Binukadkad na Isda

Name: Binukadkad na Isda
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 2
Cuisine: Filipino
Ingredients: whole fish (snapper, tilapia or something similar); sea salt; freshly ground black pepper; oil

by Raymund · Published January 11, 2017 · Updated May 1, 2020

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Binukadkad na Isda is a Filipino dish prepared with butterflied fish fried to a very crispy state.

Binukadkad na Isda is a Filipino dish prepared with butterflied fish fried to a very crispy state. I know frying is quite easy but frying fish like this is a different ball game on its own, it eliminates the problem of people rushing for the crispy bits and leaving the soft bit untouched (Filipinos love those crispy odd bits). Usually when Asians fry their fish we just score them and fry to your hearts content but with this dish of ours today we slice them the butterfly way leaving the bones in the middle then deep frying it making a bigger surface area for crispiness, it also makes the bones so crispy it then becomes edible.

Frying fish the crispy way is nothing new, in fact it was already exists in the Chinese cuisine in a dish called Squirrel Fish where it is scored many times yielding a same crispy result. I am not sure when did Binukadkad na isda was invented but definitely the Chinese one was much older, the Filipino counterpart has just started its popularity when popular restaurants like Kanin Club started serving them.

It’s quite an easy dish to make, all you need is the fish, salt and pepper the only hard part is frying them as the shape is not flat once you cut it like such, this means you need a very deep frying pan otherwise just cut it like I do and you can just use a wok then fry it one side at a time.