So, I usually don't make up my own recipes, but I wanted to try my hand at making tiingilar, a spicy Mandalorian stew/casserole/soup depending on who you ask. Boredom in my case is often the mother of invention, and I tend to do most of my culinary exploration in relation to historical or nerdy interests of mine. So, the other day when I got bored of eating the same seaweed noodle soup all week, I decided to experiment.
Briefly, a definition of tiingilar before we begin. As outlined in this post, tiingilar is defined by fish as an ingredient, by its spicy seasonings, by its nature as a hearty stew, and by the Mandalorian culinary tradition of making food out of what you have on hand. In that spirit, I'd like to say that this is MY personal version of the dish, made with random stuff from my fridge. You can add nuts and beans, or other vegetables; you can add more spices (I'm a bit of a spice wuss, so you might actually want to do that), you could even cook the grain in the broth itself (saves time and a pot, which is nice). Experiment and play with it, and make it with the (inevitably different) random stuff in YOUR fridge. With that:
2 cans of salmon or another fish (5 oz cans. Save any water from them. Use fresh fish if you have it)
A big yellow onion or two (onion is the easiest way to stretch a recipe, and it tastes good too)
1 tsp sesame oil (to supplement if the chili oil isn't enough)
1 tbsp whole peppercorns (any colour. I used a blend of black, green, and red)
1 tsp white pepper powder
A pinch of powdered chili pepper
A pinch of powdered coriander seed
A pinch of powdered celery seed
A pinch of powdered cinnamon
1 tbsp fish sauce (more to taste; if adding more, reduce the amount of salt)
1 tbsp mirin/white wine/other light cooking alcohol (omit if you don't eat or drink alcohol)
2 tsp salt (add more or less to taste)
2 tbsp lemon juice (add more to taste)
A dash of apple cider vinegar
Stock or broth to cover (fish broth or some kind of bone broth is recommended, but use whatever you have)
Preheat the chili oil in a pot or saucepan (you will use the same pot for the entire cooking process). Brown the fish in the chili oil. At this point, the chili pepper that was in the oil bottle actually fell into the pot; I let it cook with the fish for a little bit before I fished it out to keep it from burning.
If you have a buy'ce/generic helmet/other headgear you like for preventing onion tears, don it now. Slice the onion so you have half-rings. Crush the garlic cloves enough to help you remove the skin, but leave them otherwise intact. Add the onion, garlic, and peppercorns to the oil.
If the chili oil doesn't cover all of the ingredients in the pot, add the sesame oil. Cook on high heat until everything in the pot is browned.
Add all of the spices, sugar, fish sauce, cooking alcohol, salt, lemon juice, and vinegar. Stir to evenly coat the fish, onion, and garlic.
If there was any water from the fish, add it to the pot. Cover everything in the pot with broth.
Put a lid on the pot and bring it to a simmer. Keep the stew simmering on low heat for at least an hour so the flavours have time to develop and the broth has time to thicken just a little.
Serve hot on any kind of grain. I had mine on rice noodles, then on rice grains. It would also be good on a millet porridge. If you have vegetables, extra fish, or any other toppings, I recommend seasoning them with a bit of citrus. To thicken the tiingilar, add some leftover grains (like day old rice), or a little bit of flour, depending on preference. When you reheat it, the grains will break down a bit and add some heartiness to the stew.
Well, it's not the prettiest thing I've ever cooked, but it tasted good. I put cilantro on this when I had it on rice; it's not necessary for tiingilar, I just like it. When I had this on noodles, I added some grilled shrimp and garlic I already had on hand as a topping. Both times I had it, I drank some iced tea, then some orange juice on the side. I thought this was fitting with Mandalorian flavour preferences; the four big ideals of Mando cooking are yai'yai (rich, hearty, very nourishing, sticks to your ribs), heturam (spiciness that burns your mouth), hetikleyc (spiciness that burns your sinuses), and draluram (bright, distinct, strong flavour). I think of citrus as quintessentially draluram, which is why I had a bit of orange juice when I ran out of tea (that, and citrus and spice just go well together). The tiingilar itself is mostly yai'yai and heturam.
When eating, I noticed the fragrance first; the dish overall smells hearty and fishy, but the spices smell faintly floral and mellow. At first, you feel the burn on your lips and tongue. Over the course of the meal, the spiciness loosens up your sinuses a bit. The spices make it the tiniest bit bitter, but the main flavour is the saltiness of the fish mingling with the sourness and sweetness of some of the other ingredients. With noodles or rice, this is a pretty filling dish, and really does stick to your ribs for a while (which is great, since I have a hard time getting anything to keep me full). This is the kind of thing I'd like to eat after a long, cold day outside. I recommend if you're going to have this on noodles, do that the first day while the broth is still a bit thin, unless you're having it more like pasta (in which case, cook the stew down a bit more so it gets thick; maybe add a tiny bit of flour, too). Have this on rice or another grain on the second day, because the broth will get thicker every time you reheat it, especially if you add leftover grains into it. You could also easily make this casserole style by basically stewing the grains in the broth all together in the oven, but I usually make things on the stovetop, not in the oven, which is why I chose to stew this in a pot.
