10 April 2009

Smoked Fish "Tinapa" Fried Rice

It's been almost a year since I really tried a new dish in the kitchen. Ever since I started employment, I find that it has been extremely difficult to spend time at home and laze about and do the regular, trivial things I love doing before - cooking included.

Today, thankfully, I had the chance to check if I am still adept with my cooking and blind measuring. Mom asked me to use the smoked fish, tinapa, from this morning and make some fried rice for dinner. Since it's Good Friday, we aren't allowed to feast on any pork or beef - only fish is the permissible meat. So with brief instructions from my mom, and limited ingredients on hand, this is what I did.


Tinapa Fried Rice

1. Using your hands, tear the fish's meat into shreds.
2. Chop one head of garlic and half an onion (big one). After which, dice two small tomatoes.
3. Ready one big bowl of day-old rice. I don't measure so it's more of personal taste and preference.
4. Fry the fish meat in oil until it's "crispy". Take it out of the oil. The idea is to have the fishy taste in the oil.
5. Throw in the garlic, then the onions into the fish oil. Add some salt and pepper. Once browning, add the tomatoes. The oil will turn a little light red/ orange because of the tomatoes.
6. When you think it's doing okay, add the rice in and then mix until every grain of rice is coated. Leave for a few minutes.
7. Make a well in the center of the rice, then crack an egg into the middle. Let it cook a bit before mixing with the rice.
8. Throw in the fried fish shreds into the rice and mix again. Taste, then season with salt and pepper.
9. For personal taste, I threw in some white vinegar into the rice, since it's seems a little to bland for me.
10. Dice some salted eggs then add that to the rice. Mix. Taste and season according to taste. Close the heat and put the rice into a big serving bowl.
11. Top with some spring onions and it's good to go.

This is my first time to cook this, but I think it was a big success since the first serving was quickly finished and I was requested to make a new batch for those who weren't able to try it. By my second try, there weren't any salted eggs left so to remedy that, I just added butter to the oil in step number (5) and added some brown sugar into the egg of step number (7).

They finished the second batch of tinapa fried rice as well.. with big compliments. I haven't lost my touch yet! :D

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