Featured Recipe: Hipon sa Gata (Shrimp in coconut milk)

Featured Recipe: Hipon sa Gata (Shrimp in coconut milk)

Prepared and created by Chef Reggie Torres

Chef Reggie Torres has a long and distinguished career in the culinary arts industry. He has lived in Paris, France for three years and has mastered the French menu interpretation along with preparation of classical French cuisine and advance French pastries.

He has traveled Europe learning and honing food design, Hors d'oeurves, theme buffet, tallow sculpture, meat and fish decorations. He has worked with Chinese instructor Kem Home, blending Eastern and Western influences and with Italian Chef Giovanni Leoni, mixing the northern and southern Italian cuisine.

Holy Week culminates the Lenten Season that started on Ash Wednesday. Holy Week begins on a Palm Sunday, which is the day that we remember the "triumphal entry" of Jesus into Jerusalem, exactly one week before His death and resurrection.

In remembrance of this event, Catholics all over the world celebrate Palm Sunday wherein palm leaves or palaspas of different designs are waved in the air and blessed by the priest before the beginning of each masses. This represent Jesus’ entrance in Jerusalem, wherein he was greeted with Palm leaves by the people. As the Bible reveals, when Jesus entered Jerusalem, the crowds greeted him by waving and covering his path with palm branches. After the palm leaves are blessed, Pinoys hang the palaspas by their doors until the next Ash Wednesday as a sign of welcoming

Jesus into their homes. 

Aside from preparing to meditate somewhere faraway for the Holidays that falls

on a Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, some Filipino families usually hold the

Pabasa during Holy Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, wherein groups of readers

exchange reading verses about the Passion of Christ in a chant-like manner.

Because the reading of pabasa could take for days depending on the reading

tempo, several meatless dishes are served for the volunteer readers. Among the

popular table fare include dishes out of vegetables like the chopsuey or fish

like the rellenong bangus (deboned milkfish), or other seafood like the hipon sa

gata (shrimp in coconut milk).

When a food is cooked in “gata,” it is done with coconut milk. Aside from

shrimps, several main ingredients like squash, fish, sweet potato, mud crabs,

are also preferred; thus calling it ginataang + (whatever it is cooked with). In

the Philippines, Pinoys prefer serving the shrimp with its shell because they do

not mind eating with their bare hands (kamayan). Hipon sa gata is also a very

flexible dish, for squash or green chili peppers can also be added until the

flavor is perfect to taste.

Isla Kulinarya shares with you another meatless recipe that you can prepare this week-- Hipon sa Gata.

Hipon sa Gata (Shrimp in coconut milk)

HIPON SA GATA

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cooking Time: 30 minutes

Serves 4

2 tbsp     ginger, sliced thinly

2 cups    coconut milk

1 cup      chicken stock

2 lbs       shrimps, large

1             sili (chilli), chopped

2 tbsp     patis (fish sauce)

1 tsp       sugar

1/2 cup   fresh cilantro leaves

1. In a deep pot, combine ginger, coconut milk, chicken stock. Bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes

2. Add shrimp, add sili (chilli). Simmer for 5 minutes.

3. Add patis (fish sauce), sugar.

4. Serve with cilnatro

Next week, we continue on with our featured recipe from Region 3 or Central Luzon. Don't miss it!

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