Tapao de pescado

Buenaventura, Tumaco and the whole coast; tapado in Esmeraldas

Illustration

Researched: Researched from 67 sources in the brief

Green plantain cooked in a little water with the fish laid on top and the pot covered: the breakfast of the coast. The Ministry's definition is a sudado of green banana with meat or, most often, fish, the fish placed over the plantain and the water only covering the bananas, usually without coconut milk; Hamilton Urrutia's version on Radio Nacional has coconut, and the one below is without. Breakfast in Tumaco is tapao of fresh, salted or smoked fish with plantain and black coffee; in Llanobajo it is tapao with plátano chivo. Mamá Julia says it came out of the enslaved family's food and was made for flight and the road; Urrutia says Afro-descendants made it centuries ago, under Spanish enslavement. Both are cooks' accounts and neither is dated. Arminda Sánchez, eighty two, of San José del Guayabo on the Mejicano river, singer, songwriter and craftswoman, mother of sixteen, gives it for four, and she cooks it by what she sees: the plantain turning pink, the starch coming out. In Borbón, Elizabeth Corozo makes it from nanaó, the sun-dried salted fish, with plantain peels over the pot.

As tradition built it

Serves 4. Cooked by the plantain's colour.

Ingredients

The tapao is cooked by cue on the whole coast, the plantain turning pink and then giving its starch; it is given here as Arminda Sánchez of the Mejicano river gives it, with her quantities and her eye for the time.

4 medium fish, pargo rojo, corvina or pelada, cleaned
4 green plantains, peeled and split lengthways
a little water
6 stems of cebolla larga
3 cloves of garlic
1 tomato
to taste chirarán
to taste chiyangua
to taste salt, for the fish and the plantain water
to taste lime, for the fish
to taste pepper, for the fish

Method

Season the fish with salt, lime, garlic and pepper and let it rest.
Put the plantain in a pot with a little water and a little salt.
When the plantain turns pink, add the cebolla larga, garlic, tomato and the chirarán and chiyangua.
When the plantain is releasing its starch into the water, lay the fish on top, cover the pot with a leaf or a lid, leave it a few minutes on the fire, and take it off.

What a modern chef changes

The cue given a number, and the lid given a leaf

Rung 3

Method

Split the plantains and cook them in 250ml of water for 4 people, lid on, 18 minutes: that is the pink stage, and 25 is the starch.
Lay a blanched banana leaf over the pot under the lid for the last 8 minutes, when the fish goes on; the steam carries the leaf.
Salt the fish an hour ahead and pat it dry, so it does not weep into the broth.
Serve the broth first in a cup, which the coast's cooks drink, then the fish and plantain on the plate.

Open in the atlas: cook mode, scaling and tick off lists