The maya-maya (snapper) is one of my favourite fishes. Last week, after volunteering and announcing to cook this luscious catch as “pesa” for the board’s weekly luncheon meeting at the orphanage, I suddenly had reservations about my decision. I then thought of doing it either “pochero” or “sinigang” style as I normally would in the past.

I remembered however, that prior to my food blogging days in Brunei, a Kapampangan friend introduced me to his version of “pesang maya-maya” which I never really paid attention to whenever he would cook it. The one thing that made me crave for this “pesa” was a particular “secret” sauce he would prepare at his place before coming over to mine to cook the rest of the dish. Thing is, I never found out how to make the sauce at all and what the “secret ingredient” was!

And since I couldn’t take back my announcement about the menu, I resorted to googling for a similar recipe. And voila! I didn’t even need to surf the web’s complicated waves of information to get what I wanted. There it was, on top of the search result: Pesang Bulig, the latest entry in The Pilgrim’s blog I have not visited for a long time. In it was a recipe for that “secret” sauce of my friend’s!

Funny I couldn’t contain my excitement that I even had to ask another Kapampangan, the multi-faceted Claude Tayag, during a visit to his Bale Dutung in Angeles City a day prior to our board meeting. As if I was gonna find it in his house, I asked where I could buy “tauri” or “tahure” to which he quickly replied: “In the wet market . . . ” Tee hee! What a question!

On Wednesday morning, with my horde of assistants, I nervously donned an eggplant-embroidered apron and embarked on the experiment that could make or break me in the eyes (and palate!) of the foodie board whose other members started to arrive even before I could finish cooking the first dish – “adobong manok sa gata” that I marinated and pre-cooked the night before! They eagerly hanged out in the kitchen as preparations went underway. To them (and the rest of the household team), it was a sight seeing me in my other element.

The scene was kinda frenzied as I barked orders to my “sous chef-ies” preparing the fish and other ingredients while glancing at my wifi internet-connected notebook once in a while to make sure I was following The Pilgrim’s recipe properly. Chef Rosie who was at the same time cooking other dishes for the staff in the other kitchen, excitedly hovered around “my kitchen” as I sealed the fish by lightly frying both sides in oil and ginger.

YayaVi whom I tasked to mash the “tahure” to a perfect smooth consistency that didn’t require straining when added to the sautéed garlic and tomatoes, broke the tension with her antics in Visayan accent imitating the “Barefoot Contessa.”

I also wanted to cook the rice of the pesa in a porridge-like consistency but members of the board started hovering in the kitchen once again so, I proceeded and finished off with the final procedure, and placed the soup in a large bowl.

Below is the recipe, with additional ingredients and slightly tweaked procedure.

PESANG MAYA-MAYA

Ingredients (Pesa):

1 large maya-maya, sliced into one-inch thick pieces
1 small ginger root, approx. 2 inches in length
1 head of pechay (bok choy), with the core sliced off
2 medium potatoes, peeled and quarted
4 saba bananas, sliced
½ cup uncooked rice, washed
3-4 cups water
salt, to taste
1 ½ tbsp. lard or cooking oil

Method (Pesa):

Heat the cooking oil in a wok or deep pan. Add ginger and fry till light golden brown. Set aside.

Lightly salt the fish. On a separate pan, lightly fry the fish until both sides are sealed. Set aside.

Place the fried fish in the other pan with fried ginger. Pour in a cup of water then add the potatoes and bananas.

When the stock simmers, take out the fish. Add the rice and cook the potatoes and bananas to desired softness.

Drop in the pechay and adjust the saltiness of the soup. Simmer further and return the fish before turning off the heat. Cover pan and let stand for around five minutes before serving.

TILTILAN SAUCE

Ingredient for the tiltilan (sauce):

1 head garlic, finely crushed
5 large tomatoes, blanched, peeled and diced
1 cake tauri or tahure, mashed to a smooth consistency
½-1 cup water
1 tsp. cooking oil

Method (Sauce):

Heat cooking oil in a saucepan and fry garlic till golden brown. Add the tomatoes, crush with the cooking spoon and let them simmer till soft. Pour in a little water, just enough to keep the tomatoes from sticking to the pan. Pour in the strained tahure and let the mixture simmer. Add the rest of water and let it simmer again. Stir to fully blend the flavours. Add more water if necessary.

And the board’s verdict?

Board member 1: Takes a plateful of rice and tops it with the tiltilan sauce, “OMG! This aligue is great!”

Board member 2: “No, not aligue! It’s fish roe!”

Board member 3: “It’s crabmeat!”

Me: “Folks, that’s tahure . . .”

The pesa was “panalo” and became the star of that lunch and indeed, as cabalen Karen said, “It’s the sauce that makes the pesa special.”