Pritchon

Leftover lechon wrapped in Peking duck pancakes with hoisin sauce, crisp cucumber, spring onions, and re-crisped pork skin.  Holiday leftovers rarely feel exciting, but this one stopped us in our tracks. Crispy pork skin, soft wrappers, fresh crunch, and a glossy sauce that ties everything together. Sometimes, all it takes is a shift in perspective to turn yesterday’s feast into something completely new. #pritchon

Life here resumed its usual rhythm almost immediately, work, errands, familiar roads, familiar sounds, but my mind refused to follow. Mentally, I was still in Zurich. Still walking through snow. Still counting the hours between hospital visits. Still staring at monitors, oxygen tubes, and the quiet, relentless exhaustion that aggressive cancer brings.

A week after we arrived back in New Zealand, my mum passed away.

Even now, writing that sentence feels unreal. I still struggle to believe it. Eight weeks. From diagnosis to death. Eight brutal weeks.

She was not the person you would expect cancer to take so quickly. She never smoked. Never drank alcohol. She walked regularly, travelled often, stayed active, eats healthy organic home cooked food. There was no history of cancer in our family. And yet a small genetic mutation changed everything. The worst part was its aggression. There was no long fight, no gradual decline over years. Just a rapid, merciless progression that gave us barely enough time to process what was happening.

We flew to Switzerland on December 31 after learning she had been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer.  Just weeks before that, she was still travelling. Still planning. Still living her normal life. By Christmas, she was in hospital. By New Year’s Eve, we were on a plane, leaving behind routines and plans, confronted by how fragile predictability really is.

Those weeks in Zurich altered my sense of time. Days revolved around visiting hours, test results, treatment plans, and tiny victories that most people would overlook, a few more spoonfuls eaten, a short walk managed, a moment when her breathing seemed steadier. But what struck me most was how fiercely she fought. Her body was failing, visibly and rapidly, yet her mind remained sharp. Clear. Determined. Even when the doctors began preparing us for outcomes they could no longer control, even when they gently suggested that this was a battle she could not win, she refused to surrender. She spoke about fighting until the very end. She hoped for the maximum lifespan possible. She believed she could outlast the statistics. And I saw that struggle every single day, the tension between a weakening body and an unyielding will. Cooking became the one thing I could still control. When everything else felt clinical and uncertain, food was personal. It was how I cared for her when I could not heal her. It was how I gave her something warm and familiar in a space filled with machines and medical language.

Then suddenly, we were back in New Zealand.

Summer light. Supermarkets full of abundance. Conversations about ordinary things. The world carried on as if nothing had shifted, while mine had completely fractured. I felt suspended between two realities, one moving forward at normal speed, the other frozen in a hospital room thousands of kilometres away.

Nine days later, we were packing again.

On Sunday, we boarded another long-haul flight back to Switzerland, this time not to sit beside her hospital bed, but to arrange her funeral, to say goodbye, to stand in a church saying my eulogy. The distance felt heavier on that flight. The finality sharper. Everything we had hoped would stabilise had instead ended.

The hardest part is that it still does not feel final. Grief has not settled into something neat or understandable. It comes in waves, disbelief, anger, sadness, then moments of quiet reflection. I replay everything. The diagnosis. The rapid decline. The unfairness of it all. How someone so disciplined about her health, so active, so strong, could be taken by something microscopic and merciless.

Food photography and writing, once routine, suddenly felt fragile and trivial. I had a backlog of holiday dishes waiting to be edited and written about, but everything stalled the moment she passed. It felt wrong to resume as if nothing had happened.

Picking things up again has been slow and deliberate. This post is not a sign that everything feels settled, it doesn’t. It is simply a step forward. Moving forward does not mean forgetting. It means carrying the weight differently.

Cooking and writing remain the ways I process what I cannot fix. They are how I honour those final weeks. How I remember that even in the middle of hospital visits and uncertainty, there were bowls of soup, shared meals, quiet conversations. There was still care.

Pritchon felt like the right place to begin again. It comes from leftovers. From improvisation. From the instinct to adapt when circumstances change. In many ways, it mirrors where I am now, rebuilding momentum one dish at a time, while carrying the memory of someone who shaped everything that came before it.

What Exactly Is Pritchon

Pritchon is a Filipino culinary invention born in the early 2000s. The name itself is a clever mash-up: pritong, meaning fried, and lechon, the iconic roasted suckling pig. Instead of roasting, the whole pig is deep-fried until the skin turns blistered and shatteringly crisp.

The dish was created by Charlie and Dina Esguerra in 2001, and it quickly became known not just for its texture, but for how it was served. Rather than the usual lechon-on-a-platter presentation, Pritchon arrived as a wrap. Soft flatbread, crisp pork skin, tender meat, sauces, and fresh vegetables laid out for diners to assemble themselves.

The Peking Duck Connection

Anyone familiar with Peking duck will immediately see the resemblance. The similarities are not accidental.

Both dishes revolve around contrast: crisp skin against soft wrappers, rich meat balanced by fresh cucumber and spring onions, sweetness from hoisin cutting through fat. Even the act of eating is the same. You build each bite yourself, layering flavours and textures as you go.

The main difference lies in technique. Peking duck relies on air-drying and roasting to achieve its lacquered skin. Pritchon uses deep-frying to get there faster, louder, and arguably more indulgently. It is a Filipino interpretation, not a copy, borrowing a format and making it its own.

A Leftover-Friendly Version

What I am sharing today is not traditional Pritchon. This version exists because the holidays always leave you with more lechon than you expect. Instead of deep-frying a whole pig, I re-crisped leftover skin and reheated the meat gently. The goal was to revive texture without drying anything out.

Instead of pita bread, I used proper Peking duck wrappers. That single choice pushes the illusion further. Add hoisin sauce, cucumber, and spring onions, and the transformation feels almost complete. Close your eyes, take a bite, and for a brief second, you could swear you are eating duck.

Why This Dish Works

Lechon already has everything going for it. The skin is fatty and crispable, the meat rich and savoury. When paired with hoisin, the sweetness highlights the roasted notes of the pork. The cucumber and spring onions reset your palate with every bite, keeping the richness from becoming overwhelming.

This dish is also practical. It turns leftovers into something interactive and celebratory. It feels intentional rather than improvised, even though it started as a way to use what was already there.

A Fitting Restart

Posting this now feels symbolic. It comes from a pause in momentum, from interruption, from adapting to circumstances beyond our control. Like so many Filipino dishes, it is about making the most of what you have, finding comfort in familiarity, and allowing food to tell a story without needing to explain too much.

Pritchon

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 5 from 2 reviews

• Author: Raymund
• Prep Time: 15 mins
• Cook Time: 10 mins
• Total Time: 25 mins
• Yield: 4 1x
• Category: Appetizer, Side Dish, Snack
• Cuisine: Filipino

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Description

Leftover lechon wrapped in Peking duck pancakes with hoisin sauce, crisp cucumber, spring onions, and re-crisped pork skin.

 

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Ingredients

Units USM Scale 1x2x3x

Meat

• 750 g leftover lechon, meat and skin separated

Wrappers

• 15 Peking duck wrappers (Mandarin pancakes)

Sauce

• 1/2 cup hoisin sauce
• 1 tsp warm water or sesame oil (optional, to loosen)

Vegetables

• 1 large cucumber, julienned
• 6 spring onions, sliced into thin 2-inch strips

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Instructions

1. Preheat oven or air fryer to 190°C. Place skin on a wire rack and heat until bubbling and crisp, about 7–10 minutes in the oven or 3–5 minutes in the air fryer. Rest briefly, then slice into thin strips.
2. Heat a pan with a little oil. Quickly sauté the meat for 1–2 minutes until warmed through and lightly caramelised. Avoid microwaving to prevent toughness.
3. Steam the wrappers for 2–3 minutes until soft and pliable. Keep covered with a clean tea towel to stay warm.
4. Spread hoisin sauce on a wrapper. Add pork meat, crispy skin, cucumber, and spring onions. Roll gently and eat immediately.

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