How to Cook Silver Fish Filipino Style (6 Steps)

Paksiw is a quick, affordable and easy-to-prepare seafood dish typically served in a Filipino household. Silver fish is popularly used for this dish. As the Philippines is composed of dozens of provinces and thousands of islands, cooking styles and ingredients used in local dishes have certain variations. Yet, the basic recipe in a silver fish paksiw always uses fish, onion, garlic, ginger and vinegar as main ingredients -- regardless of regional style.

Things You'll Need

  • Stove
  • Pan
  • Stainless casserole, steel pot or traditional clay cooking pot
  • 1 lb. (.5 kg) silverfish (cleaned and scales removed)
  • 2 thumb-size pcs. of ginger sliced into slivers
  • 3 to 4 cloves of crushed garlic
  • 1/2 piece of chopped small onion
  • 2 to 3 pcs. of green long chili
  • 1/2 cup of vinegar
  • 1 cup water
  • Salt or fish sauce (locally called patis)
  • Pepper

Instructions

  1. Heat a cooking pot on low heat.

  2. Pour vinegar and water to the cooking pot; let it simmer from low to medium heat for about 5 minutes.

  3. Add the silver fish, garlic, onions, chilli and ginger to the pot and stir. Depending on your preferences, add a small amount of pepper, salt or fish sauce to season the mixture to taste. Keep the stove on medium heat, then reduce it to medium-low upon boiling.

  4. Cover and simmer the paksiw for about 10 to 15 minutes more.

  5. Turn off the stove and transfer the paksiw to a serving bowl.

  6. Serve the paksiw with rice.