Paksiw na Tilapia

For the past two months, we have been regularly buying Philippine foods from Asia Yaosho via the internet. Sometimes the local supermarket have fresh tilapia but at a 900 Yen (~450PhP) price, I would rather wait till I get home to the Philippines. Fortunately, Yaosho has frozen tilapia imported, not from the Philippines, but from Taiwan. But tilapia is tilapia. We also bought milkfish and had last week but in our hunger, we weren’t able to take any photos.

“Paksiw” is a Filipino culinary term for something cooked in vinegar. In Ilocos, we sometimes call it “Liningta” which means “boiled”. This recipe is so common with so many varieties already but I always do mine using what my parents have thought us. It was only recently that I “perfected” it. I think. When I say “perfected”, it means that it is already worthy of praise from my father who cooks this so perfectly. It would have been better if I used Ilocano Vinegar (the black one) and lined my pot with banana leaves.

Ingredients:

• 1 Tilapia/Bangus
• 1 clove garlic
• ginger
• salt (about 1 tsp)
• black pepper
• 2 laurel leaves
• 50 mL vinegar
• water (about half or so of the amount of vinegar used)
• Optional:
• chili peppers
• eggplants

Directions:

This is as idiot-proof as it can get. Just mix all the ingredients together, cover the pot and bring to a boil then simmer at low fire till about half or more of the liquid disappears. Do not stir. You can put in the veggies when it is almost done to preserve their color. I used about 2-inch ginger. My mother said, the more garlic and ginger you put the better it will be.

So what did I do wrong in my past attempts? I was so impatient on getting it done that I always put the stove on high. Teheheheh. I guess "liningta" requires some "anus" (patience). So, mangantayon!