Summertime in the Philippines is hot and humid. The heat can be oppressive and renders one lethargic. March is just the start of summer but it already feels like an oven in here! Even the normally hyperactive cats are asleep all day, waking up to drink every few minutes. I am tempted to follow their example.
The onset of summer means light and quick meals. Why stay in front of a hot stove for long periods when cool and refreshing food can be prepared from the produce straight out of the garden or refrigerator mainstays? This month’s Is My Blog Burning? with the theme Make it in 30 minutes! is wonderfully synchronised with my summer cooking or semi-cooking, if you will.
This dish may seem like a salad but it is more than that. In the Philippines, anything savoury can be eaten with rice to make up a meal. This alamang and camias salad is then considered as a viand.
Alamang (Acetes sibogae) are tiny marine shrimps sold fresh in marketplaces. They are made into fish sauce (patis or kesiap), salted and made into paste (baguc or bagoong), battered and fried like burgers or simply boiled and eaten with vegetables.
For as long as I can remember, my mother would buy alamang, boil them and store them in the freezer, much like how there should always be cans of sardines and tuna in the pantry for emergency situations. We also have a camias tree (Averrhoa bilimbi) in the backyard which has fruits almost all year round with summer as the peak season. Salted shrimp paste is also made from alamang but the process of fermentation gives it a different flavour. We always have a bottle of baguc/bagoong bought fresh then sautéed in garlic but grocery stores now sell it bottled, cooked and ready-to-eat.
A simple dish with just three ingredients – alamang, camias, with a teaspoon of baguc – I’ve always associated this with summer meals. We either have it as part of a more elaborate spread or on its own when wanting to refresh the palate with something simple.
The version on this page is a recipe one of our neighbours gave me when she learnt of my quest to document our town’s everyday food, a.k.a. peasant cuisine. She said this is a usual accompaniment prepared for drinking sessions, the crushed chicharon’s fat slowing down the alcohol’s effects.
I don’t drink but hey, this is perfect for lunch or dinner! Easy, fast and most of all, tasty!
Alamang & Camias
1/2 cup boiled alamang
6 large camias, cold if possible
1 teaspoon cooked baguc (bagoong, salted shrimp paste)
5 pieces chicharon (pork cracklings)
- Thinly slice camias cross-wise. (3 minutes)
- Place the sliced camias in a bowl and mash lightly with fingers to soften. (3 minutes)
- Arrange it to form a bed then layer the alamang on top. (2 minutes)
- Drizzle the baguc over the mixture. (30 seconds, a minute for slowpokes like I sometimes am)
- With a rolling pin or on a mortar and pestle, crush the chicharon. (2 minutes)
- Sprinkle the chicharon over the mixture. (30 seconds)
- Serve and toss/mix together before eating. (1 minute)
Total time: 12 minutes
This is of course eaten with steamed rice, the timing of which I did not include because in Filipino homes, there is almost always rice over the stove or in a rice cooker. If I factor in the cooking time for rice (good for 1-2 persons), it only takes 10 minutes on a rice cooker or 15 on a stovetop.
Total time: 22-27 minutes
But just to complicate things more, what if my alamang were not yet cooked and I still had to boil them? To finish the challenge I’d need a stove with at least two burners (or my grandmother’s two clay wood-burning stoves) or one stove and one rice cooker.
Procedure:
- Wash and cook rice.
- While the rice is cooking, rinse and boil the alamang. (steps 1 & 2 simultaneously, 10-15 minutes)
- Prepare the salad. (12 minutes)
Total time: 22-27 minutes
Challenge met with enough time to shoo away the kitties who woke up after smelling the shrimps!
Thank you Barrett, for hosting this month’s IMBB! Why isn’t there an Iron Chef Philippines?
Tagged with: IMBB24 + 30Minutes
Can I reminisce?……
I LOVE Kamias in Sinigang. Isnt it that when the Kamias is tender, we smash it with the back of a fork to make the sinigang broth sour? Well we leave a couple of them whole, fish them out of the pot when its time to eat. Smash it with our sawsawang Patis!!!!
My Tita Karen’s Pangat……
And we use this also in Palabok. As a topping, we slice this thin. So when you eat the palabok, instead of Kalamansi, you taste this crunchy sour heaven that contrast with the saltiness of the palabok. Oh my Gooseness!!!!
Makes me want to buy a plane ticket.
What I have here in California are frozen. Its not as good….
Torture! Torture!!!!!. Pero thank you sa pictures…
oh yeah..kamias in sinigang..pero yung buro ko ha..hehehe…nyam!
yeah, like penelope, we use sliced kamias for our palabok…i like this simple dish though…i’d push it a little bit further by adding wansoy, peanuts and thai bird chilis…will try it when i go home this april…
:hungry: tinulu qu wawa kaluwat qu nang e atakman ini sana queng magbakasyun ku aqua kung agawang magpakasawa keep up the good work your helping me a lot with recipes I am very forgetfull now…miss you … take care…:blooms:
those were the days. early morninf and dusk. you could see a woman with a bayong on her head shouting; hiiiiiiiipoooooon.
Omigod, I love kamias raw with salt! I haven’t had it in years! And I like crab so this is an interesting pairing! I just saw some kamias drying by the roadside last weekend in Batangas…any idea what is done with the dried version?
Of course! Sigang camias is perfect during the summer. And over palabok too. Gosh, why do I feel the urge to go to the kitchen right now? :hungry:
Opo Cecilia, hehehe! How many bottles? :blooms:
Ay Koyang Wi, as usual, you and your ‘pushing further’ hahaha! Make sure you call me to come over when you have it in Sta. Rita, ne?
Ate My!!! Do you remember the sweet camias we used to pick from your backyard? Miss you too! Kisses to cutie Ikey!
Angelo, believe it or not there are still sellers like that nowadays, even in Quezon City!
MM, the fruits drying on the roadside may be meant for candies or jams. Interesting though, I’ve never seen any candied camias for sale, unlike how we have sampaloc in almost all sari-sari stores nationwide. Hmmm…
tuloy laway ko nito karin! prang gusto ko ulet mag lihi,hehe
bru, tulo-laway ko dito ah. i miss our kamias tree:( — it was my jungle gym and my own personal therapy (i’d climb it to get to the roof and stay there when i was in one of my “moods”).
we have a cousin to this dish in the tagalog region but made with shrimp that’s a wee bit larger than the ones used for bagoong. i can’t remember what it’s called. it’s also not a salad, the kamias is cooked down to a sour mush with the shrimp. minsan may chilies din, mala-bicol express ang dating. but i’m not sure if that touch is still Tagalog.
:tomato: Ahahay – KAMIAS! Our tree out front won’t stop bearing fruit and we now have too many kamias for comfort! Thanks for sharing the recipe, Karen; if I have to eat kamias as sinigang one more time, I am going to scream!
we had camias in the backyard too back in Bataan.
this blog makes me so homesick.:frog:
now all we have is Mama Sita’s sinigang sa kamyas mix
i remember drying kamias myself as a kid. mom use dried kamias for sinaing na tulingan and a lot of pangat dishes. she is batanguena of course. hope this helps….
allo karenkeng:blooms: gawa ka rin ng kamias shake :fruitdrink:
you’re torturing me! :chickenrun:
torturer!:chilipepper:
OMG, napatulo ang laway ko :lemon: yummy! I miss these sour/salty combinations.
Alamang and camias – oh lala, please send over some
wow, looks yummy…any restaurant serving this? i want to try!
please give me an information about the large plantation of camias tree in the philippines specifically in Region 4a. tnx poh.
wow tsalap tsalap! Please give me some information on the usage of kamias fruit because presently we have ample of fruits and that I don’t know how to store for future use. Thank and and have a good day.