When I was a little kid, I used to get so excited when Nanay or Mommy or Tita Pinky made sinigang that I would start singing “Happy Birthday, Sinigang!” in front of the mirror in the bathroom to get myself revved up for my most favorite food in the whole world.

Sinigang really isn’t that special, but for some reason, I loved it. It’s just radish, spinach, tomatoes, eggplant and meat in a sour, fishy broth. Usually, you use pork or fish, but you can also use shrimp or beef.

This is not the kind of food you order at a restaurant. It’s something that you have to eat from home. And every Filipino family has their own recipe for it (I was mortified to discover that my friend Josie’s family uses CORN in her sinigang…WEIRDDDDD!).  So I am happy and proud to finally give you our family’s recipe for SINIGANG. Here we go!

Sinigang is traditionally eaten for breakfast, over sinanag — garlic fried rice. But I never eat it at way. It’s always served for dinner in the winter, over freshly steamed rice.

The flavor base of the soup is tamarind, calamansi and patis. You will never be able to find tamarind here in the States, so don’t bother. And unless your gramma FedExes you calamansi — native Philippine lime — to your DC rowhouse from her garden in SoCal, then you probably won’t find that, either. But you will be able to find Knorr’s Sinigang Tamarind Soup Base from your local Asian store.

But if you seriously can’t find it, email me and I’ll send you a pack. Jeez.

RECIPE:

1 1/2 stewing pork or beef with as much fat on it as possible
1 1/2 pack of Knorr’s sinigang mix
1 bok choy, cut into 2 1/2 in pieces, green part only (or 3 handfuls of spinach)
1 onion, quartered
1 tomato, quartered
2 Japanese eggplants, cut into 1/2 in thick circles
1/2 of a whole daikon radish, cut into 1/2 in thick half-circles
1 siling panigang (umm, sorry I don’t know what this is in English, but to help you out I’ve provided a photo…that’s not very helpful either. Whatever you do, don’t use a Thai chili, it’s too hot for this dish. Use a green pepper that is not so spicy.)
Fish sauce (to taste)

Sawsawan (garnish):
1 tbs fish sauce with lemon or calamansi squeezed into it

Fill a pot with water. Dump the meat, soup base, onions and tomato in. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer for an hour and a half until the meat gets really soft. Then, dump in the hard vegetables — the radish and eggplant — and let that cook for about 5 minutes. Then, add in the bok choy and cook for another two minutes. Add fish sauce to taste.

Serve over white rice, using the sawsawan as an accompaniment.