Humba

Another dish sure to be cooked during Batangas fiestas is humba. Unlike the embotidos and asados, however, humba is not served to guests. It is for the family, to stay perhaps a week after fiesta. Like chicharon sa sariling mantika, humba is a dish to maximize meat from the pig butchered for the fiesta. Only the choice cuts go to the regular fiesta dish, and there's a lot left over for home cooking. To dinuguan go the intestines, lungs, heart, kidneys and blood; to chicharon go all the fatty parts; and to humba go the head of the pig and the patas.

Humba is best cooked with overnight marinating in soy sauce, a touch of cane vinegar, tahure, brown sugar, garlic, peppercorns, and laurel leaves. Tahure is soya bean cake, similar to tokwa, but soaked in brine. It gives the humba its distinct flavor. Remove the tahure and the humba becomes adobo or pata tim in taste.

I ask the butcher to cut the pig head into fist-size chunks. So you don't get all fat and bones, it is best to add a few chunks from the pigue. I mash into the meat the tahure, brown sugar, garlic, peppercorns and laurel leaves. Then I pour in soy sauce just enough to coat the meat, add a small amount of cane vinegar, and let the preparation stay overnight. In the morning the preparation is cooked in a big iron caldero in slow heat until the meat is very tender. I add enough water to dissipate within the two-hour boil in slow fire. Because the humba is not stirred while cooking, traditionally the meat is set on a thin bamboo weave so the meat at the bottom won't burn.