For my Sunday market ritual at San Miguel, I found several varieties of shrimp among others. Since my budget will not allow the so, so enticing lukon or tiger prawns (P550 per kilo), I settled on the white shrimps beside it, which looked equally fresh anyway.
Balaskugay. That’s what the shrimp vendor called it (I should get her name next time). It is cultured in tab-ang, or brackish water, growing in shrimp ponds in Carles. I got 1/4 kilo for P60.00 or P240.00 per kilo. That’s relatively cheap considering it would fall on the large category and it was still very fresh.
Marketing tip: For really fresh shrimps, go to the wet market early, say at 6-7 a.m. By noontime, the shrimps are already tired from all the exposure, that if you are sensitive to them, you’ll end up with an itchy throat.
There’s another variety which looks darker. That’s also good. Will have to ask manang for its local name next time.
The balaskugay I bought ended up as soft and light tempura.
My apologies. Pix of balaskugay will still have to be downloaded from cp and uploaded to the net.
August 15, 2008 at 9:50 am
ang mga balaskugay makuha mo sa mga punong, so huo, brackish water ang ila ginhalinan. Pero may ara pa gid nga mas lighter sang sa balaskugay. Ulang ang tawag sa ila. Siling ni mommy ko, ginadakup sila freshwater nga suba.
April 26, 2009 at 3:05 am
baw nahidlaw nagid ako sina sang “balaskugay” kanami mamati sang dalom nga ilonggo nga word ,daw ara ka lang sa Iloilo. Hay na miss ko nagid ang Iloilo ng banwa ko!naks