Kamias-Lasuna Salad

I'm sure just about everybody's already suffering umay and sawa from eating by this time. I most certainly am, and I still have several parties for the year, with several more postponed to next year due to the surfeit of eating. Diets be damned.

For the last four weeks pias (kamias, kalamia-as) have been in heaping palangganas (plastic basins) at the public market, sold alongside fresh fish that I get cravings for sinigang. Those who have witnessed a pias tree bearing fruit would know how overly generous it could be - green globules parallel to the ground, propped up by all the other globules underneath.

So we've been sun-drying them to concentrate the flavor and temper the sourness. It seems the sun isn't aware it's already December down here by the equator, so it just takes a few days. 

And in the mornings we take my fresh stash and slice some of the still hard ones, thinly with a sharp knife. Topped with lasuna, also shaved thinly, which has unexpectedly appeared, and a little home-made agamang (bagoong alamang), it's a refreshing counterpoint to some fried tinapa or longganiza at breakfast.

The tartness is bracing, the peppery bite of the shallots add zing, and the salty meatiness of the fermented krill   brings the flavors together. This salad is a serious contender to our standard morning side kamatis-agamang. 

Honestly, though, this salad doesn't just jolt us awake at the start of the day. It startles our collective appetite and whips it into motion. Paired with breakfast deli staples that are on the salty side, it dooms us to platefuls of steaming hot rice.

But for lunch a sour-sweet shake would be in order. And I'd be ready for another party.

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