How to make chicharron

Ingredients. It is a very easy part. You need to have pork skin. A lot. It is better to start working with at least one kilo of pork skin (skin, not skin with a fat layer), otherwise, it is just wasting of power and time.

Spices for boiling. I can't give you any strict advice. Use whatever you like most! I do prefer to add ginger, garlic, onion and spices - black pepper, chilli, coriander, cloves, star anise, cardamom, and cinnamon. But you can choose your own spices to make sure that the stock is rich and tasty. And also, don't forget to salt it properly.

Spices for sprinkling. Again everything is in your hand! Salt, Italian herbs, lemon salt, paprika, chilli powder and so on... Can use any craziest combinations!!! Add glutamate or don't add glutamate - again this is your choice. Chicharron in Asian countries have more glutamate than chicharron from other places.

Don't forget about oil for deep frying.

Clean pork skin by scratching it with knife. It will take some time, but the skin should be very clean. In the next step, remove every tiny piece of fat left on the skin. Fat will ruin all your cooking., The skin should be absolutely fat-free.

When the skin is cleaned - slice it into small pieces. During further cooking it will grow enormously, so for comfortable eating 5mm by 5mm pieces will be fine, but it is difficult to handle then, so just do slices 1cm wide.

It is time to boil it. Put skin to the water and bring to boil. Sounds simple, isn’t it? When the foam and scum will go to the pot - remove them from heat, wash the skin and dispose of all the liquid. This step allows you to clean pork skin even better.

Then start to boil in the freshwater again, add salt, spices and roods of your choice. Boil for about 2.5 hours, until the skin starts to be very very soft.

Remove skin from the stock and wash it in cold water - this will help to remove gelatine-like stock from the skin and make it very pure.

Dry boiled skin until it will be like a plastic or a glass. You can dry it overnight in the oven at 80 degrees, in the food dried at 70-80 degrees, or even on the sun, if you are from a hot country. I do prefer to use a food drier, it is much easier and safe. just make sure, that you've placed all pieces of the skin flat and not touching each other.

Dry until these skin pieces will be solid dry. Usually, it takes 12-24 hours.

Make a mixture of spices for sprinkling. Nothing to discuss here - just make the mixture of your choice.

Preheat oil to 185-190 degrees and keep it at this temperature. Add small portions of dried pork skin and enjoy looking at this process. Soon you will realize, what the preferable size of the dried skin should be used for the best results. Usually, it will take about 30-45 seconds for the skin to be cooked. Do it small portion by small portion.

Every cooked portion of skin, or, chicharron now, move into a container with a paper towel at the bottom to dry the excess oil. Shake and sprinkle with spices.





Watch our video on how we cook chicharron and you will see, that it is very spectacular and also very easy!