Paksiw

(Fish dish cooked in vinegar and ginger root)

Paksiw na isda (fish) is one of my favorite dishes when I was growing up and it still is.  It is just sad that I can’t get the same fish that I liked for it except bangus (milkfish) for this dish to cook here. In the Philippines, my favorite fish for paksiw was hasa-hasa. I have not found them here even frozen. There is a fish that looks like it called Indian Mackerel but it is not the same at all. The smaller the fish, the better as long as they are fresh but here in the Gulf the variety of fish we catch in the bay is limited. Maybe someday….

Paksiw or pinaksiw is a dish, usually fish that is cooked in vinegar, ginger root and green chilies. Plain paksiw is just plain vinegar and water but there is a variant that is cooked in coconut milk. Instead of adding water to the vinegar, coconut milk is used. It gives a delicate sweetness to it.

I just love paksiw since I was growing up so I often cook it and I like eating it for breakfast with garlic fried rice and pico de gallo (chopped tomatoes, onion and cilantro) and of course, patis. I don’t have to share it with anybody because I’m the only one who eats it in my household. How lucky!

My husband and I love to fish.  When we go fishing, I gear up to catch croakers, whiting and even piggy perches while the men gear up to catch the big ones like reds, trout and flounder.  They laugh at me because they consider those small fishes trash fish and they toss them back when they catch them but I keep them.  I have out-fished them before and have caught bigger fish than they, even offshore, so I didn’t care if they laughed.

---

I noticed some people cook paksiw with garlic from recipes I read online. Some also add onions with the garlic. My family did not add garlic in the paksiw so that is how I liked it and how I cook it. Our housekeeper who cooked our meals when I was growing up was from Tacloban in the Visayas. One time she added garlic in the paksiw because that’s how they cooked paksiw where she was from. We did not like the paksiw she made so she never added garlic from then on. I suppose paksiw na isda is cooked as many ways as many regions there are in the country where I come from. However, paksiw is paksiw and I like it in any way it is cooked but I prefer it with just ginger root with no garlic but always with some green peppers.

---

---

The recommended fishes available here are:

Bangus or milkfish (from the Asian market or fish market), bay fishes like croakers, whiting, piggy perch, sand trout or any kind of perches (self-caught in the bay), or even catfish fillets or nuggets bought from the grocery store.

Gut and gill the fish, or just chop the head off but leave the scales.  Small fishes are cooked whole but cut the milkfish about 1 ½” thick, sort of angled.  But with milkfish, make sure you carefully save the head and belly because that is the best part.  Most Filipinos will tell you that the best part of milkfish is the head and the belly with its fat so make sure you don’t discard it.  We fight over that part of the fish so they started to package and sell just the bangus belly. You may need a cleaver and a hammer or a rock to hit the knife with to cut through the bones when you cut it.  And it helps if the fish is still a little frozen when you do it.

For those who are not familiar with milkfish (Bangus), it has soft bones all over the flesh that are branched.  They are soft but can still embed in your throat or get stuck across your throat if you are not careful.  Pick the bones out as you eat them.  The bones are most dense in the tail area.

If you are using catfish fillets, just put the pieces in the pot. Catfish nuggets sold in packages at the grocery stores are good for Paksiw because they are the fatty parts of the fish or the belly and they have soft texture that they almost melt in your mouth with a good, subtle flavor.

Paksiw in coconut milk is cooked the same as the above recipe but use coconut milk instead of water. You can use a whole can of coconut milk. It’s up to you.

Paksiw is always eaten with rice and the best compliment with it is diced fresh tomatoes, diced or minced onion and cilantro like Pico de Gallo.  Pour a little patis in it and crush a pepper with it. 

Use non-reactive pot when cooking with vinegar. Stainless steel is non-reactive and so is Pyrex glass. Cast irons are okay but it may react with vinegar which may not be toxic but may alter the flavor. What to avoid is unlined aluminum pot. Aluminum reacts with acids that may have an unsafe result healthwise.