Seafood Bopis

I still do eat meat once in a rare while, but I absolutely no longer eat "lamang loob" or organs. I mean things like lungs, hearts, gizzards, intestines, livers, and the like.

Since "BOPIS" is primarily made of pig's lungs, I've pretty much resigned myself to not being able to eat it ever again.

That is until I made my "Lapu-Lapu Badjao", and I noticed a familiar texture when I chopped up the tahong and halaan together. I thought hey, I could make bopis out of this if I wanted to!

Today was the day to test the theory out.

Here are the ingredients I used:

1-1/2 kilo halaan*
1-kilo tahong*
2 cups coconut milk
4 tablespoons white vinegar
4 green chili peppers (siling haba) chopped finely, seeds removed
2 bird's eye chili chopped finely
1 red bell pepper chopped finely
1 medium sized carrot chopped finely into small cubes
3 tablespoons atsuete (annatto) seeds steeped in 1 cup warm water
5 cloves garlic smashed and chopped
1 large onion chopped
1 tablespoon ginger, grated
salt
ground black pepper

First thing you do is to steep the atsuete seeds in 1 cup warm water and just leave it as you prepare the other stuff. The atsuete liquid that you would get from here would give the bopis its distinctive yellowish hue.

Steam the halaan and tahong in a steamer until the shells open. This will take only a few minutes. Once cooled, remove the meat from the shells and chop the meat finely. Set aside.

*Take note that the 1-1/2 kilo halaan (clams) and 1 kilo tahong (mussels) are weighed including the shells. You can't get around this as you can't really buy fresh clams and mussels from the local market that already shelled. You will get around 3/4 kilo to 1 kilo meat, which is just perfect for this recipe.

Sautee your garlic and onions in a little bit of oil in a large wok for a few minutes. Add the ginger. Sautee for another minute. Add the halaan and tahong meat. Add 2 teaspoons salt and a teaspoon of ground black pepper. Add your chopped green chilies and chopped bird's eye chillies. Stir. Add the one cup atsuete liquid (don't include the seeds). Stir. Add the vinegar. STOP STIRRING.

Remember when cooking with vinegar, specially on a dish like this, you need to let the vinegar just simmer for a while, un-stirred. So just leave this alone at low heat, covered, for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, add the carrots and 2 cups coconut milk. Now that may seem quite a lot of milk to put into it. You're thinking, holy crap, this looks like soup now. But don't worry. Bring the heat to medium high and bring to a boil. You need to constantly stir this every 30 seconds or so to prevent the meat from sticking to the pan. The heat is on high so that you will slowly reduce the milk, concentrating its flavor into the meat.

After 10 minutes, you will start to notice the milk reducing considerably. Add the red bell peppers at this point and keep stirring.

Taste for salt. At this point I realized I needed to add a little more so I added a pinch more. Continue stirring until the milk is considerably reduced until you have the thick consistency of what bopis should be.

After around 8 more minutes I decided mine was OK and took it off the heat.

I served it with a few chopped green chilies on top and it tasted great.

As an experiment I would say this was an awesome success!