SInigang sa Sampalok
Sunday, February 4, 2024
Sinigang is a sour, clear soup/broth dish from the Philippines that has outlasted centuries of colonisation; the name comes from the Tagalog root word "sigang" or "to stew." It's my favorite of the two national dishes and my comfort food whenever I'm feeling the slightest hint of a cold, especially given some of the vegetable ingredients are popular for their healing properties in the motherland. You can adjust the sourness to taste, which also makes it a great barometer to track loss of smell when sick (this really helped me a lot when I had COVID, even if it was a dish that takes a while to cook).
The best souring agents are tamarind (sampalok), guava (bayabas), unripe mangoes (manggang hilaw), kalamansi (calamondin/Philippine lemon), cotton fruit (santol), bilimbi (kamias/iba/belimbi), binukaw (Philippine mangosteen), hog plum (libas) leaves, or butterfly tree (alibangbang) leaves. Outside of the Philippines, seasonings, pastes, powders, and even dedicated sinigang mixes made of tamarind or guava are available in many Asian groceries and supermarkets. Please note vinegar cannot be used for sinigang because that's an ingredient already found in Filipino adobo (ingredients marinated then cooked in vinegar, which is the other national dish), paksiw (vinegar-based stew), and kinilaw (our equivalent of the Latin American ceviche). Shortly after I moved to the USA, I tried to use unripe peaches as a souring agent given it's a stone fruit like many of the ones I mentioned previously, but strangely it didn't work. 🤷♀️
Sinigang is also very vegan-friendly: while I like adding beef, pork, shrimp, or fish, you can switch the fish sauce (patis, a traditional salting agent) with Japanese miso paste or vegetable broth, and substitute the meats with tofu or neutral-flavored mushrooms. In the motherland I would always start with aromatic garlic (bawang) and onions (sibuyas) before adding spinach (water spinach/morning glory/kangkong), bokchoy (pechay), white radish (labanos), jicama (singkamas), fresh tomatoes (kamatis), yardlong beans (Chinese string beans/sitaw), okra, eggplant (aubergines/talong), and taro root/corm (gabi, which also makes the soup slightly thicker); ever since I moved to Kansas, I've found great substitutes in shallots, kale, collard greens, green beans, winged beans, and potatoes/sweet potatoes. For a tangy kick, add a long-fingered chili towards the end of the simmer right before serving it with fluffy rice.
If you're looking for recipes, I just review the ones on Filipino cuisine websites and blogs like Panlasang Pinoy, Kawaling Pinoy, Yummy.ph, LutongBahayRecipe.com, and others.