My Pink Notes

Mini Explosion in my Kitchen

Last Tuesday, I went to Walmart for our bi-weekely grocery shopping. Pata (Pig’s legs) was not in my list but when I saw them looking fresh, I bought 2 big pieces thinking that I can make them into some real good tasting Crispy Pata. I never cooked Crispy Pata before but I am willing to try to cook it because I remembered that Crispy Pata is one of the few Filipino foods that Marcus likes. When I got home I checked one of my cook books and sure enough, I saw a recipe for Crispy Pata. To make the story short, I did all the instructions listed in the recipe. I boiled the Pata with water, salt, sprite/7 up and baking soda. After boiling thoroughly, I drained the liquid, left the Pata to dry a little bit then I refrigerated it for the next day’s dinner.

The next day, we invited our couple friends to come over—Daniel, a German guy who never tasted Crispy Pata and his girlfriend Anne, a Filipina who was supposed to help me cook the much awaited Pata. So anyway, they came and Anne and I started to cook the Pata as per what the recipe says because Anne also doesn’t know how to cook it. Based on my cook book, the Pata should be dabbed with Patis (fish sauce) and little bit of flour then it should be deep fried. Okay. But when the recipe says that while it is frying it should be sprinkled with water, I freaked out. I am always terrified when frying something because of the possibility of skin burns from flying drops of boiling oil. According to the recipe, if I want the Pata to be crispy I have to sprinkle water on it every now and then until it is golden brown. I decided to do it but because I was so nervous, I didn’t sprinkle. I wanted to do it as quickly as I can so what I did was I took a small amount of water and pour it on the Pata. As expected, there was a sudden oil shower from the casserole so Anne and I ran away from the stove and when we looked back, we saw fire! And it was huge enough to be alarming so I screamed. After a few seconds, Marcus and Daniel were at the kitchen door and were asking what happened. They were too late. They didn’t see the fire. It died by itself half second before they got in the kitchen but based on the mess, the smell, the smoke, and the look we’ve got on our faces…they knew. After making sure that nobody was hurt, we all broke into laughter.

We continued to cook the Pata but with no sprinkling or pouring of water involved. The result was okay. The meat tasted good but it was not crispy.

The cooking oil was all over the kitchen wall and the floor. I cleaned it briefly after the explosion and I spent the whole morning cleaning it again until there was no mark of my silliness left.

After this I don’t know if I will ever cook Crispy Pata again.

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