Roasting a Whole Cow in the Philippines (Lechon Baka in Nueva Ecija)

It's the first time I've met with them. It's me too. I've done pigs and chickens before. This is going to be a little tougher, I think. But it's always a really uncomfortable feeling. The chonbaka has exploded absolutely everywhere. Once Andok's released this dish, every other restaurant tried to copy it. So I went out and got us some. Let's try it. There's a strong smell of seasoning. It's good. While this is actually pretty tasty, I feel like it removes the culture of what the chonbaka is. It is such a communal dish. So I'm thinking road trip? Road trip. Yes, please. Huevos Hija is the rice granary of the Philippines and its farmlands are perfect for raising livestock like cattle. In Gapan City, we met Nick who has been a lechonero for almost 20 years. A skill that can't be learned in a book and requires years of experience to master. When you think lechon in the Philippines, a lot of the times you naturally gravitate towards pig. To be honest, the only lechonbaka that I know is the one made popular. So belly. Three years ago. Yeah, so just the belly. Yeah. But if you think about it, when you say lechon, it's the whole thing. We heard that they were preparing one for tonight. We were in the area and we thought it'd be really cool to be able to document all of it. The whole thing because I haven't really seen that yet and it's something that I wanted to experience and see. So it is a process that takes a long, long time. What's really great is our hosts here today agreed to kind of shoot the whole thing. So I think we're all going to learn something new today and then we're going to taste it. So Martin didn't expect us walking in a random spot today. But we're following our cow wrangler and we're on. He's going to basically show us where he gets the cows and pick it and then we're going to bring it over there so we can start preparing it for dinner. The cow's much smaller than I thought it would be. Yeah, I feel like when you roast something, it should be... Yeah, if you get like the big old cows, they might be a bit tougher. So this is the one that's selected today, which they were going to cook anyway. So we're lucky enough that they agreed for us to kind of document it. But it's always a really uncomfortable feeling. But I think it's necessary, honestly. It's the first time I've met what I'm eating. It's me too. I've done pigs and chickens before. This is going to be a little tougher, I think. But I think it just makes you value more. Yeah, appreciate what you're eating and why you're doing it. So they're currently boiling the water. I think they boil the water first and then they'll probably use that for the skinning. Yeah, for the skin, for the fur. Skinning process to remove kind of like the extra fur that's on the cow. So they offered us to do it. Do you want to do it? I think there's a specific way of doing it, which you need to kind of be experienced. Yeah. To be able to put the animal out of its misery very quickly. It's one way to put it, right? Because imagine if you do it, you don't know how you're doing it. You miss the critical nerves and system. And you could fit the cow in yourself too. Exactly. So he's setting up now. He's getting ready. After being slaughtered and bled, the cow is drained for about four hours. For the marinade, Nick mixes chopped aromatics, spices, beer, soy sauce, with sweet style banana ketchup, then injects it into the cow. The injecting process is actually quite tedious and takes around an hour. He tries to get the right angle and penetration to make sure that the end product stays juicy throughout. The marinating process itself takes an additional five hours, while the roasting can take as much as eight hours, depending on the size and weight of the cow. On average, you are looking at an about 16-hour process. You can see it's a very manual process, so it is extremely hard labor in terms of making sure to keep turning it at the right moment. This is where things get tricky. These guys are doing it with no thermometers, no gauge meters in terms of the heat and everything. So it really is all by feel. So experience is extremely key in making sure that they're not overcooking it. And for something that's going to be cooked over such a long period of time, it really does take a lot of skill to make sure that you're doing the right calls so that eventually you get a really nice, even product on all sides. Now it's going to be a game of checking the wind, controlling the temperature, controlling the height as much as possible, controlling the direction of the heat and how it's hitting the cow, and hopefully giving you a nice, perfectly roasted lechon baka. While waiting for the lechon baka to roast, we watched someone prepare the cow's innards for papayitan, a popular regional dish in the northern part of the Philippines. Traditionally, goat innards are used, but as Filipinos, we always make do with what we have and use everything as much as possible. So nothing goes to waste. To make papayitan, she sautés aromatics, then adds in the cow's chopped innards. Traditionally, papayitan uses alibangbang leaves as a souring agent, but since the village doesn't have any, she substitutes it with sampalok shoots. So the reason why we made this is to showcase that, in nerds or anything that's kind of like, quote-unquote, supposed to be discarded of the cow, is actually used in many different ways from the tongue to the innards. And this is one of the dishes around this area which is really famous. This and probably tinumis would probably be the most popular ones. And yeah, it's absolutely delicious. So we had some time to kill, so we decided to cook this as well, and they were kind enough to show us how to make it. And the lechon baka is almost ready. I love the combination of the calamansi and the sampalok leaves. I'm crying both because of the smoke in my eyes, and because it's actually really tasty. I'm staying quiet because I want to keep eating. I think our cow's ready. Thank you. So you actually cut the top like ham? So yeah, kind of like ham, more like ham. And when you see it in restaurants, this is how they slice it, right? Even though it's not this whole kind of like, roscoe, barfin. You want to taste it? The marinade is like, strong in a good way. And surprisingly, really soft. Yeah. It really does, I mean, the marinade, the injections, I thought would just maybe add some juiciness to something, but it really does add so much flavor to the dish. And because of the content, I thought it would be a bit bitter because it has like a lot of sugar in it. If you compare this to what you've been trying in restaurants. The lechon baka? Yeah. I'd go for this one, man. So now, it feeds 150 people. We need 148 people. All right, let's eat.