Pangat Asa-Asa king Kalamunding

My aunt Claire Sason Velez was the one who taught me how to cook this dish when I was just eight years old. I remember that even during my childhood years, I always liked dishes that had calamansi dips or, what we call in in Kapampangan. tiltilan. As a personal preference, I like to prepare and serve a pangat dish more sour than it is usually being served. I also only use calamansi as the souring agent, even though some recipes suggest that vinegar is also an option. As part of our household natural ingredients, we were able to maintain four calamansi trees in our backyard, so they became the source every time we needed some for our cooking.

Dr. Jocelyn V. FERNANDO

SASMUAN

Pangat Asa-Asa king Kalamunding

PAN 3 - 4 AVERAGE 1 HR 30 MIN

asa-asa (Short Mackerel) calamondin/Calamansi onions garlic ginger tomato salt

Recently, I came across Kapampangan chef Lilian Borromeo’s book Atching Lillian’s Heirloom Recipes: Romancing the Past Through Traditional Calutung Capampangan. After reading it, I adapted and combined her cooking style with my own. The style of cooking in this recipe is to use your hands to mash all the ingredients together, except the fish. This is to extract the flavors of all the ingredients just before they get to the fire. Start off by cutting the sibuyas (onions), bawang (garlic), laya (ginger), and kamatis (tomatoes) according to your preferred shapes and sizes. Some cooks might want to make the garlic and ginger prominent in the dish, while others want to cut them thin and small, to turn them almost invisible when cooked. Either way will do. In a pan, combine these cut-up ingredients with black pepper (pounded), water and asin (salt) to taste. Use your hands to mash these ingredients together. Pour enough calamonding extract, to submerge the ingredients completely. Arrange the hasa-hasa on top of the submerged ingredients in a way that makes it easy for you to remove them later. Once complete, put the pot on to boil. To achieve the best result, you can start with a big flame, and once the dish boils, turn it to low heat. After three minutes, turn the flame off and let it cool down. Remember sour dishes are best eaten when they are cold.

I am a doctor by day and a chef during nights and weekends. I love to eat good food with family and friends. In order to get fit, I walk, and dance to the beat of the chacha with my son. My mantra in life is that you need to live life to the fullest. One of the greatest fulfillments that I can share with you is that I am a regular volunteer for several charity works in the Philippines.