Pinaputok na Tilapia or Popped Tilapia in English is a popular Filipino dish.

Back home, we always loved having this when we were at the beach. My aunt actually prepared some when we went to the beach on our 2017 vacation to the Philippines. She’s good at preparing this dish. It’s one of her specialties.

I had the craving for it the other day so instead of frying the tilapia, I decided to prepare it this way.

I’m glad though that the U.S. supermarket and not only the Asian Market is carrying whole tilapia at their stores nowadays. When I was still new here in the U.S., the U.S. supermarkets only carried tilapia fillets.

My husband prefers tilapia fillets, but me and my son prefer it the Filipino way – one whole tilapia with eyes and all. 😀

But my husband ate this and he actually liked it.

I made a dipping sauce out of low-sodium soy sauce and lemon. Back home, our favorite dipping sauce for this is soy sauce and calamansi (Philippine lime). I can’t find calamansi here in the U.S. so I used lemon instead.

Here’s the recipe for you to try if you like cooking one whole fish.

I think you could try this recipe using a different kind of fish. I have yet to try it but I think it would be okay.

Ingredients:

• 1 medium tilapia, cleaned and scales removed (the Tilapia fishes that they sell here in the U.S. were already cleaned and the scales were already removed. But back home, you buy it fresh and you have to clean and remove the scales yourself)
• 5 grape tomatoes, quartered
• I small red onion, chopped
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 tablespoons butter, softened at room temperature, divided

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 370 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Make 3 slits on both sides of the tilapia.
3. Rub 1 teaspoon of salt on each side. Set aside.
4. Combine all the other ingredients except for 1 tablespoon butter in a bowl.
5. Stuff the cavity of the tilapia with the mixture.
6. Wrap tilapia in aluminum foil.
7. Bake for 20 minutes.
8. Remove tilapia from oven.
9. Change the setting of the oven to hi broil.
10. Open the top part of the aluminum foil.
11. Brush the top of the tilapia with the remaining butter.
12. Broil for 10 minutes.
13. Enjoy!

What do you think about the Pinaputok na Tilapia? Do you think you’d like to give this recipe a try?

Happy Foodie Friday, folks! Enjoy the weekend!