delectation

Sinigang

Filipinos are fond of sour-salty tastes. I grew up prefering savoury over sweet, and especially sour over sweet. My favourite food was unripe green mango (manggang hilaw) served with salty bagoong (a pinkish-purplsih paste made of tiny shrimp). I love vinegar in anything, and will often ladle tablespoons over rice if I'm eating, say -- roast duck or chicken as a foil to the fatty richness of the birds.

I made sinigang the other night, and used a combination of the radical chef's and pabulum's recipes... For the most part it's a fairly easy dish made even simpler with instant sinigang mix. Knorr is my friend.

Adobo and sinigang are two classic filipino dishes, and both are sour -- Adobo from vinegar, and Sinigang from tamarind. Both also can bring out what I believe are the two prevailing philiosophies of preparing the meat prior to making the soup. One school browns the meat first; the other simply throws the meat into the pot along with all the liquids and seasonings, and lets stew/ simmer/ boil. I'm of the first school and always brown my meat before adding the liquids. I find that this makes for less of the frothy "scum" that rises to the top of the liquids as the soup comes to a rolling boil.

For the sinigang I used the following:

6 cloves garlic, smashed
2 tomatoes, cut into wedges
2 red onions, cut into wedges
1.4 lbs. pork country-style ribs
1 asian eggplant
1 bunch kangkong, bottom tough stems cut off, and discarded. Cut the rest of the tender stalks and leaves into 2" lengths...
1 packet sinigang mix aka tamarind soup mix
Fish sauce (patis)

Sautee mashed garlic, tomato, red onion in a scant bit of oil; add the spare-ribs, cut into bite-sized pieces. Sprinkle with some patis, and cook until the pork browns somewhat. Add about 10 cups of water and bring to a boil. Skim off any of the sludgy foam that rises to the top of the soup. Lower heat, cover and simmer for about +/- 35 minutes. Check a few times, add some more patis to taste, and for the most part, leave it be ...

Add the eggplant and let simmer for about 10 minutes. I sliced mine on the diagonal too thin, and so by the time the soup was done some of the slices had melted completely into the broth ...

Add the kangkong and let simmer until wilted. Halfway through -- when the kangkong is on the verge of losing its bright green vibrancy to the dull olive colour of cooked greens, stir in the soup mix. Cover, and let simmer for 6-10 minutes.

I did it right -- the soup tasted nicely sour; the pork was tender, and the kangkong both slightly crunchy and nicely wilted. The other vegetables (toms, onion, eggplant) had all but virtually melted, which made for a nice blending of flavours. Perhaps next time I'll try adding some shrimp ...

Posted by claudine at September 13, 2004 12:27 AM