I love buro! I sometimes eat it everyday, with fried fish, eggplants and steamed okra.
Buro is made of fermented rice with fish or shrimps, and originated from Pampanga. It is sauteed in oil with garlic, onions and tomatoes and served as a condiment to grilled and fried fish, fresh mustasa (mustard greens) and fried or steamed eggplant and okra.
While we know how to make our own, it is of course easier to just buy buro that’s already prepared. My mom discovered this bottled buro in Landmark’s grocery. It comes in two sizes: one 227 gram jar and a bigger one, whose size I forgot. The small bottle retails from Php 45.00 to 55.oo, while the bigger jar goes for about Php 75.00. You can find it in the same aisle or shelves as bottled bagoong (shrimp paste) and aligue (crab fat).
They come in two varieties: dalag (mudfish) and shrimp. The blue label is the fish variety, and the yellow/red one is the shrimp variety. These are ready to cook.
Before, one can only get them from Pampanga, or Kapampangan restaurants, but now, it is available at wet markets as well as groceries. Thanks to innovations in technology and some enterprising individuals, buro is now easily within everyone’s reach.
I’m kapangpangan and my mother eats this a lot. I on the other hand am still afraid to get near it. The smell does it for me.
I STEAM UNWASHED RICE GRAINS, SCOOP THEM INTO FOOD BAGS, ARRANGE SLIGHTLY SALTED SHRIMPS (OR FISH OR PORK) OVER THE RICE, SEAL BAG AND LET FERMENT FOR 3 OR MORE DAYS DEPENDING ON THE WEATHER, AND DEPENDING ON HOW SOUR YOU WANT THE STUFF TO …BE. SAUTE IN EVOO, GARLIC, ONION, TOMATO, SOME DROPS OF WINE VINEGAR, SALT AND PEPPER. EAT ON IT’S OWN OR WITH MUSTASA, GRILLED EGGPLANT, STEAMED VEGETABLES, FRIED/GRILLED FISH, LONGANIZA, TOCINO, PORK NILAGA WITH ALL THE VEGETABLES …