Maskara

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In Caloocan City where I grew up and where I lived with my husband and kids for six years before we moved to the suburb, there is a Filipino-Chinese restaurant called 7th West where they served pork face Chinese style. The popular name for this dish is halo, literally meaning mixed, so-called because in the original halo recipe, the diced pork face is mixed with other pork cuts like isaw (intestines), dila (tongue) and tito (part of the stomach). This maskara recipe is a variation of halo.

maskara: braised pork face

Maskara, or mask, is the popular name for pork face. The ears, rind and part of the cheeks are separated from the skull in one piece. There is no Filipino dish called maskara, however. It is merely the term for the part of the pork used for making tokwa’t baboy (fried tofu and boiled pork head), a sidedish for lugaw (congee) and sisig (a spicy dish made with chopped pork face, liver and brain), among others. When you buy maskara in Philippine wet markets, the butcher will do the cutting and trimming for you.

Any dish using pork face depends a lot on how well the meat is cleaned. To remove any remaining hair on the rind, use a kitchen torch to burn them. An electronic cigarette lighter will the job too but don’t use Zippo lighters to avoid getting the stench of the lighter fluid on the meat. Another alternative is to pass the rind over the live flame of the stove. Whatever flame you decide to use, don’t use candles–the pork rind will turn blackish. When I was in my teens and didn’t know that these hairs could be removed by burning, I used tweezers to pull them out. One by one. Believe me, you don’t want to do that.

After removing any remaining hairs, wash the maskara well. Then scrape the entire surface with a sharp knife. Cut into chunks, separating the ears from the rest. Chop off the “inside” part of the ears–that part where, had the pig been human, you’d been using cotton buds to clean. I can’t describe it any better than that. Use a small knife to scrape along the creases.

When the maskara has been cleaned, you’re ready to cook it.

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June 8, 2004  Print This Post   
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Comments

4 Responses to “Maskara”
  1. Rudy Bubuli says:
    March 20, 2007 at 2:14 pm

    wow sarap talaga yang maskara, my father is an expert of this recipe, I remember one time when I brought a pig head in tondo, the plan is get it roasted by bakery. But then he said he’ll just cook maskara from it. My matakaw cousin, then came and we drink beer, he ate almost half of it. After some few months he died of heart attack at the age of 39, my golly bubuly, taba kasi ng ganitong pagkain eh.

    Reply
  2. Rey Langit says:
    March 20, 2007 at 2:17 pm

    Just the same, I have a friend who likes sisig, lechon, maskara, chicharong bulaklak he did no last 39 years of his life, he died at the age of 26, wow that’s breaking the record.

    Reply
  3. Elena "libog" Picache says:
    March 20, 2007 at 2:19 pm

    hey … let’s not talk of death here. We are presenting foods here, delicious foods. If you dont want to die don’t eat, if you want to eat dont die.

    Reply
  4. Yvette says:
    March 5, 2008 at 2:53 pm

    i used to eat this “halo” during my high school days in a chinese resto inside the textile market in Divisoria (aling simang’s, if i remember it right). i dont know how to cook it to-date. gotta try ur recipe for the maskara. tnx… :-)

    Reply
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