Featured Product This Week: Daing (Dried Fish)

The perfect Filipino breakfast with tuyo. Photo from pictastar.com

Daing (or Tuyô or Bilad) is a generic term for a variety of marinated or salted sun-dried fish that are often produced in the countryside, especially in coastal regions of the Philippines. Sun-drying is the traditional and cheapest method of preserving perishable food like fruits, meats, and seafood. Ancestors of coastal communities had to find a way to preserve excess fish harvest which will sustain them throughout low-catch seasons and during typhoons. Until today, most coastal towns around the archipelago are too far from the dense population centers to be serviced with reliable electrical connections.

Since the Philippines has a thriving salt-making industry because of its tropical maritime climate, Filipino fishermen just dehydrate or desiccate the fish by splitting it open and curing the meat with dry edible salt to inhibit bacteria. Under sweltering summer heat, the fish are carefully laid side by side in shallow woven bamboo baskets to be baked under the sun on the rooftop or along small roads. On the other hand, daing also refers to the preservation technique of pickling or marinating fish fillet in a mixture of vinegar, soy sauce, and calamansi. Any average Filipino household with or without a refrigerator turns to this method for a savory and tangy flavor that permeates the meat before frying. A popular example is marinated milkfish (daing na bangus) which is best served with rice, fried egg, papaya relish (atsara), and a dipping sauce made by combining soy sauce, vinegar, and red chili peppers.

Daing is considered every Filipino’s comfort food of choice though some may call it, somewhat derisively, the Filipino poverty food. Dried fish is so cheap that a Filipino family earning less than 100 pesos a day (about 2 USD) can buy a kilo of rice and several pieces of tuyo (salted dried herring). But daing is the great equalizer: the rich and the poor equally get excited by the smell of daing being cooked in oil, something that Americans may find strikingly unpleasant. Filipinos of any social status salivate once they catch a whiff of the fishy odor—heck, they get their high from the aroma as they imagine the crispy, salted exterior between their teeth. Daing is more than its popular image of a cheap subsistence that gets Filipinos through disasters and crises. Upscale restaurants in Manila now offer surprisingly delicious pasta dishes with Spanish-style tuyo sardines. Some even introduced gourmet pizza with tuyo flakes melted into the dough instead of the usual pepperoni and beef. As you can imagine, it tastes more controversial than pineapple on pizza.

Tangy and zesty tuyo pasta recipe. Photo from Yummy PH.

Daing is the poster boy of the perfect Filipino breakfast that rivals the full English breakfast. The more popular tuyo is deep-fried to golden yellow perfection and traditionally served with fresh sliced tomatoes, fried egg or scrambled egg, salted duck egg, longganisa (Filipino sausage), and sinamak (spiced vinegar) to tame the saltiness. This is exactly what Filipino immigrants in the US miss about the Philippines: they can just go to the town’s wet market and buy dried fish in bulk. They miss the comfort that daing brings to one’s heart and soul when paired with steamed rice or champorado (chocolate rice porridge) on a rainy day. For Filipino-Americans who grew up in the US, daing introduces them to the Filipino culture and makes them feel at one with their native compatriots in the homeland.

Champorado with tuyo for rainy days. Photo from casabaluartefilipinorecipes.com.

Daing na galunggong for lunch. Photo from casabaluartefilipinorecipes.com.

My Tindahan brings to the stateside the taste of home. Your Filipino grocery store in Louisville, Kentucky now delivers a vast variety of daing right to your doorstep. The dried goods section offers daing na bisugo (threadfin/whiptail bream), daing na hasa-hasa (short mackerel) daing na sap-sap (pony fish), daing na danggit (rabbitfish), daing na pusit (squid), daing na galunggong (mackerel scad), and daing na tunsoy (herring). When you buy dried fish from My Tindahan, you are guaranteed with a fresh Filipino product, sealed in airtight bags, and frozen to keep it fresh until it reaches your kitchen.

If you happen to visit Louisville, come hang out with the Filipino community and enjoy the contemporary Filipino ambiance as you share your fondest memories of Filipino food. Our grocery store is fully sanitized and follows health safety protocols. My Tindahan is located at Witten Center in 2240 Taylorsville Road. Shop with us and we will gladly assist you!