Pritchon: The ‘pritong biik’

Pritchon is the latest fad food enthusiasts have been going crazy about over the last few months. It’s a unique way of preparing and serving our native lechon.

While the lechon is normally roasted, the pritchon is deep fried in a stainless steel tub, then left to stand to drain of excess oil.

It is served in a way similar to Peking duck. The crispy skin is cut into smaller pieces and wrapped in a pita wedge with chopped lechon meat, green onions and a choice of sauce from a selection of seven, namely hoisin, white garlic, honey mustard, sate, Tagalog, honey lemon, including the standard lechon liver sauce.

I first heard about the pritchon from my sister Dorcie, who nagged me endlessly to order one so that we could try it. And believe me, our first encounter with Charlie and Dina Esguerra’s pritchon was indeed mouth-watering!

Charlie conceived of the idea for pritchon while stuck in traffic one day. He broached the novel idea to his wife Dina. The enterprising young couple was, at that time, thinking of other means of livelihood to augment the family income. They had just closed their export business, after their factory workers went on strike.

Since Charlie’s family was already in the hog-raising business, with a farm in Bulacan, supply would not be difficult, Dina thought.

The idea of serving this native delicacy in a non-traditional manner came to Dina in the form of a dream. She saw her late mother, Remedios Mayuga, talking to her, suggesting that she serve the pritchon with different sauces.

The project went through various development stages for about a year. With the help of family and friends, the couple tested recipes for sauces until they found the perfect ones.

Edgar Batimana, a cook, taught them how to expertly fry the pritchon to produce a lechon that is a golden brown.

The couple now laugh as they both recall how they had agreed to accept pairs of Hush Puppies in exchange for their first delivery of pritchon, because their very first customer could not afford to buy a lechon for a baptismal party.

Charlie’s suckling pigs are all bred at the farm of his mother, Zenaida Esguerra. The ideal weight for a suckling pig for the pritchon should be from 12 to 15 kilos, live weight, preferably aged one-and-a-half to two months.

Charlie chuckles as he recounts how his mother started with three pet pigs which she named after popular local movie actresses. As the pet pigs had more and more piglets, the piggery grew and grew.

Ten months since the business started, the pritchon has spread like wild fire and purely by word of mouth. Family and friends have been instrumental in developing the concept and marketing of the product. Each pritchon is wrapped in a native mat to make it easy to carry. Charlie acts as the official delivery man and pritchon chopper. Even the couple’s children, 12-year-old Regine, 10-year-old Jeremiah, and 9-year-old Timothy help chop up and wrap pritchon on peak days.

Orders for pritchon have risen from 10 in a month to over a hundred during the Christmas season. Luckily for them, supply is not a problem even if it means having to travel to Bulacan at night to pick up the suckling pigs.

But like all ventures, Charlie and Dina’s pritchon business have growing pains. There is the problem of precision timing: beating the traffic to get to the destination before the product deteriorates.

The pritchon couple seems to be enjoying their new-found business, having encountered a lot of people and making new friends with exciting ideas.

They have learned from every experience and seem optimistic about the new products and business potentials up ahead.

Allow a lead time of 24 hours for an order of pritchon. For orders and inquiries, call 921-04-05 or 0919-3584627.