A special dish for Lent

I HAVE not cooked or eaten Sinigang sa Bayabas for a long, long time because native pink guavas are extremely difficult to find. This popular dish in Laguna is close to my heart that my first article for Kitchen Stories back in November 2003 was the “Guava Pink Memories” of my childhood.

My travel schedule to pledge allegiance to Uncle Sam once again, which fell within the Lenten Season this March, has brought me back to San Diego to visit my mother, whom we fondly call “Nanay.” To my pleasant surprise, welcoming me in my sister Enchay’s yard was a guava tree laden with ripe yellow fruits as big as ping-pong balls, similar to our native variety. Nanay proudly related how she nurtured this tree from a tiny guava plant that was plucked and thrown away by their Vietnamese neighbor. For quite sometime now, my sisters have ignored the fruits. But, lo and behold, seeing the fruits,

I immediately conjured a delicious guava dish—“Sinigang sa Bayabas na Kandule (white catfish).”

The next market day, my sisters Enchay and Ana drove to their favorite Vietnamese supermarket where a bounty of live and fresh fish, seafood, meats and fresh produce is always available. We had in mind the white catfish, locally farmed in California. “Kandule,” we call it in Laguna, a fish that abounds in Laguna de Bay. My grandparents (the Arambulos) hail from Sta. Rosa, Laguna where I was actually born. And so “Sinigang sa Bayabas na Kandule” is one of the family favorites we grew up with. Enchay chose a big white catfish and had it cleaned. The plump fish cost $5.00, which I found very reasonably priced. The two bunches of “kangkong” or swamp cabbage cost more at $6.00 ($2.99 per bunch).

We picked the ripe guavas from the tree with excitement as soon as we got home. I also harvested half a dozen fruits from Enchay’s lemon tree, which I will use to enhance the sour taste of the soup. I selected 15 ripe guavas, peeled, halved and placed them in a pot with enough water to cover the fruits to boil. I carefully removed the seeds from the pulp and continued boiling until the guavas were soft. I blended the softened guavas to extract the flavor and give the soup a smooth consistency. Then I added juice of 2 medium lemons and a few tablespoons of white sugar to achieve the sweet-and-sour (in Tagalog, we say, “nag-aagaw and tamis at asim”) taste. The cut-up fish was simmered with three pieces of jalapeno for 15 to 20 minutes. Enchay added a bit of salt and a dash of accent (umami). The “kangkong” was added last as soon as the fish was done. Fish sauce (patis) with crushed chilis is an nice accompaniment for this dish.

While enjoying our delicious “Sinigang na Kandule sa Bayabas”, we could not help but wax nostalgic. We looked back on our childhood when we climbed the guava tree in our garden. With the Holy Week around the corner, Enchay was confident that her prolific guava tree would have more ripe fruits for another dish on Good Friday. We can either buy salmon fish or milkfish for our next cooking session.