What is Sangkutsa Method?

Growing up in a Filipino household, there’s a high chance you’ve heard of the cooking term called Sangkutsa. Several Filipino recipes call for this cooking technique and it’s essential to find out what exactly is the Sangkutsa method.

The Sangkutsa Method is a cooking step where you partially boil or cook meat (parboil/ parcook). It involves the initial steps in cooking several Filipino meat dishes and this technique varies depending on the dish.

What is Sangkutsa Method?

The term sangkutsa is derived from a Spanish word called salcochar. This word means “to boil in salt water”. When we talk about sangkutsa in Filipino cooking, it means parboiling or partially cooking meat before proceeding to the next cooking steps.

Boiling Water

Traditionally, sangkutsa is done as a way of preserving food back in the days when refrigeration was not available. Parboiling meat in salt and vinegar helps lengthen the shelf life.

Today, sangkutsa is still used in many different Filipino dishes. The reasons and procedure vary depending on the specific dish. 

Some dishes may call for sangkutsa to make the meat tastier while some dishes use sangkutsa to make tough meats tender.

Different dishes also call for different ingredients while parboiling like salt, pepper, spices, vinegar, gata, and even oil.

How Do We Parboil (Sangkutsa)?

When a recipe calls for sangkutsa or parboiling/parcooking, this means we will partially cook or half-cook the meat ingredient of the dish.

We simply add the meat into a boiling liquid (usually water or oil). The boiling water is usually mixed with other flavoring ingredients like salt, pepper, garlic, onion, laurel (bay leaves), coconut milk and others. These added ingredients vary among different dishes.

After partially cooking the meat, we can either continue cooking the dish or we can also store it to be cooked later on.

Benefits of Sangkutsa (Parboiling)?

Why do we do sangkutsa? Sangkutsa can do three things for your dish.

1. It can lengthen the shelf life of the dish
2. It can make the meat more tender
3. It enhances the flavor of the meat.

Lengthen the shelf life– the traditional purpose of this technique is still applicable today, especially when cooking a large batch and refrigerator space is limited.

Half cooking the meat inhibits bacterial growth especially when ingredients like salt and vinegar are added. This acts as a natural preservation process and lengthens spoilage time.

Meat tenderizer– Sangkutsa allows more cooking time for the meat making it more tender or softer. This is very helpful when cooking tough cuts of meat like pork and beef shoulders and hocks.

It is also vital for dishes where meat is cooked with other ingredients like vegetables. These ingredients cook faster than meat so parboiling allows the meat to soften beforehand. It prevents overcooking the other ingredients as the meat is cooked with them.

This is also applicable to fried dishes. Parboiling will allow us to achieve a crispy skin while having tender and juicy meat inside.

Boiling Meat

Image source

Flavor enhancer– When doing sangkutsa, meat is cooked with the flavorings and spices for a longer period of time. This allows the meat to absorb more of the flavor producing a tastier meat from the inside out.

Sangkutsa Vs Gisa

Sangkutsa (parboil) and gisa (saute) are two different cooking steps that are often confused. They may be similar in the part where meats are cooked with spices but how are they different?

In sangkutsa, the meat is pre-cooked by boiling in water or oil with the primary purpose of making the meat softer or more tender. In gisa or saute, we quickly fry the meat in little oil together with spices to release the flavors.

Sauteing With Onion

Sangkutsa and gisa often go hand-in-hand in cooking some Filipino dishes. There are dishes where we first saute the meat then later on parboil to further soften the meat. 

This technique is done when other ingredients such as vegetables and pancit (noodles) are added to the meat. Since these ingredients take less time to cook, it is important that the meat is already soft when we add them.

Filipino Dishes You Need To Sangkutsa (Parboil)

Sangkutsa or parboiling is a cooking technique used in many Filipino dishes. These dishes usually involve meats that need to be softened over a long cooking time and it usually involves other ingredients like vegetables and noodles.

Here are a few famous dishes using this method. We created a table for you so you could easily peruse and compare them:

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