Andrew Zimmern Features Sisig

“Bizarre Foods” host Andrew Zimmern just featured a Filipino comfort food in his website.

Zimmern, a renowned chef, and very vocal in terms of his love with Filipino food created his own version of the very popular and nerve killing sisig.

“Everyone knows how much I love Filipino food. I especially adore sisig,” Zimmer said via his website AndrewZimmern.com. “Traditionally in Pinoy homes, sisig is made by cooking pigs’ heads, perhaps some offal as well.”

Zimmern made some twists. Instead of using pigs’ head, he used pork belly stating the fact that pig heads is not easy to find in United States calling it as “tough sell.”

Zimmern’s sisig involves marinating the pork belly in a combination of orange juice, garlic, ginger, lemongrass, oil, chili paste, salt, pepper and five-spice powder for about 24 hours flipping the meat twice. Instead of grilling, Zimmern use the oven to cook the pork belly along with some vegetable and the marinade for about three hours until the pork is tender after that, he chop the pork and stir fry them. He then add the sisig mixture and serve immediately.

Here in the Philippines, despite pig face is the commonly used, but pork belly has been gaining popularity due to it’s meat content that adds great texture.

Zimmern, 53, is a multi-awarded chef, writer and food enthusiasts. He is popularly known as the host of “Bizarre Foods” by Travel Asia where he feature different foods from around the world. He once went here in the Philippines where he tasted “Ice cream in bun,” balut eggs, tamilok, worm and many more.

What do I like about Zimmern is the way he respect each and every culinary tradition in one country from another. He is not that type of version who will show over acting facial expressions when asked to eat a native food.