The woman swore by it. “My kids love the dish,” she said. “‘Nay, make the tahong with ginamós and chili again,’ they say. Na lagi, you should see the sweat run down their faces.”
“Mussels and fermented anchovies?” I did not bother to excuse myself. At the market, it is quite normal to butt in on an ongoing discussion. “Hi-sos.”
“Exactly. You should try it, sir.”
I intended to, but not too soon. I filed the recipe away for when my need to put something on the table trumped concerns over my salt intake (tahong broth is already plenty briny on its own). In this case, something else, since I was not so sure if my father would take to the fish I brought from a recent trip (he didn’t).
I used a heaping teaspoonful of lightly salted sinabado for a Caltex (about 750 grams) of mussels, and so had to add water to thin the broth. If you’re going to make the dish — and you really ought to — you will have to adjust the amount of ginamós you put in depending on how salty it is.
To start, sauté roughly chopped onion (medium), tomato, garlic, and finger chili (or bird’s-eye if you like it hotter) in two tablespoons of hot oil. After a minute, move the spices off to one side of the pan and sauté a teaspoon of fermented fish until opaque and aromatic, then remove and set aside half of the fish/paste before pouring in mussels. Add a splash of Chinese wine (or water, to keep spices from burning), cover your pan, and cook until the mussels open up, about five minutes. Stir in a pinch or two of sugar, a dash of sesame oil (optional), then taste the broth and add more of the reserved sautéed ginamós (or water) as needed. Garnish with chopped green onions and serve immediately.
And that’s how lunch was saved the other day — by a total stranger. I wish her kids hardy, healthy kidneys. And the occasional red tide bloom to give those kidneys a break, the dish is that good.
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