Pork sinigang is my ultimate Filipino comfort food! When it is freezing cold outside I want a piping hot bowl of pork sinigang with rice. It can be hot as hell outside, but I’m just having a bad week; all I want is a bowl of pork sinigang with rice. There’s something about the very sour broth, the fatty pork, and the copious amount of vegetables that makes my tummy happy and eases my mind.
What exactly is sinigang? It is a soup made in a tamarind broth, which gives it its sour taste. You can use chicken, pork, and even shrimp to make sinigang. Then add any vegetables you want to round it out.
Now there are two ways to make sinigang. You can use powdered sinigang mix that comes in a packet or use real tamarind. Obviously using the sinigang packet is the easiest way to make the soup, especially if you are in a pinch, lazy, and/or can’t find tamarind. When I asked my mom how to truly make it from scratch (without the packet), she went on and on about finding the right tamarinds from a tree (I think) because they can turn sweet. Basically she was trying to tell me to stick with the packets. In the end I won by telling her about tamarind paste. And also having the ability to eliminate MSG and controlling the salt content of the soup.
Where can you get tamarind paste? You have to go to an Asian grocery store. The best ones I find are the Thai ones. You can get the Indian version, but they generally come with a lot of seeds and less pulp. The Thai ones just give you a lot of pulp and little to no seeds, so it’s easier to mash it in a sieve to get all that wonderful sourness. It looks like a sticky brown block wrapped in plastic. I have yet to find the Thai ones in the Asian section of any main stream grocery store. Also read the ingredients before you buy the tamarind paste! You want the tamarind paste mixed with salt, not sugar!!!
I hope you enjoy one of my favorite Filipino foods, pork sinigang!
Pork Sinigang
A sour soup with pork and vegetables, all made from scratch without the MSG filled packet.
Ingredients
- 1½ lbs. pork spare ribs, cut into 2 in. pieces
- ½ a bulb of garlic
- 1 large onion, sliced
- 1 beefsteak tomato, sliced
- Water (depends on how big your stock pot is, ~4-6 cups)
- ~7 oz. tamarind paste (more or less depending on how sour you want your soup)
- 2 tbs. fish sauce (patis)
- 2 tsp. kosher salt
- 1 tbs. fresh ground black pepper
- 1½ lbs. long bean (can use string beans), cut into 1 in. pieces
- 1½ lbs. Shanghi bokchoy (or any green, leafy vegetable)
Directions
- Step 1 In a heavy stock pot submerge pork, garlic, onion, and tomato with water.
- Step 2 Bring to a boil.
- Step 3 When water begins to boil, place tamarind in a fine mesh sieve. Either slightly submerge and/or pour boiling water over tamarind so soften.
- Step 4 Take a wooden spoon and begin to mash the tamarind through the sieve. You’ll be left with some of the fibrous parts and seeds.
- Step 5 Taste soup and add more tamarind to make it more sour.
- Step 6 Discard leftover tamarind in sieve.
- Step 7 Add fish sauce and pepper.
- Step 8 Taste to see if you need to add more salt.
- Step 9 Then bring down to simmer and cover.
- Step 10 When the pork is tender (bones begin to pop out) add long beans and bokchoy.
- Step 11 Cover again.
- Step 12 When vegetables are tender, turn off heat.
- Step 13 Serve piping hot with rice.
