Recipe: Patatim Slices

Patatim is perhaps a constant favorite in Tsinoy cuisine. It's a staple menu item in most Chinese restaurants everywhere. It's a whole pork leg, slowly braised in an aromatic, brown broth until tender and it's liquid reduced to a thick, sweet, savory sauce. It's a big family sized dish. A Patatim is not a Patatim if you don't use the whole pork leg. However, we find pata slices at the meat shop these days and with this cut, we can enjoy this dish at home in smaller portions. This way, it's also easy to freeze them in batches and reheat it whenever you like to have them. It keeps well for for three weeks if kept frozen. 

There are three ingredients in this dish that you must not replace, the Chinese cooking wine, the star anise and the dried shiitake mushrooms. It has to be the dried variety because it packs more flavor than the fresh or canned ones. You can opt to add shelled chestnuts if you can find them. Pressure cooker is a must to cook it quicker and make the meat tender yet still intact. 

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Preparation time: 30 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Serves 3-4

Ingredients

• 4 pieces one inch pata slices around 400-450 grams
• Water for blanching
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp oil
• 3-4 cups water
• 3 tsps soy sauce
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup Chinese cooking wine
• Pinch of salt
• 3 cloves garlic, smashed but not peeled
• 3-5 pieces small dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in a cup of water for an hour. Keep the liquid and cut the stems. (the mushrooms I bought were super tiny that's why I need this much. If you get the 2 inch ones, you will only need about 2-3)
• 2 small star anise or 1 big one (about an inch in size)
• 1 tsp. freshly ground pepper
• 1 tsp. Camote flour dissolved in 1/2 cup cold water to make thickening slurry
• 1 tsp. Sesame oil
• Blanched green veggies ( kangkong, alugbati, or pechay)

Procedure 

1. Heat the pata slices in water until it boils and forms a scum on the surface. Discard water and wash the pata with plain water. Pat dry and set aside. 

2. Heat the sugar with the oil inside the pressure cooker. This is the tricky part. Make sure that you don't stir the sugar until it caramelizes into a light golden brown. (Like the color of the leche flan caramel)

 

3. Once you get the light brown color, turn off the heat. The brown color of the Patatim will depend on ow much you caramelize the sugar. If it's burnt, discard the whole caramel batch and make another one or else the Patatim will be bitter.

4. Immediately add the pata slices inside the cooker together with the water, soy sauce, brown sugar, wine, salt, garlic, mushrooms together with its liquid, star anise and black pepper. 

5. Cover and pressure cook for 20 minutes. When done, It should look something like this. 

6. Remove the pata slices and arrange in a deep dish.

7. Thicken the remaining sauce by adding the Camote flour slurry. Camote flour thickens the sauce differently from using cornstarch. It has more "body" and keeps the sauce thick longer. I also use this flour in making Mah-ki and Mah-ki-mi. 

8. Heat until it thickens and boils then tun the heat off. 

9. Pour the sauce over the pata slices including the mushrooms.The garlic pieces should be soft by now. I mash them in the sauce. 

10. Discard the star anise and garlic peel. 

11. Drizzle with sesame oil and garnish with the blanched veggies. 

Get your rice ready!