Tinapang bangus (smoked milkfish) fried rice

My family loves bangus (milk fish). Not because we’re patriotic (it is our national fish) but simply because bangus is delicious. It’s rather hard to explain why or how it is delicious. If salmon and tuna are great because of their unique flavors and textures, it’s the same thing with bangus — it has qualities that cannot be found in other fish and that makes it special.

Even as a child, bangus was among my favorite fish. But when I reached my teens and up until I was in my twenties, I did not crave for bangus the way I did when I was much younger. Part of the reason was that with all the bones, bangus was not exactly easy to eat. As a kid, I had my parents remove the bones for me so it was no problem. But boneless bangus fillets did not really become popular until the last five years. Prior to that, whole boneless bangus were only sold as daing (marinated and ready to fry). Fortunately, today, there are several brands of bangus fillets and one can even choose between whole boneless bangus, back fillets (no fat) or the more expensive belly fillets.

Whole boneless bangus comes in more varieties too — marinated for daing, unseasoned and tinapa (smoked). Just this month, I also discovered that boneless daing na bangus now also comes in several flavors. We have tried the teriyaki and pesto flavored daing na bangus, found them okay but not extraordinarily memorable. Actually, I found that the seasonings detracted from the natural flavors of the fish. Hence, my favorite remains the boneless tinapang bangus. I am so enamored of it that I even cooked it as a pasta dish.

Yesterday, I was in the supermarket and there were all those boneless tinapang bangus and I remembered the pasta dish I had made before. I thought about making it again then reconsidered. It was funny, really. I was standing there, my hands on the grocery cart and, inside my head, I was already experimenting with a Chinese style fried rice with tinapang bangus as the feature ingredient. So, I went ahead and bought some sweet peas and decided I would cook my tinapang bangus fried rice for lunch today. I also decided to try a technique shared by two readers in a previous fried rice recipe.

Ingredients :

5-6 c. of cold cooked rice, mashed to separate the grains
2 whole boneless tinapang bangus
1 medium-sized carrot, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch cubes
1 c. of sweet peas
1 whole head of garlic, crushed and finely minced
1 large onion, chopped
3 eggs, beaten
5-6 tbsps. of peanut oil
salt and pepper

Cooking procedure :

Heat the oven to 180^oC. Place the tinapang bangus on the rack of a roasting pan and cook for about 7 minutes. Alternatively, you can grill the tinapang bangus or pan fry them. Pan frying them, however, will make them more oily than they already are.

When the tinapang bangus is done, take the roasting pan out of the oven. Open up the fish and separate the flesh from the skin. Discard the skin, heads and tails. Cut the flesh into rather large chunks. Set aside.

Heat the peanut oil in a wok or large frying pan. Add the carrot cubes first as they take longest to cook. Stir fry for a minute then add the minced garlic and chopped onion. Stir fry for another 30 seconds, then add the sweet peas. Cook for 30 minutes longer before adding the rice. Season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring often, until the rice is very, very hot.

Make a well in the center and pour in the beaten eggs. Wait a few seconds to allow the eggs to set partially before stirring them into the rice. Otherwise, the rice will just turn yellowish but you won’t be able to make out the bits of eggs from the mass. That might work for some but I do like to see every bit of ingredient in my fried rice, so…

Stir the rice to distribute the eggs evenly. Cook for about 3 minutes, stirring often, to make sure that the eggs are thoroughly cooked and not runny at all. Add the tinapang bangus to the rice mixture, stirring carefully so as not to break them into indistinguishable bits. Cook just until the fish is heated through.

Serve at once — fried rice is best when served very, very hot.

In the mood for more food?

1. Salt and pepper mills
2. About Filipino Cuisine
3. Crispy catfish and green mango salad (yum pla dook foo)
4. Pancit Lomi
5. Roast pork loin and spicy kangkong
6. Speedy’s winter melon soup
7. Mirin
8. Biko (sticky rice cake)
9. Drunken chicken
10. Mackerel frittata

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