Sinigang Boy

Jeremai Ciej. His favorite dish is Sinigang Na Baboy.

Like most toddlers, my nephew Jeremai Ciej who is four, is extremely picky in what he eats during meal time. He eats a lot though, but only with limited variety. He only eats fried "things"and brothy dishes like tinola. Feeding him can really be quite a chore. His favorite food ever is the very reliable toddler fodder, fried chicken. Another is Sinigang Na Baboy, with which you'll find it extremely difficult to stop him from gobbling up the entire pot of this dish.

It's really easy to feed him with Sinigang and fried chicken but we can't have them everyday of our lives!

This is how I eat sinigang. I literally flood the rice with the broth.

Enter Shakespeare. What's in a name? For us to convince Jeremai to eat, we just call any brothy dishes like tinola or batsoy "Sinigang" and that does it! Everytime. Ciej is really a Sinigang Boy!

In no time, he finishes a soup-plateful of rice that's swimming in Sinigang broth. Mmmmm, Yummy!

Every region in the Philippines has its own version of Sinigang and there no limit to what one can "sigang"-- shrimp, meat, fish, and even odd items like alimasag and corned beef (yes!).; and to the souring agent one can use to achieve that hot-sour taste-- sampalok, manggang hilaw, calamansi, leaves of some soury fruits and a host of others. Below is my version of Sinigang Na Baboy.

Sinigang Na Baboy

Pressure-cook 1 Kg. Pork Liempo, salted and with chunks of onion and tomatoes. In another pot, boil around 100grams fresh unripe tamarind fruit until the pulp disintegrates. Mash the tamarind in the pot and set aside.

Once the meat is tender, pour in the tamarind puree and add vegetables like gabi, okra, labanos and sitaw first before finally adding kangkong. Season to taste.

Serve hot!

You just can't stop Ciej from enjoying sinigang Rice! He likes it best with Pop Cola.