Buro Guisado with Crispy Hito

Ingredients:

Burong Isda:
2 ½ cups uncooked rice
4 cups water
10 pieces gurami/ tilapia (white meat fish)
2 tablespoons rock/ sea salt for fish
1/3 cup rock/sea salt for rice
1/8 cup rock/ sea salt for assembling/ layering
Note: glass jar/ container that can be tightly sealed for storing and fermenting fish. Use gloves when building/ making the buro or use kitchen ware instead of holding raw ingredients by hand.

Guisadong Buro:
2 tablespoons cooking oil
4 cups burong isda
1/8 cup garlic, peeled and chopped
1/8 cup red onions, peeled and chopped
1/8 cup ginger, peeled, chopped and roughly pounded
1/2 cup tomatoes, deseeded and sliced into wedges
2 tablespoons siling haba/ siling pang sigang, sliced diagonally
¼ cup water (check, if you need more water)

Other Ingredients:
2 pieces hito, cleaned well, butterflied, and seasoned with calamansi, salt, and pepper, and paprika
1 cup cornstarch
cooking oil for deep frying
2 bundles fresh mustasa leaves
2 pieces fresh tomatoes sliced in wedges

Procedure:

Burong Isda:
1. Fillet fish and clean properly and thoroughly, making sure that there is no blood left on fish.
2. Season fish fillets with 2 tbsp of rock salt and set aside in chiller.
3. Wash uncooked rice and pour 4 cups of water and boil to cook.
4. While waiting for the rice to cook, clean jar/ container by pouring boiling water in the jar to sterilize. Pour out water and then place jar in oven at 80 degrees Celsius to air dry bottle. Once dried out set aside for use.
5. Take the cooked rice out of the pot/ rice cooker and then mix in the ½ cup of rock/ sea salt.
6. Take the fish out of the chiller and using kitchen towels, pat each fillet dry.
7. For assembling/ layering, start by spooning in a bottom layer of rice in the sterilized bottle, and then placing a layer of fish fillet on top of the rice, and then sprinkling rock salt on top. Repeat the layers, ending with a top layer of rice.
8. Tightly seal bottle with cap (you can also cover the bottle opening first with cling wrap before screwing in the bottle lid cover for a tighter seal.) Cover the entire bottle in plastic and place in cabinet.
9. Ferment for 2 weeks. Advisable to check and mix fermenting rice at the end of each week.

Guisadong Buro:
1. In a saute pan, heat cooking oil in medium heat and then saute garlic, onions, ginger, tomatoes, and siling haba.
2. Once all spices are soft, add in about 4 cups of buro and saute for about 30 – 45 minutes, adding water little by little and stirring constantly until buro is well cooked. Once cooked set aside.

Fish:
1. Heat oil for deep frying and drop butterflied hito one at a time, deep frying each for about 10 – 12 minutes or until golden brown and crispy.
2. Clean mustasa leaves and prep tomatoes. Plate the fish, the buro and fresh vegetables and serve.