Bunog, The Ilocano Fish Favorite

Bunog fish and the dishes include paksiw and fried.

Bunog is a kind of freshwater fish commonly found in the shallow parts of river, lakes and ponds.

The fish usually grow up to around 4 inches when maturity but can be harvested when it reaches 1 inch or more. The fish also have tiny fish scales but it’s fleshy specially the upper body. The stomach part becomes bulky and that’s because of eggs in it. That would be the best part to it.

There are many recipes for bunog but Ilocanos usually cooked this as pinaksiw or cook in vinegar with onions, pepper, salt, ginger. This is common recipe because it’s a fast cook dish. Folks love this goby fish because of the roe that makes the tummy bulker. When cooked as pinaksiw, the roe make it so tasteful that they choose the tummy part to eat.

How To Make Ata-Ata Dish

ATA-ATA dish

Ata-ata is an Ilocano food made from very lean meat of either cow or carabao. For common Ilocano meat eaters this is first class meat dish especially when added with the so called "papait".

The meat is thoroughly cleaned and is cut into desired sizes, sometimes is smaller cube sizes. Yes sir the meat will not be cook but just let the vinegar or calamansi to sterilize and mint the meat.

Add some ingredients like chopped white onions, pepper, ginger and other seasoning that you want to add.

Papait is signature to Ilocano ata-ata dish because of the bitter-sweet taste of the meat.

Of course, though considered to a good food in every meal but the best serving of ata-ata is with favorite wine or beer.