Tuyo (Filipino Dried Herring)

[cheesemaestro]

On a whim, I picked up a jar of this in a Filipino grocery that recently opened in my area. (I'm a sucker for Asian fish products.) Any ideas for what to make with it?

[JungMann]

Tuyo is extremely salty. It needs copious amounts of rice and/or acid to balance the flavors. At its simplest, you can fry tuyo and serve it hot with either steamed or garlic fried rice and eggs. On the side you would have chili vinegar (mine incorporates Thai chilies, garlic, ginger and black pepper) to season the fish to taste. You can also fry rice with flaked tuyo and garlic.

More daring Filipinos like the salty and sweet combination of crispy fried tuyo with champurrado (chocolate sticky rice porridge). I prefer the combination of salty and sour, so I'd be more inclined to fry tuyo until crisp and serve it with a bracing tomato salad with Sriracha and basil. However you choose to cook tuyo, be sure you are in a well-ventilated kitchen! Where I live, an order of nuns sued a Filipina resident calling the scent of her fried tuyo "potentially dangerous to life and health."

While I typically avoid tuyo, I wonder if one might be able to use it like bacalau after soaking.

[cheesemaestro]

Thanks very much--I think. A smell potentially dangerous to life and health? Uh oh. Maybe I'd better wait a few months until it gets warmer here, so I can open all my windows--with appropriate warning to my neighbors!

Is it standard practice to soak and rinse tuyo first to reduce the saltiness, the same way one would with anchovies packed in salt?

[JungMann]

That soaking method is what I was getting at with my reference to bacalau. Tuyo is usually fried plainly, but perhaps a soak could draw out some of the salinity making the fish palatable in milder dishes like a pasta as well as perhaps mitigate some of the smell.

I should mention that tuyo preserved in oil is a different beast than dried herring. The texture is different and not quite as pungent (or flavorful) as dried.