Cebu Lechon 🐖

Name: Cebu Lechon
Prep time: 96 min
Cook time: 144 min
Total time: 240 min
Yield: 2-4 servings
Cuisine: Visayan
Ingredients: 1 whole suckling pig (4–6 kg), gutted and cleaned; 4 stalks tanglad (lemongrass), bruised and chopped; 1 head garlic, minced; 2 onions, chopped; 8 bay leaves; 3 tbsp salt; 2 tsp black pepper; 1 tsp ground black pepper + more for scrubbing; Banana leaves or foil for cavity lining; Charcoal (coconut-shell preferred) for roasting; Serve with: steamed rice, datil (liver spread), spiced vinegar

Anthony Bourdain called Cebu's lechon the best pig ever cooked — and the city agrees with him, roast by roast. Unlike Manila's version, the whole suckling pig here is stuffed with a mash of lemongrass-like tanglad, garlic, onion and bay leaves, then slow-turned over coconut-wood coals for hours until the skin shatters like glass and the innards braise in their own juices. No sauce on the table: lechon liver spread (datil) on rice is the local move.

Central Visayas Visayan ⏱ 240 min Hard

Method

1

Rub the pig inside and out with salt and pepper; rinse and pat completely dry.
2

Pound tanglad, garlic, onion and bay leaves with a little salt into a fragrant mash; pack it into the cavity, then sew or skewer it shut and stuff tightly so it stays in during the turn.
3

Skewer the pig belly-down on a long bamboo pole; set it high over a bed of glowing coconut charcoal, far from flame.
4

Roast 3–4 hours, turning slowly and evenly the whole time; baste with rendered fat and move coals closer in the last hour to blister the skin to glass.
5

Rest 15 minutes, then chop with the cleaver straight through crisp skin — Cebu style is served in rough chunks, skin up, with the stuffing spooned out over rice.

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Cebu Lechon 🐖

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