Pesa: The sauce makes it special
“A special sauce? Don’t we just have patis with pesa?” my cousin Beng asked.
Patis if it’s served in a hurry but if not, it needs to have the tiltilan that goes with a proper pesa was the answer she got from the members of our clan’s Kitchen Cabinet.
To be honest it is only recently that I have rediscovered the paniltilan but yes, I distinctly remember my grandmother served pesa with a red sauce on the side. This sauce was so fragrant and tasty, it could very well have been the only thing served.
But with all things tasty, let’s start from the top. What is pesa? Perhaps to Capampangans along and near the coastlines, pesa can only be fish, be it bulig, bangus, lapu-lapu or whatever. To others, it has further evolved to include other meats, chicken most especially. This is by no means a nuance in dialects but as a matter of fact, historical.
Those of us near the coastlines – such as in Guagua and its environs – have had a long history of living with Chinese traders. In her article Culture Ingested: Notes on the Indigenization of Philippine Food, Doreen Fernandez cites Gloria Chan-Yap saying pesa comes from Hokkien which means “plain boiled” and it is used only in reference to the cooking of fish, the complete term in Hokkien being peq + sa + hi, the last morpheme meaning “fish”.
The dish has long become indigenised and is enjoyed in many regions of the country with slight variations between towns. To many of us, it evokes warm feelings especially since in its simplest form, it is one of the traditional dishes served to convalescing children and adults. It also makes up the quiet meal enjoyed with friends and family.
The sauce, with the use of tauri (although some use miso or tausi) also confirms its Chinese origin. The use of tomatoes and the guisado-style of cooking however prove that it has been totally indigenised.
Below is the simplest method of cooking pesa and the tauri-based sauce.
Pesang Bulig / Bangus
1 large bulig (dalag/mudfish), sliced into two-inch pieces
1 small ginger root, approx. 2 inches in length
1 head of pechay pusu (bok choy), with the core sliced off
2 medium potatoes, peeled and quarted
½ cup uncooked rice, washed
3-4 cups water
salt, to taste
1½ tbsp. lard or cooking oil
For the tiltilan (sauce)
1 head of garlic, finely crushed
5 large tomatoes, diced
1 cake tauri, mashed then strained
½-1 cup water
1 tsp. cooking oil
Heat oil in a cuali or deep pan. Add ginger and fry till light golden brown. Place the fish in the pan and a little salt then lightly fry till both sides are sealed. Pour in a cup of water then add the potatoes. When the stock is simmering, take out the fish. Add the rice and cook the potatoes to desired softness. Drop in the pechay pusu. Adjust the saltiness of the soup, simmer then return the fish before turning off the heat and covering. Let stand for around five minutes before serving.
For the accompanying sauce, heat cooking oil in a saucepan and fry garlic till golden brown. Add the tomatoes, crush with the cooking spoon and let them simmer till soft. Pour in a little water, just enough to keep the tomatoes from sticking to the pan. Pour in the strained tauri and let the mixture simmer. Add the rest of water and let it simmer again. Stir to fully blend the flavours.
This looks wonderful Karen. It reminds me of a a similar fish soup my mother made, although I’m not sure if it’s called the same thing. I don’t think I’ve ever had tiltilan though, but that looks like it’s packed with flavor.
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This is exactly how we had pesa! My grandmother painstakingly made the sauce and I dreaded and looked forward to its’ pungent smell and the grainy texture in my mouth. I haven’t had this in ages and this post brings me back to my childhood when my Lola would cook food that tasted like no one else’s.
It’s 4pm here, I haven’t had lunch yet and your post has made me terribly hungry!!! :chickenrun:
I live here in CA and couldn’t find any dalag. The pesa that my mom used to cook didn’t have rice in it. And it would always be dalag with cabbage as the veggie. Anyway, we always had the tiltilan. I wouldn’t eat pesa without it. It just didn’t taste good without it. Couldn’t cook the tiltilan here, too coz I can’t find any tauri.
This is the real “pesa,” the way I remember it. My grandmom used to cook pesa this way. Thanks for bringing back memories from my childhood.
I’ve had a similar version of this “pesa” years ago back in Brunei prior to my blogging days when a Kapampangan friend would cook it for me during weekends. I have recently made my comeback to the kitchen after a year of staying away from the the stove and cooked “pesa” based on your recipe but using maya-maya. It was a “PANALO!” dish that earned two thumbs up from our board of directors! They were not able to figure out what the sauce was made of until I told them. Tee hee! I shall have an entry of this in my blog soon . . .
Indeed, it is the SAUCE that makes it special! Yum! Pwede pang ulam on its own! :hungry:
Reminds me of pesang lapu-lapu at Maricopa Restaurant in Valenzuela. What is the best substitute for tauri? Is this here in US/
i kinda didnt get how you mash and strain the tausi? do you mash then in a strainer you run water through it? sorry, i really wanted to cook this. . . hope you can help out. . .
Sorry guys! Tiltilan just means dipping sauce or condiment in Capampangan. As in ‘vinegar was my tiltilan for the fish’ or ‘patis served as my tiltilan for the sigang’. Will edit.
If tauri (tahure or salted bean cake) can’t be found, substitute tofu and salted black beans (tausi). Just be sure to check for saltiness.
Hi Wil-b! You just push the tahure through the strainer. Don’t run it through the faucet. Add a few tablespoons of water now to help break up the tahure or tofu.
i love to try this!
“tiltilan” like to “dildil” - I only have a vague memory of the word and am not sure it’s a real word used in Tagalog, but boy this is really interesting. The tiltilan reminds me of the fish tahure, minus the fish my mom would make before diabetes and arthritis. Pesang Dalag was a favorite of my grandmother (probably learned from her Capampangan mother-in-law) and I do remember her having it cooked with rice but just boiling it all together…I didn’t like it much until I got older because it was somehow always cooked when someone was sick. Thank you for the recipe, I’ll give it a try and surprise my Ma!
ihave not tried this dish yet… wala din ako friends sa athens from pampanga… one day.. di ba
Hahaha! knew right away when you used the word “tiltilan” that you are a “mekeni”. How are you kabalen?
I wish I can cook this recipe! I just don’t think the broth will be the same if I use frozen fish. Live fish here in the US is almost a luxury with triple the price per pound!
I guess I need to wait until I my next trip to Tarlac in a few months!
karen, do you have a recipe for tahure? long ago dh’s mom gave me her recipe, but now i can’t find it, and she’s not exactly in a condition anymore to talk on the phone and give out recipes. darn. no one in the family seems to have kept it. i am craving me some pesa.