Meet Mommy Piggy...she's the first of two "inahin" pigs we have in our small piggery business. I remember how she looked like when we first got her...she was just a teeny weeny piglet back in August.
By next month, she'll be ready to have piglets herself...can't wait to see those little critters moving all over the pen.
Early this morning, our piggery partners/caretakers prepared our 2nd hog for butchering and weighing. By noontime I was in my son's school with my daughter Cailie delivering the pork meat orders I was able to gather there.
The selling business isn't really new to me as I had experience in tuna and seafood trading during our short stint in General Santos City. However, I found that meat retailing is a bit different and more detailed since I'm serving the consumer end of the business cycle whereas in my tuna biz before I was into wholesaling. I had a minor boo boo when I switched orders and ended up not serving one order. I felt bad but it was a learning experience I had to go through, I guess.
Manang Rose, our partner, cooked some yummy Dinuguan (Pork Blood Stew) utilizing the unsold parts of the hog. This dish is a favorite of the family so we requested for some so that I didn't have to cook dinner anymore. We seldom get to eat this famous Filipino dish because we make sure that we know the source of the ingredients first and how well it was prepared. Since this was cooked using our own farm-raised hog and we know who's preparing it, it was one dish we could enjoy as a family. I haven't tried cooking this myself as I'm not familiar with how it is prepared so I'm just happy as a consumer in this case. Manang Rose truly outdid herself with this dinuguan. It was thick and the balance of sour and salty was just right with a hint of heat using "siling haba". I couldn't believe that my two older kids (with the exception of the baby) enjoyed every morsel of rice and viand. It is not everyday you see children enjoying this popular Pinoy dish. Suffice to say, it was a satisfying gastronomic experience for all of us.
Inspired by Facebook's Farmville, hubby and I embarked on a new business last August 2009 - we started raising hogs.
We started out with 4 piglets and last December, we sold 3 to the local meat market. We retained one to be our "inahin" or Mommy Piggy.
Just like any other business, it is a continuing learning process for us. In the first set of piglets we sold, we didn't really make much profit due to weight disparities. This is the reason why we changed our game plan for the second set of piglets. When hubby saw that it was more lucrative, we decided to do our own butchering and peddling of hog meat. Our 2nd set of 4 piglets were acquired in September and one of the four was sold only last week. It was our partner and caretaker who personally butchered the hog and his wife was the one who peddled the meat. It sold like hotcakes and we were left with only half of the liver. It was this same piece of meat that I made into Liver Steak last night.
Liver Steak
1 kg pork liver, sliced
3 tbsp canola oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 medium red onions, cut into rings
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp calamansi or lemon juice
a pinch of sugar
In a hot skillet, heat oil and fry liver slices until half cooked. Remove liver from pan and set aside. In the same skillet, fry the garlic and half of the onion rings. Add the soy sauce, calamansi/lemon juice and sugar. Add in the liver and simmer for about 5-7 minutes. Adjust seasoning according to your taste. Sprinkle with remaining onion rings on top and serve.
We still have two remaining hogs to sell this week and just like in the first set, we are retaining one to be our Mother Piggy. Hopefully, we'll make a good profit this time around.
