Lechon flakes are what I like to refer to as our in-house “sleeper hit”… We have served them for breakfast at our Islands Stay Hotel outlet for the past two years or so. We have always sold lechon flakes in our freezer section without much fanfare, but surprisingly, despite the lack of emphasis, they are perhaps our #3 best-selling frozen product after lechon and lechon sisig. They fry up easily, either to a crisp chewy texture or crisp if you keep them on really high heat. They work great as a breakfast viand with fried or scrambled eggs, or as a filling for pan de sals or other bread. They also do rather nicely on top of soup or salad. Since they are relatively easy to make, I suspect they will be replicated by other purveyors in the same manner that our zubuliempo or boneless zubuchon (a riff on porchetta that one) is now a product offered by dozens and dozens of places in Cebu and Manila. :)
One day, bored with the options at the restaurant after a week of daily visits, I decided to make use of some wonderful frisee lettuce that I got from DowntoEarth, and topped the greens with some sauteed/fried lechon flakes, a fried egg and a simple vinaigrette. This is a riff on the classic french bistro salad with frisee, lardons and a poached egg. The results? Pretty darned good. In fact, we use the flakes in a caesar salad in lieu of bacon. But it isn’t such a novel idea, since Michael Ruhlmann wrote about a Caesar Salad with deep fried pork belly in 2007, here. Yum. :)
15 Responses
lovely and yummy!
yum…perfect! we need fat to absorb the nutrients in those veggies!
yummmmm! may i ask why you did not put the lechon flakes on the zubuchon menu? :)
Drooling big time! Patikim!
i like that!
dianne, lechon flakes are on the breakfast menu at islands stay hotels. We used to offer it at IT Park before we removed breakfast service. They are also offered at the airport snack bar and in their freezer section for takeaways…
Off topic, did you score anything in yesterday’s Art in the Park?
ami, no, unfortunately, didn’t find anything that REALLY grabbed us… We were there early, and then again after lunch with the Teen who woke up late…
MM, off-topic, been wondering what your reaction is about the ‘i’d rather go hungry than eat filipino food’ blog of a foreign visitor?
Super.me — :), I was wondering when someone would bring that up… Maybe the subject of a separate post soon.
Gee the breakfast of champions! Am sure these lechon flakes would make the best lechon flakes congee!!! am drooling….
manny, we use them as topping to our lechon arroz caldo at the airport snack bar as well… :)
Do you offer lechon burgers or sandwiches? I’d like mine with some of that salad inside the bun too :)
Wow! This looks really good. Power breakfast!
That salad is brilliant! I’m thinking I would want lechon flakes on my french fries. With an egg. Gravy too.