Cook Kalding Kilawin, How-To

Definitions:
Kalding - Ilocano term for Goat livestock
Kambing - Tagalog term for Goat livestock

I'm joining my High-School classmates celebrate our 25th AnniversaryHigh School Reunion at Las Vegas Nevada on July 7, 8, and 9.

I come from a Northern city of the Philippines called Baguio and Kaldingdishes are considered delicacy in this region of our country, reserved for those special occasions.

Naturally, my classmates had a craving for Kalding dishes such asKilawin, Kaldereta, Sinampalukang Kambing asan appetizer accompaniment to Beer, Whisky, Tequila, etc., and requested it be present during our reunion.

Unfortunately, since we butchered the goat 3 days in advance, Pinapaitan couldn't wait that long, so it was ommited from the list.

Charles B. , myself, and Alfred B. obliged accordingly and promised our batchmates a range of Kambing dishes to be present during the reunion.

Well, to cook good Kalding dishes, you have to get a goat fresh from the farm. Charles and myself, with my three kids, and my brother-in-law drove to Fallbrook ( a town north of San Diego County) at an Ilocano Farm to buy Kalding.

Based on my years growing up in Baguio, I've never heard about the practiceof butchers in Slaughter House let the Kalding drink Vinegar to remove the bad odor inherent in Goat meat but that's what we did. From what I hear from batchmates, this could be an Ilocano or Pangasinanpractivce, and not necessarily done at the highland regions of Northern Luzon.I guess the vinegar neutralizes the odor in the intestines.

I'm not an authorityon this practice but I followed along.
For extra US $10 , the farm hand was kind enough to torch and clean the goat's hide,take out the internal organs, and cut it up. All we had to do was load the cutup meat in our cooler and away we went.

Next we had to cook up the dishes.

Here's a Kilawin Kalding (Goat Appetizer) Dish

Ingredients :
4 lbs. of Goat Rind
Ginger Root
5 cups of Soy Sauce
10 tbsp of brown sugar
Labuyo or Habanero Pepper
Salt to taste
Pepper
5 pieces of lemon
15 pieces of Kalamansi
1/4 cup of cane vinegar
4 peices of Onion bulbs
3 cloves of garlic

Cooking procedure :
1. In a Pyrex bowl, mix the Soy sauce, Brown sugar, and vinegar. Blend the mixture until the brown sugar is dissolved.
2. Chop the ginger in small cubes in 1/32 inch size.
3. Chop the Labuyo pepper in small cubes.
4. Chop up the cloves of garlic. Cut the Onion bulbs in circular strips.
5. Heat up a barbecue grille on low fire setting. Lay the peices of Kalding rind on the grille to cook the rind in 'Rear' consisitency. Flip over the rind When one side is done
6. Lay the cooked rind in a tray and scrape off any burned areas of the griled kalding rind if needed.
7. Cut the kalding rind into small strip pieces about 1/4 inch length.
8. In a separate bowl, squeeze lemon and kalamansi to extract its juice.
9. In a large ractangular pyrex tray, mix the kalding rind strips, chopped Onion and garlic, chopped pepper, chopped ginger, and toss with thongs to mix the ingredients.
10. Drizzle the mixed ingredients with the citrus juice.
11. Dash with Salt and Pepper.
12. Taste the blended kalding kilawin mixture and adjust the taste by adding more juice, salt, and pepper as needed. The objective is to attain a kilawin mixture that is slightly spicy.

Julius, Charles and the kids helping out to chop up the ingredients