Sarsiado and Utan

This is a dish that i first encountered when i was living with my tita in Manila during my college years.

I do not know if Sarsiado is how it should be called but somehow the name has stuck. My tita used to make this when the markets were awash with cheap, overripe tomatoes. This is now a dish that regularly appears in our Cebu home and we make it even when tomatoes are not cheap or overripe.

Sarsiado Recipe

1 kilo ham cut or pork belly, cut into cubes
(i prefer the pork belly because the fat becomes very mushy and goes well with the sour tomatoes)

1 kilo ripe tomatoes, cut into quarters

Place all the ingredients into a saucepan with enough water to cover. Simmer until pork is very tender. Season with salt. Serve with hot white rice.

Reportedly, a great accompaniment to this dish is the Utan Bisaya, a soup made of malunggay leaves, alugbati, squash, tomatoes, sikwa (i dont know what this is called in English, but it's a type of gourd and when dried, is made into loofah sponges), eggplant, and flavored with fried fish flakes.


Personally, i just hate this soup and would like to abolish it forever from our dining table but the rest of the family loves this. So we will just have to take their word that this goes well with Sarsiado and other fatty dishes like Humba, Grilled Pork Belly, and Braised Pork. They say it takes away the yucky, fatty, oily aftertaste of the pork belly.

Well, to each his own. I like my fat to taste fatty.