Dried & Salted Fish (Buwad)

 Dried & Salted Fish (Buwad)

Ingredients needed:

1. Dried & Salted Fish (Buwad) either bought or made.

2. Cooking oil

3. Sauce or dips (optional)

    "Buwad" is a Cebuano term for dried & salted fish. Which is known as "Daing" in Tagalog. Fish prepared as "daing" are usually split open (though they may be left whole), gutted, salted liberally, and then sun and air-dried. There are also "boneless" versions which fillets the fish before the drying process. It was originally a preservation technique, as salt inhibits the growth of bacteria, allowing fish to be stored for long periods of time. 

How to prepare "Buwad":

 You can either do this by yourself, or just buy it in a supermarket like me. Making "buwad" from fresh fish can take a lot of work(and time). There are tons of stores out there that are selling already dried fish, that is to say, if you're in the Philippines. I don't know if it's the same in other countries but it's probably still readily available.

Step 1:

Get some dried fish. I would prefer if you buy it rather than making it yourself, this is just my opinion since I am not so good with drying and salting the fish myself and there is bound to be mishaps along the way. (If you want to make it yourself, then there are always tutorials available online once you secure the ingredients that you need, such as the fish and some salt.)

Step 2: 

You got the dried fish right? Next step is to heat up the oil in your pan over medium-low heat. (We just used the leftover oil from when we fried some eggs so yeah, it didn't have an effect on the taste afterwards but I recommend using new oil when you pan-fry the dried fish.) Take precautions when heating up the oil in the pan since it concerns fire and stuff.

Step 3:

    Once the oil is heated up, well, put the dried fish into the pan. (Image quality is horrendous, because I was using the 4x zoom on the camera since I was scared of getting near hot, popping oil) Seriously, you have to be careful with this, even a drop of hot oil that gets to your skin hurts a lot.

Step 4:

You should make sure to flip the dried fish so that each side is cooked evenly, you wouldn't want one side to be golden brown and the other side looking kind of, uncooked. After a few minutes or so, the fish should have shade of golden brown, or just brown which means it's cooked. (I'll just give a little warning again. When handling it just be careful of the oil and fire since it can get dangerous.)

Step 5:

Once it's all done, let the excess oil drip back into the pan before moving the fish to the plate with paper towels. The paper towel will absorb any leftover oil so your fish stays crispy. Gently pat the fish without breaking it using another piece of paper towel. (If you don't do this step, the fish skin can get a bit soggy since it has a lot of excess oil.) 

Well, it's finished. You can eat the fish on its own or serve it with sides like diced onions, tomatoes, and garlic. You could also use sauce such as some spicy vinegar to enhance its flavors. I prefer to eat it on its own or with some rice to make the meal more filling.

 There are a lot of ways to serve this dish, it just takes a little bit of creativity. (The outcome was pretty mundane, at least visually. Since we didn't have much to go around in the refrigerator. It still tasted pretty good so I'd say it's a success.)

Till next time!