About this recipe
A sour pork soup, and the sourness is the whole point. Sinigang is defined by its souring agent rather than by its meat, and tamarind — sampalok — is the most widespread. Guava, kamias, green mango, calamansi and batwan all produce their own sinigang, and the batwan version of the Visayas is a distinctly different soup. Sinigang is not nilaga, which is boiled and unsoured; not bulalo, which is built on beef shank and marrow bone; and not tinola, which is chicken with ginger and green papaya. The vegetables go in late and in order, and they are meant to stay distinct.
Recipe facts
- Yield
- 6 servings
- Prep
- 25 minutes
- Cook
- 1 hour 30 minutes
- Total
- 115 minutes
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Spice
- Mild (one whole chilli for aroma, not heat)
Allergens Contains fish (fish sauce). Not vegetarian.
Development draft. This is an untested development recipe from the cookbook project. It has not been kitchen-tested, and the quantities and timings are the author’s working draft rather than a verified result.
Ingredients
The broth
- 2 lb (900 g) pork belly or pork spare ribs, cut into 2 in (5 cm) pieces
- 10 cups (2.4 L) water
- 1 large onion, quartered
- 3 ripe tomatoes, quartered
- 8 oz (225 g) fresh tamarind pods, or 1/4 cup (60 g) tamarind paste, or 1 packet (40 g) sinigang mix
- 3 tbsp (45 ml) fish sauce (patis), plus more to taste
- 1 tsp (3 g) whole black peppercorns
The vegetables, added in this order
- 1 medium daikon radish (labanos), about 8 oz (225 g), peeled and sliced 1/2 in (1 cm) thick
- 6 oz (170 g) long beans (sitaw), cut into 3 in (7.5 cm) lengths
- 2 small Asian eggplants, about 8 oz (225 g), sliced 1 in (2.5 cm) thick on the diagonal
- 2 long green chillies (siling haba), left whole
- 1 large bunch water spinach (kangkong), about 8 oz (225 g), tough stems removed, cut into 3 in (7.5 cm) lengths
To serve
- Steamed rice
- Fish sauce and calamansi, at the table
Equipment
- Large stockpot, 6 qt (5.7 L) or larger
- Fine strainer, if using fresh tamarind
- Ladle
Method
- Put the pork, water, onion, tomatoes and peppercorns in the stockpot. Bring to a boil over high heat, then skim off the grey foam that rises in the first few minutes and discard it.
- Lower the heat to a gentle simmer, cover partly, and cook 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes, until the pork is tender enough to yield to a spoon. Press the softened tomatoes against the side of the pot to break them down into the broth.
- Stir in the strained tamarind pulp, tamarind paste or sinigang mix, and the fish sauce. Taste. The broth should be assertively sour and clearly salty — sinigang that tastes mild in the pot will taste of nothing in the bowl.
- Add the daikon radish and simmer 6 minutes, until it is translucent at the edges but still firm in the centre.
- Add the long beans and simmer 3 minutes, then the eggplant and the whole green chillies and simmer 4 minutes more. The eggplant should be soft but not collapsing.
- Turn off the heat entirely. Push the water spinach into the hot broth and leave it 1 minute — it wilts in the residual heat and stays green. Cooking it any longer turns it grey and slippery.
- Taste once more for sourness and salt, and adjust with tamarind and fish sauce.
- Ladle into bowls, giving each one meat, several vegetables and plenty of broth. Serve with rice, and with fish sauce and calamansi at the table.
From the foundations
The book pairs this recipe with the following, from the sauces, sambals and pastes that open the collection.
The Complete Edition
Sinigang na Baboy sits in the Philippines chapter
The book carries this recipe in full alongside the rest of the Philippines chapter, the pastes and dips it is built on, and the twenty-seven pantry studies that open the collection.
In review with Amazon KDP
Both editions have been submitted to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and are currently in review. Submitted prices are $9.99 for the kindle edition and $49.99 for the paperback. Neither is on sale yet, and prices are as submitted rather than final.