Sinigang na Baboy — Sour Pork Soup

Name: Sinigang na Baboy — Sour Pork Soup
Total time: 1 h 50 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Filipino
Ingredients: 900 g (2 lbs) Pork belly; 450 g (1 lb) Young tamarind; 1.9 L (2 quarts) Water; 1 bunch Water spinach (kangkong), chopped; 8 String beans, cut into 5 cm pieces; 2 Chinese eggplant, sliced; 1 Daikon radish; 8 Okra; 2 Tomatoes, cut into wedges; 2 Long green pepper (siling haba); 1 Onion, cut into wedges; Fish sauce (patis); Ground black pepper

A pork soup built on sourness instead of richness: tamarind boiled down into a tart broth, pork belly simmered soft in it, then a pile of vegetables dropped in at the last minute so each keeps its own bite.

Source

Recette de Vanjo Merano · 📱 Influenceur · Vanjo Merano — Filipino food writer behind Panlasang Pinoy, the largest Filipino recipe site

Les noms des cuisiniers et créateurs figurent uniquement à titre de mention de source. More Recipes Please est indépendant et n'est ni affilié, ni approuvé, ni sponsorisé par eux.

Panlasang Pinoy (Vanjo Merano) — Vanjo Merano's published sinigang, made the long way with fresh tamarind. The name comes from the Tagalog verb sigang, 'to stew'; the dish is defined by its sourness rather than any one souring fruit. Calories are omitted here — the source's figure counts the full 900 g of pork belly against only four servings.

Cuisinier: Vanjo Merano

Watch it being made · 3 videos

Vanjo Merano Panlasang Pinoy Mommy Jacky

⏱ 110 min🍽 4 portions🇵🇭 Philippines🌶️

Sans glutenSans produits laitiers

Étapes

Boil the young tamarind in the 1.9 L of water for 40 minutes. Pour it through a sieve, pressing hard on the pulp to squeeze out every drop, and keep the liquid. Discard the solids.
💡 Push the pulp against the sieve with the back of a ladle — the sourness lives in the flesh, and a gentle pour leaves most of it behind.
Bring the tamarind broth back to a boil in a large pot. Add the onion, the pork belly and half the tomatoes.
Skim off the grey foam that rises, add 1 tablespoon of fish sauce, cover, and simmer for 1 hour until the pork is tender.
💡 Skim in the first five minutes, before the foam breaks up and disperses. That one minute of work is the difference between a clear, clean-tasting broth and a cloudy one.
Add the daikon and eggplant and cook for 5 minutes.
Add the long green peppers, string beans, remaining tomatoes and okra, and cook for 3 minutes more.
💡 The vegetables go in hardest-first for a reason — daikon needs eight minutes, okra needs three, and leaves need almost none. Dumping them all in at once gives you mush and crunch in the same bowl.
Add the water spinach STALKS, season with fish sauce and black pepper, and cook for 2 minutes.
Add the water spinach LEAVES, put the lid on, turn the heat off completely, and let the residual heat wilt them for 3 minutes before serving.
💡 Turning the heat off is not a shortcut, it is the point. Boiled greens go grey and slimy; greens wilted in a covered pot off the heat stay green and separate.

💡 Astuces

Almost every Filipino household uses an instant tamarind mix (sinigang sa sampalok) instead of boiling fresh pods — one 40 g sachet replaces the whole first step. Nobody considers this cheating. Fresh tamarind gives a rounder, less sharp sourness if you can get it.
Sourness is a matter of taste, not a fixed target. Taste the broth before the vegetables go in and adjust — Filipino cooks routinely add more tamarind or a squeeze of calamansi at the table.
Tamarind is only the most common souring agent, not the only one — guava, unripe mango, calamansi and kamias are all traditional. Each makes a recognisably different sinigang.