Know Filipino Food: Tinolang Isda (Fish in Ginger Broth)

We bought fresh fish again from the fishermen neighbors. This time it's a big fish called Dorado or dolphinfish. I was not able to take a picture of the whole fish because the fishermen already sliced it. We brought it home and put it inside the freezer because we were not sure how we want to cook it.

Later in the afternoon, the wind was cold so we decided we will make a soup or broth and we thought about the fish. My aunt suggested we make tinolang isda. Tinola is the dish, the word isda means fish. Tinola is a very common dish here in the Philippines, it's as common as frying. Chicken and fish can be cooked as tinola.

Tinola is simmering the fish on a ginger and herb broth. What you need is water, salt, ginger, tomato, onion, lemongrass, sometimes we use turmeric leaf, too. The idea is to use aromatic herbs so that the fishy smell will be gone when it is cooked. You can also add green leafy veggies, in our case, we are using sweet potato leaves for this dish. You can also add slices of unripe papaya. Other days, we add pepper leaves which also has a good smell to it. We can also add peppers to make it spicy and other ingredients to make it a bit sour.

Today, we are doing something minimalistic, because we did not plan to cook it as tinola. My aunt just decided to have broth that's why we just did it with whatever we can grab in the kitchen and the backyard.