (belly may be more preferred due to its regular surface but is a more expensive cut) 
• Salt 

Procedure. 

1. Flay open any parts of the meat that is "hidden" in joints and crevices by "dissecting" underneath using a sharp knife or scissors.  Expose them as flat as possible. 
2. With a sharp knife or fork, puncture the skin in rows thereby increasing the surface area of the skin exposed to air.  This allows the wetness underneath the skin to escape via the puncture holes.  
3. Apply salt.  Not only does this season the meat, but on the skin, it attracts water hidden within the puncture holes.  With salt, the meat skin dehydrates further and facilitates the crisping process.  Wipe the wetness with paper towels. 
4. Leave to dehydrate.  The longer the better. 
5. Wipe off the wetness further.  Cover with aluminum foil so that the moisture of the meat is preserved to yield a juicy roast; yet, with the dehydration of the skin through the puncture that makes it crispy.  Bake in a high oven of 400oF for the first hours except for the last thirty minutes. 
6. When the final thirty minutes start, remove the aluminum foil and bake further.  One may choose to increase the cooking temperature to 500F or broil.  The high temperature would further dehydrate the skin to desired crispness.  If one chooses to really turn up the heat, the same crackling process would be seen although this might produce a bubbly skin similar to pork cracklings or chicharones.  
7. Turn off the heat and leave the meat to rest for a few minutes.  Sometimes, one would notice that the skin would be rubbery soft when hot but as it cools a bit, would become solidified to crispness.  This is essentially the gelatin inherent in the skin.  As the temperature is hot, gelatin turns to liquid phase but as it becomes cold, solid. 
8. Slice and serve with your favorite accompaniment sauces like lechon sauce or Thai chilli sauce.