The daing fried rice was only one of two dried fish comfort meals that we indulged in over the last two weeks… With the remaining kilo or so of dried fish, we decided to make a “sarciadong daing” which is basically fried dried fish braised with a sweetish sour sauce. There is another post in the archives with a similar recipe, but here are the basics again, in case you were wondering. Start by frying up some good meaty daing or dried fish, but leave it a bit moist, not totally crisp and dry…

Saute lots of onions and some garlic and slivered or julienned in some vegetable oil, then add lots of rough chopped fresh tomatoes and saute for several minutes more, until some of the water has evaporated. Add chopped red bell pepper, some sliced red siling mahaba or finger chillies, then some vinegar, a touch of salt and some teaspoons of sugar. Cook until this thickens a bit. You may need to add a little bit of water to make enough sauce for the amount of dried fish.

Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary, but remember the fried dried fish is VERY salty, so the sauce shouldn’t be at all. Add cut pieces of dried fried fish to the sauce and mix until everything is coated. Serve this with lots of steamed rice. I like it with some vinegar on the side. And a VERY large serving of something green to combat the salty, evil deliciousness of dried fish. One kilo of dried lapu-lapu would easily feed 10 folks for lunch. :)

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It’s been THAT kind of week. And for me, comfort food is the easy, temporary palliative for the blahs. And there are few dishes more comforting for many Filipinos than fried dried fish. In the tropics, and among large archipelagos, dried fish is one of the most basic and reliable sources of protein. It is simple to make, relies on readily available ingredients such as freshly caught fish and salt from the sea, and only requires a day or two of hot sun and a gentle breeze to manufacture. Then it can keeps for months on end. You have to admit, it can sound and smell a bit bizarre. You cut open a nice fish and remove its guts, then cover it with lots of salt, leave it outdoors to slightly decay and dry out, and occasionally rely on an errant maggot or two to help the decaying process and flavor enhancement. The end product possesses one of the most pungent food smells known to man, which is magnified to “code 9 level” when the fish is fried. :) But if you grew up with it, you probably love dried fish like I do. And besides, ever wonder how you would describe the manufacture of blue cheese? Heehee. So onto the dish…

I took several medium sized dried daing na lapu-lapu or dried grouper and soaked it in water for roughly 30 minutes to remove the excess salt. If you don’t soak this, you risk your dish being too salty, if you oversoak it, the dish will be a bit bland. So gauge your personal salt quotient and soak accordingly. Remove from the water and pat dry with paper towels. Heat up a pan with vegetable oil and fry the fish until cooked but still a bit moist, not the seriously crisp some folks are wont to do with dried fish. I do this outdoors if possible, so that the smell dissipates quickly. We have Australian neighbors and I can only imagine what they are thinking when they get a whiff of this…

Once the fish has cooled enough to handle, remove the meat from the bones and shred it into small pieces. Set this aside. Chop up some garlic. I chopped up some scallions because we had it. I added in 3 finely sliced siling mahaba or mild finger chilies, also because we had it, though it barely added spice to the dish. Lightly beat a few eggs in a bowl. And make sure your rice is cooled for several hours after cooking to ensure that it is on the drier side…

Heat up a large wok or saute pan, add some vegetable oil, then finely minced garlic and a few seconds later the shredded dried fish. Add the white parts of the scallions and the sliced chilies and saute for a few seconds more.

Add in the rice and mix well until the dried fish and rice are well blended. This will take a few minutes to heat up all of the rice.

Then add the eggs and stir some more. Some freshly ground pepper might be nice and taste for saltiness so you can adjust with some added salt if necessary.

Serve with smashed tomatoes and chili vinegar on the side and eat happily. :) Here’s a previous post on a very similar take on this dish. Nasi goreng may be more flavorful. Crab fried rice more extravagant. Chorizo fried rice more cholesterol laden. Fried Rice with Bettyq’s XO sauce is also fabulous. But Daing Fried Rice is still one of my favorite comfort foods.

Photos by AT.

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