How to Cook Souper Sinigang for Supper

Here is another one of my mom's hearty soup recipe; don’t hesitate to try it out. I’m sure that whatever she learned as a graduate Bachelor of Science in Nutrition from the Philippine Women’s University is useful in a lot of ways better than for your weight loss diet.

If you read my previous post about Sizzling Sisig, you would find that the famous Filipino hearty sour soup called Sinigang is actually closely related as both have originated from Sisigan, a cooking method were food is poached with an acidulant like vinegar or broth that is soured by fruits like tamarind, calamansi, green guavas, green mangoes, tomatoes, kamias (bilimbi), pineapples, or just about anything you can throw in to give it that characteristically sharp taste (no dirty socks please). The one thing I don’t like in my kitchen is a sour face. Prepare this dish by making the sour soup base first. As much as possible, please avoid ingredients that come in packages; you would find that it’s really healthier to stay away from many of the contraptions favored by the western world.

You need an earthen pot to make it look like authentic Filipino food or something like my mom’s Pyrex cookware. I do not like the taste of food cooked in stainless steel pots, especially for sour soups because it tends to lend a taste of something like rust; and please, never try cooking with a microwave – unless you are cooking Pangat – no not that recipe, I mean Pangat-long Init or twice reheated food. By the way, Pangat is also very similar to Sinigang, but I would say more delicate and less tangy.

My daughter loves pork and Bangus (Milk Fish) belly, and they are certainly the most popular ingredients for Sinigang, but you can have as many variants as you would an Adobo. We have already let her watch Babe and Charlotte’s Web and seen her cry over our seeming inhumanity to God’s creatures and asked her if she still wants to eat pork – I guess she’s just like most of us because she really enjoys eating the other white meat very much. The fat of the pork or the fat from the fish belly really makes the dish tasty. You could have it done according to your dietary needs but nothing beats the taste of something fat and juicy.

While waiting for the meat to become tender – and I do like the meat to almost fall off from ribs or bones but never for the fish please – you can prepare the vegetables and add them when the meat is almost done. For my Pork Sinigang, I would always like to add gabi (taro) because it adds a little creaminess to an otherwise light soup; and also, it can’t go without Siling Mahaba or Long Green Chilies because of its particular aroma and hotness. My wife likes her Sinigang with labanos - radish is best when it’s in something sour like Kilawin or when it’s pickled. I developed an aversion for it when I smelled it Binuro or fermented, something like Kimchi. The other vegetables that go well with Sinigang would be the same ones that can be cooked as an Adobo: okra, eggplant, string beans, and water spinach (kangkong). Don’t wilt the vegetables, because you’ll want them crisp and fresh to give variety to the food’s texture, and have something in contrast to the tenderness of the meat.

I certainly do not want to rush the cooking process, just as I do not want to rush eating this kind of meal. So, I prefer to eat it at supper or lunch on Sundays. I need to say this again – if you are on a weight loss diet, there is hope for you to enjoy this dish because you can have the seafood variety: like shrimp, black prawns, or tuna belly to name a few. You are going to miss a lot though if you don’t have it with steaming rice. When I’m done with this Souper Supper, I usually just sit back and relax until I doze off to sleep.

Sizzling Sisig of Summer

Sisig is not for those who are counting calories, and summer is also not the time to put on those extra curves that protrude were you don't want them to. So how do you make a compromise between consuming a sinfully scrumptious sustenance and salvaging your constantly corruptible conscience? None - I guess you just have to drown it down with irresistible cold beer to soothe that parched throat and seared soul.

There is nothing better to do in summer than to enjoy the fact that it is hard to do anything when it’s so hot. So that’s why people head out to the beach or anywhere where they can quietly cool down and relax. The ambient heat will wear you down easily if you insist on doing something more productive than to bum around. That’s why in our tropical islands we stop for siesta, especially when the midday sun is overhead. We should, however, always take things in moderation; whether eating food, consuming alcohol, or having fun under the sun. I remember many summers when my skin turned crisp and red from overexposure and it smelled something like - well - roasted pig. Incidents happen too when your having siesta too much, or doing it at the wrong time of day. I know how it feels like when you get drowsy from the heat.

Take the case of the modern Sisig; there is an unverified story that it was just created by culinary accident. Its key ingredient is chopped and minced pig head that was meant for Sisigan, a sour dish closely related to the popular Sinigang, but more akin to our Adobo because it is cooked in vinegar and spiced with garlic and pepper. It was apparently left unattended, the cook might have dozed off, and was burnt to a crisp. Instead of throwing it away, it was still served mixed with the regular ingredients like chicken liver and pig's brain and of course onion, salt, pepper, and to add more zest - calamansi (calamondin or acid orange). Some like it hot so you can always add in slivers of Siling Mahaba (Long Green Chilies); or to add extra creaminess or as replacement for pig’s brain, you can use mayonnaise or add an egg.

The Sisig has come a long way from its origin as recorded by the Augustinian friar, Diego Bergaño, in his dictionary of the Capampangan language where he noted it as a "salad, including green papaya, or green guava eaten with a dressing of salt, pepper, garlic and vinegar." So we can say it was a derivative of a Capampangan version of the Tagalog Sinigang and Adobo. The innovation was adding meat from unused pig’s head which were readily available from commissaries of a nearby U.S. Air Base. I am beginning to wonder if the Missing Papaya ended up as an ingredient in Sisig. It is my neighbor’s favorite pulutan (like Spanish Tapas or small servings of food), and he loves it with San Miguel Beer, we both do. You can have a side dish to it like Achara which is vinegar pickled papaya. Filipino cuisine noticeably follows a specific pattern of food preparation and cooking.

After the lazy summer sun has set, you can cool down further by gulping on a cool and refreshing drink of one of the best brews in the world. This golden liquid is a perfect complement for my sun browned soul. There is also nothing that would rival the Filipino Adobo, except perhaps the Sizzling Sisig with every morsel as decadent as it tastes. So as the Spanish would have it: drink when you eat, eat when you drink.

Adobo: Most Gregarious Filipino Soul Food

Welcome my dear friends to Adobo Country.

There is never a day under the Philippine Sun when Adobo is not to be found on even one table across our islands. This national dish is truly reflective of our heritage and soul as a nation. It is a reflection of all cultural influences we have gained over the years, and yet is distinctly Filipino. Adobo is a most gregarious Filipino soul food, as it has pervaded and become popular even overseas. Wherever you find a pinoy, I'm sure they are as appealing as their adobo.

My sun browned soul always craves for this kind of soy browned recipe. There are a variety of ways to cook adobo. In fact, adobo is simply a manner in which food is prepared or marinated to be exact; meaning, there is an endless list of ingredients that you can make into an adobo. The basic pinoy adobo would still be either pork or chicken, or a combination of both. Wikipedia has already listed down a good number of variants:

"Other ingredients such as squid, beef, lamb, game fowl like quail and snipe, catfish, okra, eggplant, string beans, and water spinach (kangkong) are also made into adobo, with appropriate changes in the basic recipe. Squid adobo (adobong pusit), for instance, is quite different. While most adobo preparations have a brownish sauce, squid adobo has a deep, purplish-black sauce not unlike the Spanish dishcalamares en su tinta due to the inclusion of squid ink." From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobo

The Wikipedia article may have intentionally omitted the other more exotic variants like frogs' legs, rabbit, horse meat, Kalabaw (Water Buffalo), Bayawak (Monitor Lizzard), Suso at Kuhol (snails), Salagubang (scarab beetle family), Igat (eel), and others you can only dare think of. There are other vegetarian adobo ingredients too like tokwa (beancurd or tofu), or other edible green leafy vegetable growing in the backyard.

An Adobo can go without soy sauce but not without vinegar. I suggest you use real vinegar and not the artificial acidulants that are sold in supermarkets as vinegar. I recommend Sukang Paombong (nipa palm vinegar), Sukang Iloko (sugar cane vinegar), Sukang Sasa (coconut sap vinegar), or any other natural vinegar; or if you don't have any of these overseas, use strong apple cider vinegar. Vinegar prolongs the shelf-life of adobo, and the longer the meat ingredient is marinated the tastier it gets. Of course, this doesn't apply to vegetables which should be preferrably crisp or fresh. This method of food preparation and preservation is said to have been used by our ancestors long before the Spaniards came.

The Chinese should be thanked for their concoction of the magic brown liquid called soy sauce. This tasty condiment made from the fermentation of soybeans contributes the most umami or savory taste to adobo. Without soy sauce, the alternative would be salt if you want to avoid the brown color. I would only use patis (fish sauce) if I'm introducing variant ingredients like gata (coconut milk) and Siling Mahaba (Long Chillies) to make Adobo sa Gata. That reminds me, you can also add potatoes, hard cooked eggs, pineapple, saba bananas, and other extras.

Once the meat is well marinated in the sauce, it is time to cook it. Just don't forget to add in all the spices that make this dish a tasty treat. It's a must for this recipe to have garlic, bay leaves and freshly cracked peppercorns. I usually add in a little sugar to temper the acidity and to balance the taste. Boil it or fry it to your liking, and let it soak in its sauce or have it dry. Burn it to a crisp and you have the makings of a Sizzling Sisig. Add in ketchup, something truly asian, to give the meat a reddish-brown color and you have yourself a barbecue; put a little worcestershire sauce and it's westernized.

Need I say we eat it with rice or on pandesal bread?

My Mom's Souper Tinola

Are you still wondering what happened to “The Case of the Missing Papaya”?

This is how my mother taught me how to cook Chicken Tinola, a soup-dish that is a favorite among locals and foreigners as well. I can say that this is the Filipino way of preparing a hearty chicken soup for weary souls. It is very much a comfort food in every way, as it always reminds you of those pleasant memories of childhood, or the times when your mom tried to nurse you back from unsavory bouts of depression. You tend to gaze in wonder at the clear soup and blow some of its hot steam away; ever impatient even after you’ve been told so many times that it’s improper. I think I heard my father let out a sigh, as if in prayer, that day when the papaya went missing – that day when mother served Tinola for lunch.

The native chicken variety, the grazing for worm kind, is the key ingredient for this recipe. Its meat and broth is so much tastier than its bigger white feathered counterpart; although a little harder to catch. It should very well satisfy the palate of those who prefer organic food. It could still be easily found roaming in countryside farms or sold feet-bound in farmers’ markets. It would be less of a burden on your conscience to lop off its head than you would a cow, goat, sheep or pig, because among farm animals, the chicken seems to have the least amount of family or social life. You can always slaughter them or choose to go vegetarian. I promise never to give them names again like they were pets; we never got to taste Max, McDo, Wendy or Chikee.

While others would rather break the chicken by neck, there are other ways to get it done, depending on the recipe you are preparing. You can put the chicken in a sack and start slamming it around, but that is for an altogether different local chicken recipe called Pinikpikan. Some Tinola recipes would require you to collect the blood and coagulate it with rice. In this case, hold the chicken down firmly with its neck against a chopping board. Make sure that your blade is sharp enough to do a fast and clean job. Bring it down fast and hard enough to make sure you have it completely severed; do not hesitate – or you can always choose to be a vegetarian. Do not let go of the chicken anytime soon, or else you will find yourself blogging about the chicken that got away. Chickens have been known to run without heads on. If it can’t see where it’s going, it might end up in somebody else’s pot. You then dress up the chicken by plucking away its feathers; quite an irony. If this sounds complicated, just buy one in a supermarket.

I like my Tinola to have the taste of chicken stir fried in spices. I’m sure you would like this if you love Indian, Indo-Thai or Chinese food. In this recipe, ginger, garlic and onion is essential. It makes up for the lack of savory taste or umami because chicken meat has fewer glutamates, and I would never dare use MSG on my organic chicken. After stir frying the chicken, add in some “patis” or fish sauce to taste and let it caramelize as it melds into the sweating spices and chicken meat. The fish sauce contributes most to the savory saltiness or umami taste of this dish. You may then add enough water to cover the chicken and let it slowly cook in a simmering golden broth.

There are still key ingredients needed to complete this recipe. These can be found in most Filipino homes that still have some soil to plant on. These two are very hardy plants that can survive harsh environmental conditions. The leaves of the “Siling Labuyo” or Bird’s Eye Chili (some say Wild Cock Chili) is put in last. You may also want to add in some of the chili itself to make it hot. Before that, you should add in the papaya fruit (some call it tree melon), but not the ripe kind, and make sure it’s cooked soft enough to eat before you add the chili leaves.

Serve and enjoy it while it’s hot.

The Case of the Missing Papaya

There once was a lone papaya tree in front of our house, and according to superstition in my country, it would bring bad luck if it was planted there - which it was. To make it even worse, it was bordering on my neighbor's lot, and the old man who lived there was even more superstitious than most. He was full of it and everyday he would rant on and on about it while he was blowing smoke and combing his prized roosters. He was insistent that we should take it down before disaster struck us both. I would have, if it was up to me, but it was my father who planted it there.

My father is a very religious person, but unlike the religious folk of old, he did not hold on to any of their superstitions. He was adamant that if God wanted to put you through a test of faith, then that was The Almighty's work and not brought about by disregarding superstitions He always had an argument over this with our neighbor. He said that if there was anything bad at all that would happen to people, it would be borne by their ignorance and unrighteousness. He was indignant against all forms of vices, and that includes my neighbor's love for cockfighting. He even told our neighbor that it was gambling that would bring the old man to his grave.

Our papaya tree was once a seedling, from a papaya fruit that my father brought from one of his travels, in some remote province where our relatives lived. They gave the fruit to him along with some others as a souvenir. It was a very sweet fruit, sun-ripened and so very unlike the ones you find in the market. We enjoyed it very much, so my father decided to plant its seeds. That's how our papaya tree came to be. In fact, there were other trees, but none except this tree had the promise of bearing fruit, so they were cut down. There was something that was peculiar about this tree, because it too almost never bore fruit, except for one bud.

My father took care of that budding fruit. He watched it as it grew bigger as the days passed. He always remembered how sweet the fruit were it came from was. He told me sayings like how a fruit does not fall far from the tree. He told me this, I think, because he believed that just as no-good as our neighbor was so were the old man's children, who happened to be my friends. He never really said that in a matter-of-fact way, but it was his observation of things happening. My neighbors were quite a rowdy bunch, I must say. I think it had something to do with how they were brought up. My neighbor, the old man - their father, never really cared for his children as much as he did for his roosters - cocks. He insisted they were cocks not roosters, and that there was a huge difference; well, pardon me for my ignorance.

One lazy Sunday morning, I woke up late, I was awoken by the aroma of chicken stewing in steaming broth, and by the horribly loud noise coming from outside. It was my father who was making a commotion. He was raising hell over with our neighbors; because the one papaya fruit was gone from the one papaya tree that was in front of our house and almost in our neighbor's lot. The night before at dinner, were just talking again about the papaya and how delicious it would be for desert when it ripens. We also talked about our neighbor, who went out to join a derby cockfight that night; there were rumors going on that he mortgages his house to have money for his gambling vice. That morning, there was news that he lost, and everyone next door was as quiet as the dead, except for my father who was hell-bent on making them produce the papaya, habeas corpus.

I had an inkling of what was probably going on inside my father's mind as he went on rampaging like a madman over the missing papaya. First, he must have heard that our neighbor lost in the cockfight, and probably blames the papaya for the misfortune. He also must have thought that the old man took the papaya to spite him, and did it in retaliation for all the verbal exchanges that went between them. The old man was, I think, quietly ignoring my father, or was too dumbfounded to speak at that moment; either because of the loss, or because he had never seen my father take their fight to that level over a papaya. More importantly, both of them must have smelled too that glorious aroma coming from the stewing broth of a chicken that lost in a cockfight - most likely.

We only had the chance to appease my father when it was almost time for lunch. We all sat quietly at our table. I didn't exactly know if he still had any appetite while thinking about the missing papaya. We were served with Chicken Tinola, a delicious and nutritious native dish that is a favorite among Filipinos and foreigners alike. Would you like me to email you the recipe?