Santos’ Bonito Apanado
Recipe Author: Santos Panta Pazos
Hometown: Lobitos, Peru
My husband is a fisherman and just this week, he came home with several bonito. Bonito is one of my favorite fish to cook.
The tuna meat is stronger for frying. The meat does not stick or unravel. Bonito is well known around here but there is less than before.
Bonito apanado with green & yellow bananas, rice, and toppings. Photo by Jesús Espinoza Panta.
Ingredients
1 Fish: Pacific Bonito
Cooking Oil
3 Ripe Plantains (yellow bananas)
3 Unripened Plantains (green bananas)
2 cups flour
4 Limes
Cilantro, chopped
1 large Onion
1 Chili
3 teaspoons Cumin
Salt
Lettuce
2 tomatos
Rice
Santos Panta Pazos
Photo by Jesús Espinoza Panta.
This recipe I learned from my grandmother and also, my mother. My recipe is a mix of the two.
How to Prepare
Step 1
Peel the ripe (yellow) and unripe (green) plaintains.
Cut the yellow bananas long ways, and the green ones in circles to make the chifles or chips.
Step 2
In the pan, heat the oil for a few minutes. Then fry the yellow and green banana chips.
Step 3
We scale, clean and wash the fish. Then we cut the fish into pieces for frying with the skin on.
Step 4
In a plate we combine salt with cumin.
Then rub the salt and cumin on both sides of each piece of fish.
Step 5
Then we bathe the fish in flour.
Step 6
In a frying pan, heat cooking oil to hot.
After a few minutes, begin to fry the fish.
Step 7
For the salsa, cut the onion into strips, the tomato into squares, the very small cilantro and the chili pepper.
Step 8
We add salt to taste, lemon and mix everything to create the salsa.
Step 9
We make rice to accompany our plate.
Arrange fish on top of the rice, surround with plantain chips and top with salsa.
All photos by Jesús Espinoza Panta.