Until our recent chicharon experiments, there was no reason to have several gallons of recently rendered pork lard in a giant kawa over a wood-fired flame… The urge to use this bounty of fat was simply too great, and we had some flash-fried suahe as one “healthier” seafood dish, earlier post, here. For our second seafood dish, we took advantage of the volume of oil to deep fry a 2.5 kilo talakitok in record speed and to awesome results.
The talakitok (jack or trevally) was de-gutted (and unfortunately, de-tailed for some odd reason) and we place some cuts into the meat to help cook the fish more evenly. It was simply seasoned with good sea salt and some freshly cracked black pepper. We lowered the fish carefully into the hot oil and stepped back as the fish and fat made love. :) While the bubbling was rather vigorous, there wasn’t that much splattering going on in the large kawa…
The tricky part was trying to figure out how long it would take to cook the fish to a yummy crispy texture on the outside but cooked and juicy on the inside. After about 4-5 minutes, I thought it should be pulled out. The volume of hot lard had me convinced this was long enough. I was wrong. It needed another 2-3 minutes or so for a total of 7-8 minutes of deep-frying to cook the fish properly. With a simple sawsawan or dipping sauce of vinegar, soy, chillies, tomatoes and onions this was a wonderful marriage of healthy seafood in deadly pork fat. :)
Wondering what to serve with this as a side dish? Why not try one of these options:
Mustasa salad with bagoong and kalamansi dressing
Ampalaya Salad
Kamatis at Itlog na Maalat / Tomatoes and Salted Egg Salad
Burong Mangga
Green Mango, Tomato & Spicy Bagoong Salad
Achara, Acharra, Atsara a la Marketman
Momofuku style pickles
Grilled Talong/Eggplant Salad
21 Responses
The vigorous bubbling of the lard would only have resulted to rather something more than just the ordinary and any of those dips would do justice although my personal favorite would be the green mango, tomato and spicy bagoong salad with heaps and heaps of hot steam rice. (And don’t forget the cicharon on the side.)
Happy cooking with the lard, MM.
i always thought whenever the oil “calmed” down (no vigorous bubbling) was the perfect timing for deep fried fish?!?
i just love deep fried, simply seasoned deep sea fish along with an ampalaya-tomato-onion-mangoe-(bagoong)salad and of course rice… hehehe…
I guess you will not be using again your rendered pork lard to fry your next chicharon as I assume it is already fishy frying your shrimps and talakitok. :) Anyway, how many times can you safely reuse your rendered pork lard? Thanks!
A fish in a sea of lard !!!!
Hey, if you got it…fry it!
MM, ihagis mo na lang sa akin ‘yang pritong talakitok!
That’s my favourite fish—prito with kamatis or pinangat, yummo!
“the fish and fat made love” ?! MM, what movies have you been watching lately? ;-)
millet, hahaha, was just fishing for a reader comment on the absurdity of the phrase… :) Betchay, I suspect you can re-use lard a couple of times, but not for different types of ingredients like fish, vegetables and pork…
MM not sure if this is the fish that can have some poison in it, hency, they remove the tail. i will check with my dad, as there is one particular type of fish that you have to remove the tail to reduce chances of food poisoning. i know that is starts with “T”.
Hi Lei. You are referring to the “tulingan” which is from the same group of fish as tunas and mackarels (scombrids). The specific one with the poisonous tail end is from the genus Auxis. Based on the pictures, MM definitely used a talakitok or commonly known as jacks or trevallies (carangids), which is not poisonous.
I am loving this phrase “the fish and fat made love†:-)
my mom likes dapa and talakotok that much ,while were in navotas before its easy for us to have dapa in malabon market but since we moved in manda, its rare to see dapa in the market, and if its in the market its not that fresh at all.
“the fish and fat made love†– it must have been really, really HOT. The lard I mean :)
im curious, gaano katagal can one store rendered lard?
kim, in the old days, solidified rendered lard was often kept for months… and in some places, it was sometimes kept a year I am told… lard from one fiesta is used for the tortas the following year… YOWKS! :)
what a fitting post for FRIED-day! :)
Some folks here in the US deep fry turkey at Thanksgiving. I wonder if lard would be great for this. Perhaps even on small whole chickens or duck.
MM wag mo iserve sa harapan ng bata, mukhang nakakatakot eh…peace!!!..tangalin na lang yung ulo…hehehhehehhe
Im sure masarap yan with lots of kamatis at bagoong..
Hi MM, your dish reminded me of what I used from the left over lard I had when I last made bagnet. I used it for various guisado dishes and for frying fish! A really memorable dish was when I tried it with tuna tail and the results were extremely good!
deep fried fish—best eaten in a BED of HOT rice,while still hot off the “love-making”!!
I have been a big fan of this fish since child hood. Good job MM!