01 Dec

Sinigang

Posted by: Minni Del Mundo  /  Category: Articles

Sinigang is a Philippine dish consisting of meat or seafood and vegetables simmered in a sour broth, often with a base of rice washing. The sour soup goes well with rice, the staple food of all Filipinos. Fish, pork, chicken, shrimp, or beef may be used for sinigang. There are usually leafy vegetables like gabi (taro), siling labuyo (red chili), or malunggay leaves, or kangkong (water spinach). Other vegetables cooked in sinigang may include okra, radish, eggplant, tomatoes, sitaw (snake beans), and string beans. The vegetables are chosen to complement the dish’s flavor.

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Sinigang’s sour flavor is most often connected with a tamarind based broth but other versions of the recipe develop their sourness from other ingredients such as guava, calamansi, bilimbi, or raw mango among others. Powdered soup base or bouillon cubes for sinigang are also used in place of natural fruits. Vinegar is not used for making sinigang sour. A similar dish made with vinegar as the primary souring ingredient would tend to be categorized as paksiw in Philippine cuisine.

Formal Filipino restaurants commonly list sinigang as a soup and serve it as such. It is, however, traditionally and typically transferred from the bowl to the plate and eaten with rice in a similar manner to a main dish.

Origin

A food writer Doreen Fernandez suggested that its origins are most likely indigenous and hence it may be considered the national dish of the Philippines. Nobody Knows where and what is the origin of sinigang. Another Ricardo Soleer, caterer, food expert and writer, is the man responsible for bringing to light the origins of kare-kare that saw print on Kitchen Rescue a few years ago said that “Among his favorite Filipino dishes is sinigang, the similarities of which to Thailand’s tom yum, canh chua from Vietnam and Indonesia’s sayur asam are striking enough. But Chris points out that sinigang is probably closer to a Malay soup than these three parallels are – not only from the similarity of its ingredients, how it is prepared and how it is normally added to rice when eaten but also from its name; the Malaysian parallel to our sinigang is called singgang. It is most popular in the state of Terengganu on the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia, which has a large number of fishing villages, making the most common version there ikan singgang, the one with fish. But singgang of shrimp [udang], chicken [ayam] or beef [daging] are dished up elsewhere.

“From what I found out, however, Malaysians do not make singgang with pork [daging babi], which next to fish is our most popular version of sinigang. Being Muslim mostly, they do not eat pork as their religion forbids it. Pork is difficult to obtain in Malaysia; stalls selling it are usually tucked away from view since openly displaying pork may offend people. Malaysian hotels, with a few apparently officially sanctioned exceptions, do not serve pork dishes.

“Moreover, one will have a hard time finding singang in the more cosmopolitan Malaysian cities. For example, I don’t think it is available in Kuala Lumpur.”

Different style of cooking Sinigang

Recipes

Restaurants serving Sinigang

  • Max Restaurant
    QUEZON AVENUE
    Address : 1407 Quezon Ave. ,Q.C
    Tel. No(s). : 373-7355 to 56
    Fax No(s). : 373-7355
  • Bakahan at Manukan Restaurant
    Quezon Ave, cor. South Ave.
    Quezon City, Metro Manila
    (02) 372-3204
  • CONSUELO STEAK HOUSE
    Corrales Avenue, Cagayan de Oro City
    Tel. No (08822) 725736
    (88) 8561353
    Contact Person:  Mr. Rico Orga
  • Aseya Bistro Orientale
    ground floor of Humberto’s Inn,
    J. Palma Gil corner Padre Gomez Sts., Davao City
    Tel.: 222-3831 local 131
    Tuesday to Sunday, 6:00 AM – 11:00 PM; Monday, 6:00 AM – 2:00 PM.
  • Mang Inasal
    G/F Main Mall, SM Mall of Asia
    (facing South Terminal) SM Central Business
    Park I Island A, Bay City,
    Pasay City
    info@manginsal.com

Sources

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Do you have a better Sinigang recipe?