The rains have come and what a better time to prepare a popular Filipino soup called sinigang. My daughter calls it sour soup because that’s what it is exactly. The Filipino palate loves strong flavor, especially a good blend of sweet, salty and sour.
Sinigang is a sour soup that typically has fish or pork, but
food aficionados have become more adventurous and have started using corned
beef in their sinigang. A famous restaurant here in Manila lists Sinigang na Corned
Beef as one of their specialties.
We’re not vegetarians at home, but we try to put more
vegetables and fruits than meat on the table. Both our kids are also
soup-crazy, and love sinigang, so I decided to create a sinigang recipe that
does not contain any meat so they can have it any time they want.
What I like about sinigang is it has the healthiest
ingredients like eggplant, radish, string beans, okra and kangkong. I add
alugbati because I love it, and I use it on most dishes, no matter how odd
sometimes.
The one big failure I had with this recipe (just a matter of
self-persecution, really) was not being able to use fresh tamarind. I searched
high and low for tamarind and came home disappointed. (If you know a source for
fresh tamarind please let me know.) I used a tamarind recipe mix instead and it
did a great job. It’s less healthy than the fresh ones, but it tasted just as
great.
There are other souring ingredients that you can use for
sinigang like green mango, guava and bilimbi fruit (also known as kamias). I
wouldn’d part from my personal favorite though – the tamarind.
Sinigang is an all-time favorite dish among Filipinos; it's so popular that it's served twice or more every week in most households. This vegetarian version is easier and faster to cook.
Preparation
Time: 10 minutes or less (definitely less, if you’re not horrible with cutting
like I am)
Cooking
Time: 10 minutes
Yield: 4
servings
Ingredients:
3 eggplants
Radish, 1
String
beans, 1 bunch
Okra, 5
pieces
Kangkong, 1
bunch
Alugbati, 1
bunch (optional)
1 onion,
sliced
2 bulbs of
garlic
Cut
eggplants and radish diagonally into half- inch slices
Cut string
beans in 2-inch lengths
Cut okra
into two or three parts
Slice onion
and garlic
Procedure:
- Saute garlic and onion in two tablespoons of vegetable
oil.
- Add half a liter of water and bring to boil.
- Add eggplants, radish, okra and fresh tamarind or sinigang mix.
- Add the kangkong and alugbati right before you serve because you don’t want to overcook these two.
You are done and ready to serve this healthy soup!
