Lunch time: Boneless Bangus Steak

Though I love daing na bangus (pickled/marinated milkfish), sometimes, I just get bored with it. and that sometimes is now.

It is really a challenge for me to spend time taking out all the fishbones, especially the little ones! Hay! Katamad! If only I can have someone do it for me! Haha!

Thank goodness for the person who thought of filleting/deboning fishes. You are a master!

I was staring at my deboned milk fish, and asking myself if I should start marinating. Then I thought maybe I should do something else with it. Then came a flashback of my childhood:

When I was a kid, our household serves a nice and simple bangus steak: just fried bangus and we eat it with sauteed onions in a mix of soy sauce and water. Oh, how we loved it! Especially the belly, bursting with oil! :D

So I decided to make bangus steak for lunch, with a few enhancements. Making the sauce really thick, that of a bistek tagalog sauce (beef steak). I think this pretty much makes the meal more delicious, as opposed to having your sauce malabnaw (sauce that is not thick, like it has more water than any of its other ingredients!) Ah, ehem, can some genius please tell me what malabnaw is in English? Thank you in advance! :)

The bangus parts were rubbed with some salt and pepper and were fried until golden brown and were set aside. For this dish, I fried a medium sized boneles bangus courtesy.


For the topping and thick sauce:

2 medium sized white onions, cut into rings
about 2 to 3 tbsp STAR MARGARINE garlic flavor
about half a cup of soy sauce
calamansi juice (about 6 to 8 calamansis, I think!)
4 tbsp brown sugar (or more if you like it sweeter)
Pepper to taste
about 1 tsp of conrstarch diluted in about 1/4 cup of water

The Way:

sauté the onions using the margarine as your oil, until the onions become a little soft, but not translucent and wilted. Otherwise the ring effect will disappear! I like using STAR MARGARINE garlic flavor. Set aside.

In the same pan, put the soy sauce, calamansi juice, sugar, pepper, let it simmer then add the cornstarch and water mixture to thicken the sauce. simmer again until you see that the sauce becomes thick enough but not becoming pasty like.

The What Ifs:
Do the taste test.

If too thick, add a bit of water. If too salty, add a bit of water and/or calamansi. If it's too sweet or too sour, or if it needs more salt, just add a few pinches of salt or a little soy sauce. If the sauce is still not thick enough, add a little more of the conrstarch and water mixture.

I guess it's up to you, your taste buds and your cooking instincts ;)

Pour over the sauce onto the fried boneless bangus, and top it with the onion rings.

Serve with warm white rice and COKE. (O, diet!)

Let's save time and effort! Let's go boneless! :)


PS: I also cook my sinigang na bangus sa miso using boneless bangus! Hubby also does not like taking off fishbones and he loves sinigang na bangus! It's worth a try! ;)