Tita Lydia’s Trout Sisig

TROUT SISIG

My love for food and my now love for cooking is heavily influenced by my family. You can say that I grew up surrounded by foodies — my parents, grand parents, aunts and uncles and even their friends were always talking about food, where to get the best food and some of them were also excellent cooks. Within my family, my grandmother or Lola was the queen. She grew up in the seaside town of Malabon in the Philippines and had an excellent palate that also came through her cooking. We judge all Filipino food by her gold standard. When she passed away quite a few years ago, Tita Lydia (her daughter and my aunt), carried her legacy but her years of living in the US and also her deep interest in cooking further refined my Lola’s dishes. She refined based on ingredients that are available, always prioritizing quality and what is local. She also loved all food so she applied cooking techniques she learned from other cultures that elevated the dishes from their humble home cooking roots. She taught people how to cook from her home studio and to get an invite to her lunches or dinners is a coveted opportunity because she is a consummate entertainer.

Over the last few months, I’ve spent some time with Tita Lydia to start to pull together our family recipes and also the recipes that she is well known for so we can start to document this for ourselves and also for the next generation of our family. I’ve visited her twice in the Bay Area and we’ve cooked together, shared stories and documented close to 30 recipes for her website that we are still building. This Trout Sisig recipe is one that Tita Lydia shared with me and I was amazed how easy it is to make. Sisig is traditionally made with pork and offal but the fish version has also started to gain interest as a slightly healthier version.

Fish dishes often intimidate me because cooking seafood is not as forgiving as cooking meat. However, this particular recipe is one that I found to be one that I know I can easily make especially when entertaining because it is so simple but so good and also looks quite impressive. I’ve made it twice. Once at home for my partner and myself and also for Luna’s birthday lunch for the first time for friends.

The most important part is really acquiring the fish. It requires fresh whole trout. depending on the size of the trout the meat can vary from white to pink. For this recipe, smaller trout is preferred (around 1 to 1.5 lbs) and for this size, the meat is white. Traditionally, milkfish or bangus is used. In the PNW, it’s quite easy to find this in your local market. When you purchase your fish, you can have it cleaned, butterflied and deboned making it ready for use at home with your fishmonger doing all the work. The rest, you will find, is quite simple.

I hope you enjoy this recipe and if you are Filipino (and a practicing Catholic), it’s perfect for Good Friday. That’s a bonus and not a requirement for making this dish. 😂

❤️Tricia