There are few hard and fast rules about when to serve what food. Local conventional wisdom holds that anything cooked with tunô (coconut cream) should be served during lunch (if for dinner, only what’s left over), the oft-cited reason being that it’s heavy on the gut. In a typical Pinoy home, lunch is the most substantial meal of the day, and everyone knows that it is near-impossible to eat tinunu-an without rice — lots of it.
Coconut cream induces a warm and fuzzy state of post-prandial languor. Anyone who’s ever had a fit of deep yawning after partaking of tinunu-an knows the feeling. At the very least, you just want to lie back, but who are we kidding? “Vegetate” is more like it, such predilection jestfully referred to in the vernacular as “sakit sa baboy” (pig syndrome). It’s a supreme state of contentment.
Tinunu-an is our default means to make use of leftover seafood. Fish goes well with monggos (mung beans), shrimp with jackfruit, and crab or lobster with squash. The resulting dish is rich without being decadent, earthy but definitely divine. It is its own dish, too, the cream owning the stage, which means that if you are going to skimp on tunô, it is the first thing (likely the only) people will notice. This country may be poor, but coconuts we have a lot of.
If you haven’t guessed already, that’s kumáw (slipper lobster) swimming in the turmeric-laced cream with squash and bago (Spanish joint fir) leaves. Since the lobster was pre-cooked, I only had to sauté the requisite spices (ginger, onion, garlic, chili, turmeric) before adding squash, fish sauce, and thin coconut cream (second pressing). As soon as the squash had cooked to near-tenderness, I poured in the thick cream (first pressing), seasoned to taste, and added the lobster chunks. When the thickened liquid came to a soft boil, I stirred in bago and spring onion greens, covered the pot, shut off the gas, and left the dish to cook in residual heat a few more minutes.
Could anything be simpler and more satisfying? Perhaps. For the moment, however, this piggy was too blissed out to think of anything but sleep.
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