Bangus Homemade Sardine Spanish-style

Bangus Homemade Sardine Spanish-style

Bangus or Milkfish is undeniably a versatile fish, you can cook it in so many ways – fried, grilled, steamed, boiled or with sauces and gravies. It is also use in Spanish-style sardine besides herring (tawilis) or sardinella (tamban).

 

Sardine, is my favorite since young I like it fresh from the can and just squeeze with calamansi juice or sautéed with garlic and lots of onions eaten with hot steaming rice, I’m actually salivating now while I am writing this. Homemade sardine is not so popular before and it’s more expensive than those in cans. The famous brand of sardine that I grew up with is the “Ligo” brand. There are other brands available but I prefer this one, I find that their tomato sauce is thicker and tasty. They only have two colors of label, green and red, that tells you that the green label is with tomato sauce alone and the red one is with tomato sauce and chilly meaning it’s spicy. This brand is now also available internationally and if you are a fan of this brand like me good for us.

Recently, during our trip back to the Philippines I’ve seen lots of homemade sardines selling in the supermarket and even at the Atrium of shopping malls there are carts that sell it, and it really inspires me to make one also. Check Google for simple recipes to try, there’s so many of them and found a simple and seems a good recipe to start. The recipe has soy sauce and maybe the reason why my sardine become dark brown and not the natural color, next time I will omit the soy sauce and will adjust the taste with salt.

Bangus Homemade Sardine Spanish-style Recipe

Ingredients

Recipe is adopted from: http://iloilofoodtrip.blogspot.sg/2015/01/spanish-style-bangus-sardines.html

·       1 kilo bangus (milk fish) 

·       1/2 cup sliced carrots

·       1/2 cup pickles

·       3 pieces chili peppers (more if you want it spicier) (I use green chillies here)

·       1 head crushed garlic

·       1/2 tablespoon whole peppercorn

·       1 teaspoon salt

·       1 cup olive oil (you can adjust this if ever)

·       3 pieces bay leaves (laurel)

·       ¼  cup green olives (optional)

·       ½  cup water

Instructions:

1.   Thoroughly clean and slice bangus into serving pieces at least an inch thick.

2.   In a pressure cooker, arrange bangus in layers.

3.   In a separate bowl, mix rest of the ingredients.

4.   Pour the mix over the bangus making sure the fish is all covered.

5.   Pressure cook at low-medium fire for 40 minutes or until the bangus is cooked.

6.   Let it cool and transfer to a serving plate.

Please feel free to proportionate all the ingredients based on your preference and on the amount of fish since the measurements are just guides for you.