This dish evokes memories of my childhood on the North Side of Chicago, where I grew up in a large and established Filipino American community. It is closely intertwined with my experiences of the Filipino and Asian food markets we frequented for our pantry staples. (This was before the “International” aisle existed in mainstream grocery stores.) These markets left an indelible sensory memory that still lives in my nose. They smelled savory and earthy — like dried, salted, and fermented things — and the air inside always carried a whiff of briny seafood and a note of musty cardboard from the many items that had traveled halfway around the world.
We went to markets like RC Trading, Unimart, and Việt Hoa to buy live crabs for ginataan na alimasag (crabs in coconut milk), a dish that hails from Bicol, the region in southeastern Luzon where both of my parents grew up. Buying the live crabs was a trip! They were always trying to crawl out of the paper bag we took them home in, and made lots of noise in protest of their captivity. When we got home from the market, I would sit on a chair next to my mom at the sink and watch her clean the crabs, snapping their claws off so they couldn’t pinch her.
The version of the dish I’m sharing here — called ginataan na sugpo — is made with head-on prawns (sugpo), which are more readily available than live crabs. It will always be in rotation in my home kitchen because it includes two hallmarks of Bicolano cooking: the savory use of coconut milk, and spicy heat! Thanks to those small, immigrant-owned markets in Chicago, this dish connected me to my roots and gave me a taste of where my parents are from.
My mother always made this dish with greens. In a kitchen garden in the Philippines, you might find gabi (taro leaves), talbos ng kamote (sweet potato tops or shoots), or dahon ng sili (chile leaves.) Here I use leaves from the chile plants in my backyard. (This year I’m growing a spicy Indonesian heirloom chile called lombok.) Baby spinach would be a delicious substitute, and it’s what my mom usually used.