Cook’s notes
How good? Let’s just say that the old recipe has been one of the most visited pages in my blog. It seems to be especially popular among readers from California.
Tips: Use free range or stewing chicken. If you have to substitute regular chicken from the grocery, I suggest using chicken bone broth instead of plain water for making the soup.
The length of the cooking time depends largely on the kind of chicken you use. Stewing chicken will take more than an hour to cook while regular grocery chicken should be done in 30 to 40 minutes. The one hour cooking time specified below is based on how long it takes to cook a free range chicken to tenderness.
See how to extract tamarind juice.
Chicken sinigang
Ingredients
Spice base
- 2 tablespoons cooking oil
- 2 shallots peeled and thinly sliced
- 4 cloves garlic peeled and pounded
- 2 to 3 tomatoes diced
Chicken
- 1 kilogram bone-in chicken (2.2 pounds) whole or portions, cut into serving size pieces
- 2 tablespoons fish sauce
Vegetables
- 1 bunch sitaw (yard-long beans) trimmed and cut into two-inch lengths
- 1 radish peeled and cut into rings
- 1 bunch kangkong (water / swamp spinach) cut into two-inch lengths
- 2 eggplants cut into rings
Seasonings
- 1 cup tamarind extract the exact amount you need depends on how condensed or diluted it is
- fish sauce
Instructions
- Heat the cooking oil in a thick pan or pot.
- Saute the shallots, garlic and tomatoes just until softened.
- Add the chicken and pour in the fish sauce.
- Cook, stirring often, until the chicken has lost its raw appearance and the liquids have almost dried up.
- Pour in water (or chicken broth), four to six cups, making sure that the chicken pieces are submerged in liquid.
- Bring to the boil, lower the heat, cover and simmer until the chicken is tender.
- Taste the broth and add more fish sauce, if needed.
- Take the sitaw and radish and stir into the soup. Cover and simmer for about five minutes.
- Add the kangkong stalks (the leaves go in last), stir and simmer for another five minutes.
- Taste the broth, add more fish sauce if needed, then stir in the eggplants. Cover and simmer for five to seven minutes.
- Check the broth again if more fish sauce is needed before stirring in the kangkong leaves. Simmer for another five minutes.
- Pour in the tamarind extract, stir well and bring the soup to a simmer.
- Give the broth a final taste, add fish sauce to balance the sourness of the tamarind broth, if needed, before serving your chicken sinigang.
Oxtail kare-kare