Ranking high up in the list of well-loved Filipino breakfast foods is tocino, AKA meat cured in a mix of sugar, salt, other flavorings (which may include anise wine, soy sauce, garlic, and/or pineapple juice), saltpetre (or salitre, a preservative) in some variations, and/or prague powder or annatto seeds. It entices with its decidedly sweet and savory character and distinctive reddish hue, which makes it comparable to Chinese char siu.
Though the pork-based version is traditional, tocino can also be found made with its white-meat fellow, chicken. You’ll find a couple of brands that offer ready-to-fry versions in the supermarket. Who does it best?
Note: We cooked all tocino according to package instructions. If no instructions were provided, we resorted to pan-frying by default.
King Sue
This Fil-Chi brand goes for small, bite-sized chunks over the other brands’ bigger pieces, and exudes an appetizing meaty aroma as you fry it over the pan. It cooks up to a fleshy, relatively natural-looking chicken tocino that’s just barely glazed, and ever so slightly sticky to the touch.
From the outside, it’s on the sugary side as you’d expect, but has an ample amount of salt for balance—more so than the other brands. The meat within weirdly doesn’t taste like much of chicken however, instead displaying a odd, soapy note that puts us off. Even more bizarre is its consistency, feeling more crumbly than fibrous as you take a bite.
