How to Cook Pinikpikan

PINIKPIKAN is a chicken dish extremely popular in the Cordilleras and amongst Igorots. It is served on special occassions. The recipe below was copied over from my existing sagada-igorot.com website. I wrote the recipe down, around 12 years ago, with the help of Lakay Badu.

Needs:

- A live Chicken
- Sayote (Quantity is variable)
- a head of Chinese cabbage/pechay
- one half to one kilo of innasin/etag
- enough knowledge in butchering fowls
- wood for fire
- a clean, flat surface, preferably smooth
- a piece of stick for beating.

(Note: The common Barn Chicken is preferred to Broilers, and Cobbs preferred to other broiler chickens. The Igorots use a species that produces the best of this dish. The meat, when cooked, is dark in color. After the introduction of broilers in the Philippines, it became increasingly known as "nitib" for "native".)

Ways:

DO NOT DRESS THE CHICKEN (or should I say, undress? :-) ). Start a fire. Put one wing of the chicken on the flat surface. Using the stick, beat the wing from the inside, not to soft, but not to hard that it will break the bones and the skin of the chicken. (Of course, the chicken will squawk and fight back, so you have to hold the head, the other wing, and the legs in the other hand.) Beat it from the tip of the wing to the side, then back. Do it again. Now do the same to the other wing. After beating the wings, lay the neck of the chicken sideways on the flat surface. Beat the neck from end to end.

Now KILL THE CHICKEN! Of course... But to kill the chicken, hold the chicken by the feet and wings in one hand. Hit the back of the head with the stick, just below the comb. Not too hard, or the chicken will bleed, and not too soft either, or the chicken will get mad, and may peck at you. One well placed blow will do it without breaking the skin.

Afterwards, burn all of the feathers off the chicken on the fire you made. You can use your gas range, but it will be very messy afterwards. Better burn the feathers off using an outside fire.

After the feathers are removed, remove excess charred feathers from the chicken. Chances are, the chicken has also started to look like roast chicken. Now, butcher the chicken, slice it, and put the slices into a cooking container. Cut the innasin/etag into pieces as large as the chicken pieces. Put them into the cooking container. Do not put the sayote if there is very little innasin/etag. On the other hand, if you think it will be very salty, add sayote to minimize the salty taste. Clean the vegetables and separate the leaves. It is better to cook this over heavy heat. When the meat is done, Put the vegetables into the container, remove from the fire/heat, and cover. Leave for two minutes. Stir, and serve.