I find the time to buy fresh Dilis yesterday afternoon at Farmers Market. Got 2 kilos of fresh Dilis at P 120 / kilo.
At home I watched how our maids did the kilaw. First they tediously gutted the Dilis fish one by one. They had to take off the heads and the stomachs because they said these were bitter. Then roll the Dilis in Lola Conching’s organic coconut vinegar (all coconuts are organic in the Philippines) to remove the lansa or fishy slimy smell, taste and feel. I tasted the vinegar cleaned raw fish, yummy. Then put chopped onions and chopped luya / ginger in it. Then squeezed more than a dozen calamansi on it. Then chopped some fresh sili in it.
All done, ready to serve. I think we put too much sili for the children. Only my 2nd son, the 4 year old was man enough to eat it with that much sili. He did so with water beside his plate. Manang Maring our cook was absent yesterday. Seems we don’t know here secret for her Kinilaw to be child friendly like she did the other night.
I enjoyed it. I loved that much sili.