The original recipe came from “Sally’s Baking Addiction”. We have baked it half a dozen times since and every so often I have swapped out ingredients and made some minor changes. So this is the last version we’ve used and it’s my favorite so far.

Ingredients:

3 cups very ripe bananas, mashed in your mixing bowl with paddle attachment

Whisk together in a bowl:
3 cups All-purpose Flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp powdered cinnamon
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

Mix together in another bowl:
3/4 cup melted butter
1/2 cup Muscovado sugar (we like the dark kind)
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 cup Lyle’s Golden Syrup (if you don’t have this add equal measure of white sugar)
2 whole eggs
2 tsp good vanilla extract (we use homemade that is intensely fragrant)
2 Tbsp of good banana compound if you have it (see tips below)
4 Tbsp whole milk

1 cup of chopped pecans or walnuts

Put your mixer on medium and mash the bananas, add the wet mixture and mix well. Add half the dry ingredients and mix briefly. Use a spatula to scrape edges then add remaining dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Add nuts and mix for just seconds.

Place batter in 24 lined muffin tins and put into oven at 425F for 10 minutes and lower heat to 375F until cooked. Check to see if a toothpick comes out clean after say 25+ minutes of baking.

Marketman tip #1. If you have just one or two bananas that reach the spotty overripe stage from a bunch, just peel it and throw it in a ziplock bag and into the fridge. Keep doing that until you have enough bananas for baked goods. They thaw a little soft, but that’s good in recipes like this one.

Marketman tip #2. Good quality banana compound is basically concentrated banana flavor from natural sources like puree that is the secret of good bakers and commercial bakeshops. It is much better tasting than the cheap artificial banana flavor that comes in bottles and whose ingredient list doesn’t seem to include any real banana. If you are going to pump up banana flavor, use the compound, not the artificial flavor (the latter is what is in most modestly priced banana breads and you can discern it by the strong aroma and sharp flavor that is, well, artificial. :(. I found the compound by chance at an SM Hypermart along with raspberry and other natural flavor compounds.

Enjoy!

The post Banana Muffins with Muscovado, Golden Syrup & Walnuts appeared first on Market Manila.

When the stock markets crashed in 2008, I/we picked a “hypothetical” portfolio of 10 stocks, and placed a hypothetical $20,000 in each name, and tracked the portfolio over the years on this blog… I stuck to the original 10 stocks and NEVER bought or sold any of the stocks, regardless of their performance, just to make the tracking simpler to follow.

These were real companies like Apple and Hershey’s and Goldman Sachs, and we picked the stocks as a family, even the 13-year old daughter picked a couple, her Amazon becoming the best performer in the portfolio over the years. We had some real lemons, like GE which, despite their tag line that “We bring good things to life,” that attracted Mrs.MM, it was the absolute worst performer. PLDT was the second worst stock. So how did the portfolio do over the years? I updated the story periodically, and here is summary of performance (click on year to see article):

2008 : $200,000 (Oct 14, 2008)
2009 : $222,000 (Apr 9, 2009) UP 11% in 6 months
2009 : $286,000 (Oct 10, 2009) UP 43% in 12 months
2010 : $336,000 (Apr 12, 2010) UP 68% in 18 months
2012 : $420,000 (Feb 2, 2012) UP 110% in 39 months
2013 : $640,000 (Jan 2, 3014) UP 220% in 63 months
2020 : $1,928,000 (Feb 1, 2020) UP 964% in 136 months (Just before 2020 Pandemic crash)
2021 : $2,976,000 (Aug 9, 2021) UP 1,488% in 154 months (The portfolio increased by $1 million in the last 18 months alone!)

The Bottom Line? A CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 23.1% per year for 13 years!!
That return beats an S&P Index Fund with a CAGR of 12.39% for the same 13 year period.
The Philippines Stock Exchange Index managed a CAGR of roughly 10% for the same 13 year period.

What does the exercise illustrate?

Stock markets can and often do have reasonably good returns over LONG investment horizons. You don’t have to have a super complicated approach to picking stocks. Yes, maybe part of it was sheer luck, or a particularly good run for stocks in the past decade… The average return of the S&P Index for the last 30 years through 2020 was a slightly lower 9.87% vs. the 12.39% for the last 13 years alone.

There are a few readers of the blog/Instagram who would have read that original post in 2008, one who recently escaped Afghanistan safely, a lovely lady from the Florida panhandle who likes to garden, and others from Canada, Australia and the Philippines who will confirm I didn’t make this all up…

Another great time to have bought into the the markets? When the stock markets crashed last year at the start of the pandemic. If you bought a few good stocks then, many of them would be up some 40-50% by now.:)

WARNING/CAVEAT. I am not a financial adviser or professional stock picker. I just wrote these blog posts as an illustrative exercise. And if there is any moral to the story, it is perhaps to make sure your offspring do something to improve their financial literacy early on, so that they can prudently plan their financial affairs as they grow older.

This is the original list of stocks we “invested” $20,000 in each in 2008 and what they worth today (August 2021); there were adjustments for stock splits, and dividends are separate:

Apple – $928,548!
Coca-Cola – $62,882
Goldman Sachs – $88,773
Boeing – $110,560
CVS – $53,726
GE – $14,001
PLDT – $20,416
Amazon – $1,194,094!!
Hershey’s – $102,441
Microsoft – $262,092

Image is not mine, sourced from Amazon. Stock certificate is of the company that owned The Titanic. :(

The post Stock Portfolio 13 Years Later… Hit or Miss?? appeared first on Market Manila.

Please head to the ABS-CBN website or Metro.Style to read it if you like…

The post Article I wrote for ABS-CBN, Metro.Style, etc. appeared first on Market Manila.

Me feeling the heat at the Taboan dried fish market. Bourdain was cool as a cucumber, even as the crew jokingly said through t-shirt wrapped nostrils, “OMG, this is THE smelliest place we have ever shot an episode”… :)

Shooting the breeze with San Miguel in hand with Augusto (the host from the Bourdain search contest) and myself.

We were waiting for the first lechon to come off the flames…

…and this is where Bourdain tried a piece and said “It tastes like candy…”

Posing with the lechons.

Watching an expert make the coconut leaf packages for rice, otherwise known as puso…

…prepping kinilaw na lukot (or sea hare secretions) that Tony wasn’t too sure about. Sea hare secretions?!?

Prepping more seaweed dishes.

The buffet under a humongous kapok tree.

Checking out the dessert selection… he was polite, as he doesn’t like sweets much and has said on many occasions it is the first course he would give up if he were forced to pick one…

…he passed on the durian (a fellow comrade in arms in that department) but he got his crew members to try it for amusement…

I have since burned my shirt and RUE the day I thought it would look fine on camera. RUE THE DAY.

After the shoot was over (from7am or so until say 2pm) they lingered another 2-3 hours and it is then that we had the most interesting discussions and conversations, off-camera…

He was witty, shy, introverted, erudite, inquisitive and a gentleman. He doted on the baby that came to lunch and regaled us with stories of his daughter’s yaya back in New York.

We had more San Miguel beer (had to send a car out for a couple more cases!)…

I am notoriously bad on video and hate it, but here, in the aftermath of the filming, it turned all congenial, intelligent, comfortable and just darned pleasant, as a cool breeze blew on this small hill in the middle of Cebu City.

Nothing was scripted, no advance warning of topics to be covered.

Oops, one more photo with cameras and Augusto’s distant relatives from Cebu who joined us for the on-camera shoot.

Tony graciously signed several of his books which Mrs. MM brilliantly remembered to bring with her from Manila…

…and I am thrilled to have both books still on my bookshelf along with my collection of cookbooks.

He drew caricatures for Isabel and her food-obsessed teen friends…

…and we laughed about crazed fans on his trip and all that they did to get a glimpse or a photo with him somehow. He said people camped out in hotel lobbies, for goodness sakes!?

Chief of stuff got him a fresh ice-cold can of San Miguel and managed a terrific solo photo with the man…

He graciously posed for photos with the crew (EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM) and was very thankful for all that they had done that day.

He insisted on several photos with Mrs. MM, our daughter and myself, and one of these have been pinned on the cork board in our den at home for the last decade.

At some point during the day, in the air-conditioned board room between takes, he looked at me, and said something to the effect, “So tell me, how did you end up roasting pigs, because to be honest, you don’t seem like the typical lechonero, if there is one…” and I replied, “Actually, I spent a lot of time in the U.S. for university and grad school and even had a chance to eat at Les Halles several times while you were cooking on the line…” to which he raised his eyebrows and wanted to know more asking “where did you go to grad school and what did you take up?” and I replied “I got my MBA at Columbia, worked for over a dozen years in strategy consulting before retiring and moving home…” and he smiled brilliantly and said… “wow, a lechonero with an Ivy-league MBA, that’s a first for us, definitely…” and we laughed so, so deeply. He was a good man, and will be sorely missed.

The post Some Bourdain Photos (Mostly Unpublished Before)… appeared first on Market Manila.

The news of Anthony Bourdain’s passing is simply devastating. And the outpouring of global empathy is a testament to a person that had so much more impact on people than I am guessing he gave himself credit for. My hope is that he is at peace now, and whatever demons he was wrestling with, they are no longer hounding him. I only spent a day (but clearly a very significant day it turns out) with him in late 2008, but the impact of his visit was to have dramatic and lasting effect… Dozens of folks, readers, IG followers have sent private messages of shock, sorrow, condolences, commiseration, etc. and I am frankly unsure how to feel about all of it except to say it is with the deepest of sadness that Mr. Bourdain has passed away in this manner. If anything useful is to come from this, it is to take note when someone close to you seems to be despairing, in need of help or just needs a shoulder to lean on.

I remember the day I fielded a call from Mr. Bourdain like it was yesterday, not nearly a decade ago. The rest, they say, is lechon history. But it started out as nothing more as an extension of this blog, my “Lechon Chronicles” and a desire to assist anyone understand our food better and to promote Filipino cuisine to a global audience. I have written several posts on the matter from October 2008 onwards, and here are links to all the relevant posts. They are lengthy, but worth reading if you are curious and new to the blog or have just arrived at it from Instagram, etc. There was a time when people’s attention spans lasted longer than 5 seconds…

The series of posts on the “Lechon Chronicles” detailed my pre-Bourdain quest to re-create my grandmother’s Cebu lechon, devoid of MSG and shortcuts that have in my opinion, plagued more modern versions of a several centuries old local delicacy… In chronological order, here are the posts:

#1 : The Lechon Chronicles, Chapter 1 : The Lechonan
#2 : The Lechon Chronicles, Chapter 2 : The Ideal Piggy
#3 : The Lechon Chronicles, Chapter 3 : The Fat Run (Lechon Round 1)
#4 : Lechon: Round 2
#5 : Lechon : Round 3
#6 : Lechon : Round 4
#7 : Lechon : Round 5

These were the posts that Mr. Bourdain’s producers and researchers read BEFORE they contacted me for help with their upcoming episode though I had NO IDEA who they were, the emails did not disclose the show or the host, I just wanted to help in any way I could to help promote Pinoy food to a foreign audience. After I spoke to Mr. Bourdain on the phone, where he asked me to cook lechons for him, despite my protestations that I wasn’t a chef or that I could take him to all the local purveyors and we could try a variety of lechons, we set a date and I had just then realized “Tony” was Anthony Bourdain, and I had just committed to host one of the most iconic food traveler/writer/chefs on TV at the time.

Two weeks of frenzied preparations (including the planting of an instant garden) led to the actual day of filming, and here are posts from that period…

#8 : The First Hint of things to come, after frantic landscaping efforts
#9 : The “nerves” two days before the shoot
#10 : One Sentence that says it all — and which was life changing for me
#11 : The prep before the shoot
#12 : Preparations the day before the shoot
#13 : Anthony Bourdain in Cebu, Philippines

I was self-imposing a a limited release of information about the shoot at this point, I didn’t want to pre-empt the program that was airing a few months later… Then 4 months later, when the episode finally aired, these were the posts:

#14 : A Reminder that the episode was about to air in the U.S. on February 16, 2009
#15 : Now Showing – with the most hilarious comments section with blow by blow comments of the program for folks in the Philippines who couldn’t see it… PRICELESS POST.
#16 : The Full Menu
#17 : Why I thought Augusto was my hero, in defense of all those back-stabbing crab-mentality pinoys with armchair opinions worth caca
#18 : Behind the Scenes, what it took to pull off the day of filming/shoot with OC-like intensity – lots of candid photos of the shoot here
#19 : An Amusing Side Story…
#20 : Hierarchy of Pork, our lechon tops it!

And that, was that. Realize that ZUBUCHON did NOT EXIST when we fed Mr. Bourdain, that came much later, nearly a year later, and we asked and received his permission to use his quote “Best Pig, Ever!”. As with all superlatives, one would think the sentiment would be topped or eclipsed in the many trips and episodes Mr. Bourdain has shot since. But over the next ten years, he would repeatedly refer to his lechon experience in Cebu with fondness, and for that, we continue to be ever grateful. Why one person’s opinion matters any is linked to the credibility, integrity and expertise of that individual. So while we definitely think it is a personal opinion, it’s a nice personal opinion from a great person with the highest degree of food integrity, in MY opinion. :) Here are some quotes from him since the shoot in 2008…

In February 2009 on his blog, Bourdain wrote : “…and special shout out to MarketMan — whose preparations for the Cebu lechon extravaganza made the filming of Apocalypse Now look quick and easy.”

On the hierarchy of pork he’s eaten around the world: “Puerto Rico’s lechon is great. In Bali, the lechon is even better. And in the Philippines, the lechon is slightly better than that. It’s the best of the best.“
Anthony Bourdain, October 2009
Interview by Frank Bruni of the New York Times
Food & Wine Magazine Blog

“…it doesn’t get better than that…”
(referring to the roast pig he ate in Cebu)
Anthony Bourdain, 2013
Interview in Promo clip for Parts Unknown, CNN

Spoken in his Parts Unknown Episode filmed in Manila in 2016 : “I had really fond memories of the last time I had lechon in the Philippines. In fact, not to kiss your ass, but it is the finest pig I’ve ever had.”

In June 2017, Manila, interviewed by ABS-CBN : “My first truly transcendent great whole roasted pig, the best lechon I ever had in my life was that time in Cebu.”

All we set out to do was to host a foreign guest and show him the best we had to offer and make a good impression. We did our best. And boy did he reciprocate in a manner we would never have ever expected. A good LASTING impression is something you only dream about. We are so very, very grateful. And we will miss him.

The post A Recap of the Anthony Bourdain related posts on Marketmanila.com appeared first on Market Manila.

Bad Saint has received a lot of phenomenal press coverage in the past 3 years since it opened. Reviews often begin with the no reservation policy and the often several hour long wait on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant for a seat. But we weren’t going blind. Isabel, our daughter, had already been 3 or so times, once to take photos for a published review of the restaurant and where she had a chance to taste just about everything on the menu. And she said, “Dad, it’s worth the wait”… so line up on our last afternoon in Washington, D.C., we did. Bad Saint refers to St. Malo, and area of Louisiana where Filipinos who jumped boat (the earliest TNT adventurers) from their galleons in the 17-1800’s took refuge and presumably started to cook Filipino food. The first immigrants… I think it is a BRILLIANT name for a Filipino restaurant in the U.S.

You can tell who the regulars are, they come armed with portable seats, novels, tablets. We had shopping bags instead, to sit on the pavement while we wondered what was on the menu for dinner… The wait wasn’t so bad. But a quick tip for MM readers… just send one person to line up and have your friends come 10 minutes before opening… that’s what lots of other folks did. If you aren’t ion the first 8-10 people in line, you may have to wait even longer for a seat after opening. With just two dozen seats or so, and maybe just 2-3 tables for 4, Bad Saint can’t accommodate too many people at one seating. Maximum group size is 4 people.

A few groups were ahead of us, so we ended in four seats facing out the front windows of the restaurant. The place is tiny, but don’t dwell on the interiors, just focus on the food. The menu listed only 9 dishes that evening + one special. Out of ten dishes, we ordered 7 and the Chef Tom Cunanan sent out another 2, so needless to say, we had 90% of the dishes in that one visit. A bit of backstory, I think one of the owners Genevieve Villamora and Chef Tom were aware, had visited, followed? marketmanila.com and had spotted us in line so we have to be grateful for the extra nice welcome which was like meeting up with old friends, though we had only met them face to face this one time. Genevieve was a gracious host, and well, Tom made sure the dishes sent out of the kitchen aimed to please…

To start off this post-graduation family celebration, Isabel ordered the “Tang” cocktail, a cheeky, nostalgic 60’s to 80’s taste profile that was amusing in name, but surprisingly adult and tasty to the palate… Made with a tangerine juice reduction, fino sherry, tangerine, lime, lemongrass and rambutan bitters. Somehow, this first sip was to herald good things to come…

…Mrs. MM opted for a small bottle of French cider, that was a perfect pairing for much of the food we ate that evening. Light, crisp and clean, the Etienne Dupont Cidre Bouché is something I am going to keep my eye out for to bring back home…

…Chief of Stuff and I had two bottles of San Miguel Pale Pilsen for a direct taste of home (I think these were brewed and imported from Hong Kong, however) and a cheery toast for all to celebrate graduation, moving into a new apartment rental, no more tuition checks for mom and dad, an epic trip to the Grand Canyon and Sedona area, touring a first-time visitor to the U.S., etc. was in order. Now to the food…

Labanos at pinaitum. We didn’t order this dish, but I think the Chef thought we should try it. Thank God for that. French radishes sitting on a bed of coconut meat, burnt coconut meat and coconut cream with honey. I think it was all emulsified and chilled to set. Several garnishes such as micro greens, toasted coconut, etc. on top. The dip almost had a consistency of hummus. It was amazing. Surprisingly delicious, but really delicious, and not really reminiscent of anything Filipino, but somehow it still had Pinoy soul. For a westerner, they would just think it was an amazing dish, regardless of provenance or nationality. Note to self, it was disarmingly rich and only became obvious because of how much we would eat in total that evening.

Next to arrive was ginisang ampalaya, which was beautifully done, the twist being the addition of salty black beans (or soy beans?) that ramped up flavor and minimized bitterness, though I seek the bitter. Even Isabel, who is an avowed anti-ampalaya stalwart, seemed to enjoy it. I loved it. This and a bowl of rice, nice vegetarian meal on its own. Note the ebullient use of garnishes, not just to prettify it, it was to add flavor, texture, contrast and it really did work well. Philippine cuisine doesn’t use much in the way of herbs, so playing with other strong flavors is a good way to tickle one’s palate.

The third dish to arrive were these nearly coal black adobong sugpo. Made with squid ink (wrong guess, my bad) pureed black garlic and bay leaves (some ingredients left out), it was swoon-worthy. Again, this single dish on its own with rice would have made a meal. But I like how Chef Tom doesn’t plate up to western expectations, but rather suggests family style servings with multiple dishes to enjoy a myriad of flavors and textures. This was a dense coating of squid ink, not the watery adobos you might be more familiar with from back home. The crisped rice lightened up the look of the dish, but as Isabel put it, they look a bit like fried maggots and to some, might not be so appealing. :)

I had to include another photo of the prawn dish to show how sticky and viscous the sauce was. Note the amount of rice I was consuming with each little bit of shrimp. They deliver unlimited amounts of rice to you, which was appreciated.

Next, dinuguan na bagnet or deep-fried pork belly on a blood stew. Delicious. Only the faintest of metallic taste to the blood; I am not normally a huge fan of dinuguan, but I liked this dish a lot. More on this in the Part II of this post… coming up soon.

The post Bad Saint, Washington, D.C. (Part I) appeared first on Market Manila.

My first attempt at dried flying fish or dibang, here, yielded so-so results. I had a nagging feeling that what I was attempting to re-create wasn’t just a day-old or semi-dried salted fish, but something a bit more refined. So with that thought already imbedded, I finished batch #1 and immediately moved onto a second kilo of fish… with the provincial concept in mind of “lamayo” or “labtingaw” or vinegar-marinated semi-dried fish from forays to Palawan and Visayan islands where they practice that, I wondered if the Maytahes dibang was in fact marinated in vinegar first (I would later find out from a sole blog reference to this dish that it may in fact be marinated)…

Taking off from the previous post, take the cleaned fish and dip into a marinade of coconut vinegar, salt, crushed black pepper and copious amounts of smashed garlic. I was afraid of “cooking” the fish, so only briefly washed the fish with vinegar. Some our crew looked on disapprovingly, expecting me to leave the fish in the vinegar for a while. In retrospect, I would recommend you linger while bathing the fish, more than getting wet, but not quite sitting in a bath, if you know what I mean.

The vinegar has several purposes. The first is to remove cooties or potential cooties. It also bleaches the meat of the fish, making it “whiter” or paler. It adds a hint of sourness, but this is balanced out with the salt. The garlic and pepper add flavor.

I sprinkled good local sea salt on the bathed fish. I put too much. Next time, either simply heavily salt the vinegar mixture and skip the direct salting step, or pull back on the salt, sprinkling lightly some finer natural salt instead.

Lay out in the hot sun to semi-dry. Note that the vinegar kissed fish nearest me are already paler than the previous batch of salt cured fish. Imagine if I had left it for a few more minutes in the vinegar…

…Chief of Stuff insisted on dotting each fish with lots of garlic and sprinkled on some of the marinade, afraid I was either going to kill all of us with bacteria growth or just because he is from Palawan, and holder of the key to proper lamayo… He was right, of course. :) After roughly 4 hours of drying, we put the dibang in plastic bags and froze them. I would recommend doing at least 6-7 hours (but we couldn’t as the sun turned to ominous storm clouds).

Taken out of the freezer ten days later, note the uneven bleaching of the meat. I think I could have marinated the fish for a minute or so longer.

Heat up some vegetable oil (or better yet, lard)and fry the dibang for a few minutes until cooked through and slightly golden in color.

I thought this looked pretty darned good.

But the fish we enjoyed in Batanes had an extra layer of crispness, and I wondered if they had sprinkled it with flour or cornstarch, so I gave this a try…

…et VOILA! maytahes dibang or day-old semi-dried and marinated flying fish a la Marketman (floured one on the right, above photo). Definitely an 8 or 8.5 out of 10.0 I think. I wouldn’t be embarrassed to serve this to guests any day. But to get to that 9 or 9.5 rating (will never get to the 10.0 tasted in Batanes, as location and terroir add that final 0.5 points) here’s what I would do in addition to the tips in the previous post… use bigger fish, fillet more carefully, cut off the head and tails neatly, marinate in vinegar solution for at least 1-2 minutes, and salt lightly. Dry for 6-7 hours and fry with a light coating of flour or cornstarch. Fry in hot lard. Are you salivating yet? Throw in a huge pile of homemade acharra and unlimited rice, please. Spicy vinegar a must. :)

The post Homemade “Maytahes Dibang” or “Day-Old, Batanes-Style Flying Fish” a la Marketman (Attempt #2) appeared first on Market Manila.

It happens less often now, but I have a history of eating something wonderful (and often deceptively simple) and wondering if I can replicate it at home to ensure availability. The simplest local Filipino dishes are almost always the most difficult to get just right, but it’s precisely that enigma that sets up the challenge… On a recent whirlwind trip to Batanes to shoot an episode of “Show Me the Market” on Metro Channel, I tasted maytahes or “day-old” flying fish three times in 45 hours and was utterly smitten. Flying fish was filleted and dried for a day then deep-fried, that’s all I had figured out. No one showed me how to do it, no one explained how to salt and dry it, but I nevertheless thought I should be cheeky enough to give it a go. So if you’re Ivatan and cringing at my attempt at maytahes, any advice you may have to improve this will be greatly appreciated.

At the Nasugbu market a few weeks after our Batanes trip, I spied some fresh looking flying fish, smaller* than the ones I had seen in Batanes, but I definitely wanted to try and make the dibang we had enjoyed in Batanes.

My knife skills filleting a bony fish are horrific, so before buying two kilos of flying fish, I looked up a photo of the dibang on my phone and tried to show the fishwife what I was trying to achieve and see if she was willing to fillet the fish for me. She agreed to try…

Her knife wasn’t the sharpest blade around and the filleting** was a bit ragged, but certainly better than anything I could do. She went ahead and filleted all two kilos worth and we packed it on ice for the half hour trip back home.

Back at home, I cleaned up all of the guts and any dark or bloody bits from the fish, assuming that this part would be more likely to spoil in a semi-dried state.

Next, I be-headed the fish…

…with a cleaver in a clean straight cut.***

Next, I decided to just simply salt the filleted flying fish. I used some good rock salt from the local salt beds near the Wawa port area, but I noticed the granules of salt were quite big.****

I had no idea how much salt to put so I guessed, and probably overdid it.*****

Next, I laid the fish out to dry, over a plastic net over a hot stone paved driveway. It was a searingly hot cloudless morning, and I could barely stand barefoot on the stones. I wondered if I might inadvertently cook the fish, but I went ahead anyway, hoping there was enough solar power and sea breezes to do this right. I know, I know, you are thinking bugs and flies right? I covered everything with a finer screen, even though they don’t do that in the provinces… And just in case you were curious, hot pavement of black rocks can rise to 145F or so, about 15F short of being hot enough to cook an egg. The soles of my feet can handle up to about 130-135F I suspect… :)

The morning of searing sun quickly turned dark and ominous some 4 hours later, so rather than 6-8 hours of drying, we took the fish away and packed them individually and froze them. This was version #1. Just salted, and semi-dried.******

While the fish looked and smelled fine after its partial drying (I was pretty sure I wouldn’t poison myself), it certainly DIDN’T look like the lighter, meatier day-old flying fish I had brought back from Batanes…

…which made me wonder if I was doing this right. Thankfully, I had also tried another version (next post).

The next morning, we fried up the first attempt at maytahes/dibang or day-old flying fish and that’s the photo all the way up top. It looked a bit ragged, but it tasted pretty good, but it was way too salty. I would have rated it a 6/10.0 compared to the beautiful dibang from Batanes, above. But here are some tips if you want to do it yourself, and it should yield a 8 or 9 out of 10, assuming you just want a salted flying fish recipe…

*find really large flying fish, say 300-400 grams a piece, if you can. These ones were some 230-250 grams each, and were a tad small.
**use a really sharp thin fillet knife and cut close to the bone cleanly without “sawing” your knife back and forth that makes the meat ragged.
***a straight cut with a cleaver isn’t the best choice. Use a sharp knife to cut out all of the head and any dark bits, but mimic the close up of the Batanes sourced fish that looks like it was trimmed in a “V” cut. Also, I would remove the tail as well.
****Use non-iodized salt like I did, but unlike me, it’s best to crush the salt into a finer consistency so you don’t risk over salting the fish. Better yet, rinse with sea water rather than fresh water before salting.
*****salt with a light hand. I know you think the fish will spoil in the hot sun, but trust that the solar rays and light salt will control the rot nicely… :) TRUST.
******I was beginning to think there were other ingredients involved, and took a guess and tried another version, up next.

Photo #3 was taken by P.O. Thanks!

The post Homemade “Maytahes Dibang” or “Day-Old, Batanes-Style Flying Fish” a la Marketman (Attempt #1) appeared first on Market Manila.

We were at the beach last week, with a very good old friend (and his family) from high school that hadn’t been back to Manila in 36 years since we graduated from high school. He tagged along to the Nassau market and surprisingly for a Tuesday morning, we found tons of things to cook for lunch that day. One of the unusual items was this giant squid or “lumot” that I have avoided in the past as I always thought it might be tougher and chewier than I would like. But my “suki” or market vendor convinced me to give it a try.

Weigh up a 1.3 kilo specimen, so fresh it was sticky with mucous.

My suki suggested the squid be skinned to ensure tenderness, so she made short shrift of skinning it (there was a part of me that wondered if it might still be alive!)…

…which took her less than a minute to do…

…and gutted and cleaned the squid as well.

Back at home, rinse the squid to ensure any remaining bits and bobs are removed. Then carefully cut and “score” the skin in a diamond pattern to help prevent curling. Use a sharp knife and cut only part of the way through the squid.

Next, add a marinade made up of soy sauce (I used kikkoman), kalamansi, a touch of vinegar, salt, pepper, homemade tamarind puree and chopped chilies. Let this marinate for an hour or so. Several readers have mentioned on IG that marinating the lumot in milk for a couple of hours helps to tenderize it as well… will have to give that a try sometime soon.

Grill over a medium high heat and note that some squid still curled, as I probably scored it on the “wrong side” (it should be inside the squid rather than outside) and baste with remaining marinade. Cook until just done, this took less than 5 minutes total.

The squid was surprisingly tender, though it had just a bit of chew, but that was a pleasant chew. Do not overcook the squid, it needs just a brush with the fire until opaque and just cooked. This was easy and supremely easy to make if your market vendor is kind enough to clean and skin it for you.

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The house is awash with tamarind puree. That’s what happens when something seasonal hits its peak and I get so excited to have the ingredient, that I stock up as though next year would never come… So while at the office in Manila the other day, our Caviteña accountant asked if I had ever tried pinangat na bangus made with ripe but sour tamarind. I hadn’t, and based on her quick description, I headed to the kitchen as soon as I got home and tried to make the dish on my own without a recipe. It isn’t as authentic as it could be (probably doesn’t have young garlic and would be better made in a palayok) but this turned out BRILLIANTLY for the minimal amount of effort required. I bet 90% of marketmanila readers could do this and the flavors would be so familiar for them to wonder why they had never cooked or tasted it before. Think a variation of paksiw na isda, but with a far more sophisticated sour than bottled (and in most households, horrific tasting) vinegar used for most paksiw. This is humble home cooking, but just a few tweaks would definitely elevate this dish to restaurant worthy special.

You will need either whole de-boned bangus, sliced into steaks, or if you are simply reaching into your freezer for the easiest option, then bangus bellies like I have here. You will need a big handful of fresh ripe sour and peeled local sampalok. I happened to have sweetened sampalok puree so I was determined to use this. Salt. Some folks use ginger, onions, garlic. But I am told others eschew the use of the last three and rely purely on the salt and tamarind to work their magic. I thought a touch of homemade lard couldn’t hurt, and our accountant suggested a touch of soy sauce near the end for both color and flavor, just as the dish was “drying out” as they preferred it served closer to a dry consistency than saucy.

First, make a light broth from the tamarind, water and salt. Strain this through a sieve. Into a pan, add the bangus segments, the tamarind water, some tamarind puree if you have it (or more concentrated tamarind water and a touch of brown sugar), salt, pepper and young garlic. That’s what I did. Alternatively you could melt lard, saute the ginger and onions and garlic, lay the fish on top, add the tamarind broth and continue cooking. I added the lard last as I nearly forgot to put it.

Cover and let this come to a boil and simmer for say 15-20 minutes or so. Apparently the goal is to get the fish to absorb all that sour goodness without it disintegrating, so don’t move the fish around too much. Also, some folks like this drier and that’s what my goal was as well. Notice how the water, tamarind and lard guile into an almost emulsified sauce that coats the bangus pieces, I really liked that effect.

Halfway through cooking, I was worried that the flavor might not permeate all the fish, so I carefully flipped them over. In retrospect, you might start off this way and flip them the other way around so the skin crisps up a bit in the minimal fat in the pan when you are nearly done cooking. Add some soy sauce and season with salt to get the right level of saltiness to your liking nearing the end of cooking. I pulled this off the heat just as most of the liquid had evaporated. Think of this as a variation on paksiw, or acid braised fish, so essential in the times with no refrigeration and it could sit out for hours without spoiling.

The result? For minimal effort and no reference point? Was nothing short of WOW, just WOW! And there are so many ways to enhance this, refry it, serve it saucy, etc. Totally instant comfort food. So worth trying. And so seasonal if you are using fresh tamarind…

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