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Are you familiar with tabon tabon fruit? Probably not.  A fruit native only to northern Mindanao and Camiguin Island. This is an intriguing fruit that physically looks like an elongated chico, with a hard shell, but the pulp inside looks unusual and somewhat like a split brain. Tabon tabon was said to be the key to the assertion that Filipinos enjoyed kinilaw (dish of raw fish or meat) well before the Spaniards arrived, because tabon tabon shells were found near fish bones in an anthropoligical site in the south. The pulp is used to remove the “fishy” taste of fish “langsa” and may have other medicinal properties as well. Here’s a recipe where you could use this unusual fruit  featured in the television serie Ysabella of Judy Ann Santos.

Chicken Kinasal of Judy Ann

Ingredients:

1 kilo of chicken cut in serving portions

1 spoon of tabon tabon fruit (hydrophytune orbiculatum) A fruit native in Northern Minadanao and Camiguin, this fruit is normally use in preparing Kilawin as this removes the pungent smell of the fish (langsa)

2 tablespoons of honey

1 tablespoon of bagoong balayan (fish pasta)

2 dayap or lime juice (you can replace this with lemon or kalamansi)

Procedure:

Mix all the ingredients and marinade for 24 hours. The next day steam the chicken for thirty minutes. Then in a frying pan fry the chicken until its golden brown.