Sinigang is my comfort food especially during the rainy/colder season. It is a sour soup made of vegetables and meat of your choice (you can use shrimp, pork, beef, fish, chicken). Unripe tamarind is the commonly used ingredient to make the sinigang sour. Other people use calamansi instead of tamarind. Nowadays, people usually use the instant tamarind soup mix because it’s cheaper and easy to use.
I won’t be detailing how to make one because you can find several youtube videos and/or blogs to learn how to make one. My goal here to look at the sinigang and the commonly used vegetables from different versions of it.
Below are the commonly used vegetables in sinigang. They are in Tagalog-English-Scientific name order.
kangkong – water Spinach – Ipomoea aquatica
sitaw – string beans – Vigna unguiculata ssp. sesquipedalis
kamatis – tomato – Solanum lycopersicum
siling haba – long chili – Capsicum annuum
sibuyas – onion – Allium cepa
gabi – taro – Colocasia esculenta
labanos – radish – Raphanus sativus
miso – soybean – Glycine max
talong – eggplant – Solanum melongena
sampaloc – tamarind – Tamarindus indica
calamansi – Philippine lime – Citrofortunella microcarpa
The photo above was my take on my own sinigang (because in the country I am right now, the veggies mentioned are rare to find). I used asparagus and mustard instead of string beans and kangkong. Enjoy your hot sinigang in this bed weather situation. I would love to hear how they are called in your place and other vegetables you add in your sinigang in the comment section.
Agriwanderist PH 