Sinigang Through Time: The Filipino Sour Soup With Many Faces, One Soul

By Pressenza Philippines

by George Banez

“Keep your passport with you — in your pocket — all the time.” My eldest brother reminded me to be alert as I finally said goodbye after checking in. He must have seen me drop my passport near the counter, and someone had to help me retrieve it from under the luggage.  I was nervous. Not only was I traveling alone, but I was also going away for about a year and a half. The kid in me brimmed with excitement, while the adult inside felt anxious.

My mother remained quiet. She had said her reminders earlier. “Don’t look back.” I heard her say in silence. She told me to “keep looking forward” until I reach my goal, and to stay focused on what I set out to accomplish.  She had in mind the training I would gain. Her scrawny son imagined fun.

Reality jolted me from reverie when I arrived.  For one, I could not read the Japanese script written on everything, like the washing machine. And even if I did, I had never washed my own clothes to know how. But nothing compared to my heroic effort to buy lunch on my first day in Tsukuba City, 45 miles (72 km) North of Tokyo where we landed. One of the non-English speaking ladies I pestered finally gave me a serving of “Chicken Umani” from the kitchen.  The poor lady simply wanted me to go away.  She was about to close the student cafeteria.  To this day, I do not know how I got her to tell me its name, but I fondly remember “Chicken Umani” as my first hot meal in Japan.

While I could use hand gestures to order food from a menu in Japanese, I rolled the dice every time I went grocery shopping.  Unable to read labels, I could only hope I bought salt, not sugar, or whichever of the two I needed at that time. I had to taste a tiny bit of every white powder before using.  So even if being a “foodie” were a thing back then, in the internet-free late ‘80s,  I still would have been the least qualified.

My father had his first and last heart attack at 55.  Food to me stood for restrictions. I  was in fifth grade when he passed and my uncle, who was a doctor, warned us about the perils of consuming eggs, dairy, and meats with abandon.  Still, I needed to eat. But I had never cooked before.  Lucky for me, a kind friend, someone who cooked Filipino staples like “Adobo” stew and “Sinigang” sour soup came to the rescue.  He cooked from memory and did not follow any written recipes or rules of proportions.

So, when time came for me to start cooking on my own, I recreated my friend’s memory of his mother’s Adobo and Sinigang.  Unfortunately, recollections can be unreliable. Of course, I made rookie mistakes.  When I cooked the Filipino Adobo stew, I would forget to add water or poured too much soy sauce and under cooked vinegar. I always ended with extremely dark, salty, or sour Adobo.

Sinigang On Demand

In contrast, I always got Sinigang right, or so I thought. Maybe because by the time I began fixing myself the sour soup, Sinigang, the seasoning mix was handy.  I remember using one from Knorr, the German brand now owned by the British Dutch multinational company,  Unilever.  I later discovered “Mama Sita” Sinigang Mix developed in 1980 by Teresita  Reyes, daughter of Aling Asiang, the founder of the Aristocrat Restaurant Company in the Philippines.  Now, I also use the Nora Kitchen brand, a product of the U.S.A.

I mastered cooking Sinigang because it is easy to customize. I can decide which ingredients to use based on availability.  Taste and levels of umami can be adjusted.  Even the name, “Sinigang,” is the noun for the action word, “stewing,” a category that lends itself to variations. Home cooks of the northern half of the Philippines serve this clear but hearty soup for lunch and dinner, but not as a starter. It is consumed with rice alongside other mains.

Although preparing Sinigang appears like a culinary free-for-all, it is not.  Mention Sinigang to Filipinos, especially from around the capital, and they have a distinct taste and image in mind. Most of them care about details– from the cut of the pork to the combination of vegetables that go into the specific Sinigang they crave.

“Stewed” may be the closest translation, but “Sinigang” in the Philippines only refers to “stewed with a souring agent.” To folks in the Tagalog Region, around Manila, the more sour the Sinigang, the better.  So, they employ unripened Tamarind to infuse Sinigang with tang.  They boil the tart fruit, with the peel still on, until the pulp is tender. They then pass the mash through a sieve.  The extracted juice flavors the broth of any simmering proteins like pork belly or ribs, milkfish, salmon, shrimps, or chicken.  Home cooks also add the less acidic Filipino tomatoes and purple red onions that resemble shallots but are sharper in flavor. They season the soup with fish sauce.

Cooks layer umami with  “Gabi,” or Taro corms, and the slightly bitter “Labanos” radish.  They pile lots of hearty vegetables like eggplant, yard- long beans, and okra, but wait until serving time to put in leafy greens, like shoots of sweet potato vine or  “Kangkong,” water spinach.  One unsliced “Siling Haba,” finger chili, adds aroma but no heat to the soup.

“Siling Haba” (Capsicum annuum var. longum) with around 30,000 SHU in the Scoville Scale is mild. A diner in the mood for spiciness can crush or eat it whole.  Diners can further customize each spoonful of Sinigang and rice with a dipping sauce of Calamansi juice, “Siling labuyo” Bird’s Eye Chilies (Capsicum frutescens), and more fish sauce.

Today’s foodies may find Sinigang akin to other Southeast Asian soups.  Like Sinigang, both Thai Tom Yum and Indonesian Sayur Asem have sour ingredients — lime and “Belimbing” (Averroah bilimbi), respectively.  While Tom Yum is fragrant and hot from lemongrass, galangal, lime leaves, and chilies,  Sayur Asem is slightly sweeter from peanuts, young jackfruit, and corn.  All three soups have the cooling effect perfect for tropical weather.  Sinigang’s tartness makes it unique.

Sinigang, As You Like It

Sinigang is also adaptable. Now that I have stopped eating meat of land animals, I use nutritional yeast flakes and Japanese Dashi powder for umami.  I bring tofu and fish balls to the Sinigang party and incorporate “Gabi” and radish whenever I can. I grab spinach or kale for my greens.

Tamarind powder is in the Sinigang mix I use.  When cooking,  I simply put all the ingredients in a pot and bring everything to a boil. I adjust sourness by the amount of the mix I put, depending on my mood. But expert cooks suggest that I sauté the aromatics and proteins before pouring in water.  And add the mix towards the end for more savor.

When my neighbor recently brought me a bucketful of fish, she schooled me on the coastal Filipinos’  version of Sinigang.  Originally from a beach town in the Bicol Region, she goes fishing in Florida whenever she can. She knows fish. So, she taught me how best to keep their natural sweetness by skipping the mix.  She simply squeezes lime juice after simmering fish in aromatics.  She sprinkles Cayenne shortly before serving.

Filipino cooks I recently consulted distinguish Pork Sinigang from one made with freshly caught fish. Everyone relies on the tamarind seasoning mix for meats or imported fish, like Salmon. But for local fish that has never been frozen, the only flavoring used is Calamansi, the Kumquat citrus and mandarin orange hybrid.  In the Bicol region, cooks call this fish sinigang, “Coccido.” This is what I remember from childhood. Incidentally, the tomato sour soup my vegetarian friend from Kerala, India, cooked for us resembled “Coccido.”

Sinigang’s adaptability continues. Cooks prioritize souring agents by preference, then availability.  “Belimbing,” or “Kamias” (Averrhoa bilimbi) in the Philippines, is second to tamarind. They use fruits like Guava, Santol (Sandoricum koetjape), and green mangoes when in season.  Some prefer the piquant Katmon (Dillenia philippinensis) or sweetish Batuan (Garcinia binucao) fruits picked from trees in the neighborhood or public lands.  Others favor the zesty shoots of “Alibangbang” (Bauhinia malabarica) or “Lubas” (Spondias pinnata), and the leaves of Tamarind, particularly for chicken sinigang.

The late Filipino food writer, Doreen Fernandez, in 1988 wrote the essay, “Why Sinigang?” arguing that it represented Filipino taste like no other.  Highly adaptable yet always bright in flavor, Sinigang makes eating meals appetizing even on very hot days.  Since I started cooking “Sinigang,” I too have found new ways to enjoy it, without obliterating its soul.

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Previously Published on pressenza with Creative Commons License

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Photo credit: iStock

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