Tugnos Fermented Salted Fish In The Making: My Own Recipe

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Hello Aseanhivers how was your day? This week has completely rain towards the end of the week. But this month is the season ug tugnos fish in the island.
Tugnos are very small fish with translucent bodies and a delicacy in the Philippines. There are so many motorcycle vendors passing around our house in the evening to sell this kind of fish. Accordingly it's illegal to catch because these are very small and it tnwds to Grow bigger. But I tried to buy it and I was surprised it's so white and I think this one is delicious to be fermented. We locally have "ginamos" which is made from bolinao fish but today I'm going to share to you how I made this fish into a ginamos.

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This is the close up picture of the fish. This is my first time seeing this white fish. Because in my hometown we always have bolinao the same size but its black or the dominant color is black. So we ended up cooking it in three ways.

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First is I washed all the small fishes. It's very difficult to wash them properly. They are so tiny and I have to handle it lightly because it might slice or just dissolve eventually.

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Then I placed it in a strainer. In order to separate the fish and water. The fermented fish requires so dry or no moist left. So I let it stay in a strainer for 15 minutes.

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Then I get a long container for the fermented fish. I place 1 tablespoon on the bottom of it. My process for this is layering because the fish is so tiny and if I'm going to mix it now probably they will be torn.

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So I just layer them all. One tablespoon of salt then three tablespoon of fish then the salt again then the fish until I reached to the top.

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And this is how it looks like. I did not mix it using a spoon because I think I might smashed them and torn into pieces and it's not good for the eyes or it's not appetizing anymore. And place so much salt on top of the most layer. By the way I mix salt and msg for this. And this will be stack for 4-5 days and this can be eaten. This fermented mixture can last up until 30 days.

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Then the second recipe we made is the "kinilaw". My husband really like kinilaw. So I just sliced two pieces of onions, little ginger and add salt, msg and vinegar. And mix it well. After 4 minutes it can be eaten and I tasted it, it was so fine and I really like it than other fishes.

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And the last recipe is for our kids. It's very simple just mix the fishes with two eggs and fry. The texture was really fine. We can't feel any bones. My kids like it very much.

And that's all for today hivers, I hope you like my fish recipes for today. Do you have this kind of fishes in your area? May I know how did you cook it?

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In Bisaya we call those "Maranay", and as kids our mom would usually just mix those with some eggs salt and msg, and then we make it as our baon. Looks so fresh! 😁😁

Yes you are right. Fried with egg is the best for this and it's usually a school baon

Wow! Thank you for sharing my favorite Fermented food or condiments. I like how you explain the process step by step on how to make ginamos a very detailed and helpful. keep sharing your amazing food stories.

Thank you so much that you like it. Wow there's a lot here in hive who likes ginamos so much!

Ohh! I love tugnos! I don't eat the regular anchovies. Tugnos I can tolerate. Funny, I made some salted fermented fish like this, but ends up, throwing! For the sake of not spoiling it, I put a lot of salt! 😄 All salt! It's so salty that i threw it away! Thank goodness I only made small amount. So, the next time I always buy from someone than, making it.

Hahaha you are right. That's me too a year ago. I try to make it but it's too salty until I try and try and now I can get the perfect match. But you knew it's better to buy from the market, it has different taste that I can't copy hahaha

Fresh na fresh ang tugnos..

Yes po. Ang dami kasi dito sa amin. I think it's the season for tugnos

wow! hello friend! we have ginamos at home too and its made of squid. Fermented fish is best partnered with bananas too right? hehe

Squid? Wow. You mean lumayagan or the nokos? Wow I was pleased to hear that. Pwede pala yun?

I ate this once in a while and its more yummy when sauted with tomatoes and spices.

We tried it tonight. But I haven't eaten yet because I'm full. I'm gonna try it tomorrow

I'm curious about the fermented dilis, can we have an update after it's done?

We have a similar dish we call 'Kuyog' here in the Bicol region. Kuyog is made from very young 'bataway' fish or rabbitfish fermented in salt and greater galangal or blue ginger. When done properly, after the required period of fermentation, the fish becomes very tender that you can't even feel the fish bone. The way I see it, anchovies or dilis are more tender than 'kuyog'. Catching small bataway fish is prohibited but I guess it's not strictly implemented since we can always buy kuyog from different sellers here.

You are right it's prohibited. Because it's so small. 1000007501.jpg
By the way this is the result. It's the 4th day of this fermentation

Thanks, but I guess the picture isn't displaying well. I will revisit this tomorrow, hoping it loads better.

Wow! This post made me crave tugnos. Your process of making fermented fish is impressive, especially how carefully you handled them. Layering instead of mixing.

Because if I mixed them. I'm sure they gonna be cut into slices because they are so vulnerable. That's why I just layered it

Absolutely, layering is a smart technique!

Wow ka fresh sa tugnos! This is the very recipe we do as well. Dip in soy sauce with vinegar or catsup. Yum!

We always buy banana Saba here. But the problem sa isla is there is no ginamos, since there is no Bolinao here, so I try this fish and it was good

Thanks for posting in the ASEAN Hive Community.

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