What do you think the secret ingridient of Grilled Chopped Ear Pigs
By syoti20
@syoti20 (5292)
Philippines
February 16, 2011 8:28am CST
I requested my mom to cook for us tomorrow the favorite food of my big brother, Dinakdakan ( Grilled Chopped Ear Pigs). I have seen and tasted many GCEP but none of them compares to the GCEP of my mom. My mom don't use Mayo in preparing this dish. But the taste is awesome.
How about you or your known loved ones. How do they prepare GCEP?
2 people like this
9 responses
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
16 Feb 11
The recipes I have seen use mashed boiled pig's brains but say that you can 'substitute mayonnaise'. How any dish could taste the same using mayonnaise instead of brains, I cannot imagine!
The recipe is not dissimilar to what we, in the UK, call brawn but whereas brawn is a cold, potted meat, dinakdakan is served hot and some of the meats are grilled. It also uses calamansi juice (the juice of the calamondin orange - a small, rather sour citrus which is sold here as a decorative pot plant). Both, however, are ways of using the less favoured parts of the animal (and, as a matter of fact, brains are very nutritious).
As for the 'secret ingredient', I guess that you will have to ask your mom or watch her like a hawk as she makes it, taking notes!
1 person likes this
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
16 Feb 11
As a matter of fact, 'brain' is often contrasted with 'brawn' in popular language - "He is more brawn than brain", meaning that the person was muscular but not very bright!
I think that our brawn (the meat) is made from the meat from the pig's head - tongue, ears, chaps - boiled and potted in the cooking juices (which become a jelly when cold). In most recipes, the brains are not used.
@Hatley (163772)
• Garden Grove, California
13 Mar 11
hi syoti pardon me while I throw up ,no we do not cook pigs ears in the US A or noses or hooves. this sounds disgusting to me. sorry but this
recipe is not American and sounds frankly awful. i do not even like the flavor of pig meat coming from inside the animal let alone his outer parts. Ham and bacon are really the only pig products I really like
the taste of.
@SIMPLYD (90717)
• Philippines
17 Feb 11
Wow, i love GCEP, or dinakdakan in Filipino. I first had a taste of that when i took a vacation at my uncle's house in Bayombong, Nueva Viscaya. From then on , i would look for that in some native restaurants, but they seldom have that.
Thankfully, one the the food outlets our company has franchised, Gerry's Grill , have that in their menu. So, when i crave for it, specially when it's payday, i would buy one for lunch. Yummy ! Makes me crave for it again. 
@sswallace21 (1824)
• United States
17 Feb 11
I don't have a clue about GCEP. I'm pretty sure I don't want to know either. I going to guess, "Is it deep fried?"
@clrumfelt (5597)
• Tennessee Ridge, Tennessee
16 Feb 11
My family has never prepared that dish. I'm always looking for new recipes to fix. Maybe I will try that one. I found a recipe for it at:
http://www.ipmart-forum.com/showthread.php?113722-DINAKDAKAN-Grilled-Pork-Skin-w-Mayo-and-Spices
@beamer88 (4259)
• Philippines
16 Feb 11
Is dinakdakan an Ilocano dish that's similar to pork sisig? It's also made up of grilled chopped ears of pigs. I think I've tasted this dish. My dad's Ilocano and I do recall that he had prepared a dish like this. I remember asking him if it's sisig and I think he said that's it's similar to sisig. I'd probably ask him one of these days.
