Name: Sinigang (Sour Soup)
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 1 h 15 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Filipino
Ingredients: 600 g Pork; 0.5 Radish; 2 Tomatoes; 1 Onion; 3 Green chilies; 2 handfuls Water spinach; 1 Eggplant; 6 Okra; 100 g Long beans; 8 cups Water; 3 tbsp Tamarind; 3 tbsp Fish sauce; Salt & pepper

Ingredients

4servings

Pork · belly or ribs, cut up600 g
Radish · or taro0.5
Tomatoes · quartered2
Onion1
Green chilies · finger chili/jalapeno3
Water spinach · kangkong, or spinach2 handfuls
Eggplant · optional1
Okra · optional6
Long beans · optional100 g
Broth
Water8 cups
Tamarind · paste, or 1 pack sinigang mix3 tbsp
Fish sauce · patis3 tbsp
Salt & pepper · to taste

Steps

Put the pork in a pot with 8 cups water, bring to a boil, skim the foam, and simmer 40 minutes until tender.
⏲ 40 min
Add the onion and tomatoes and simmer until they break down.
⏲ 5 min
Add the radish (or taro) and cook until tender.
⏲ 8 min
Stir in the tamarind (or sinigang mix) and fish sauce to sour and season the broth.
⏲ 2 min
Add the eggplant, long beans, okra, and green chilies and cook until just tender.
⏲ 5 min
Finally add the water spinach (or spinach) and let it wilt, then turn off the heat.
⏲ 1 min
Serve hot with rice, with extra fish sauce on the side.

Variations

Sinigang na hipon: Use shrimp instead of pork for a lighter soup.
Fish sinigang: Make it with white fish like milkfish or bass.
Beef sinigang: Use beef short ribs for a richer broth.
Souring agents: Swap tamarind for green mango, calamansi, or tomato.

Tips

Skim the foam while simmering the pork for a clear, clean broth.
Adjust the sourness with the amount of tamarind — sinigang mix makes it easy.
Add vegetables firmest first so everything finishes tender together.
Add leafy greens last to keep their color and crunch.

More detail and the reasons why (4)

Its neighbours file this soup and neither of them is describing the same thing. Kaeng som says it "shares only the tamarind" — no paste, its chillies left whole, sourness alone — and Rasam draws the other line: sinigang is "a soup with things in it, pork and vegetables are the point", while rasam keeps almost no solids and is a broth you drink. Between them they say what this dish is and leave out why its order is what it is.
Rasam supplies that too, and it is the reason the tamarind goes in late here and early there. That page states the rule outright — "which acid it is decides the order of the recipe" — because tamarind's acidity is mostly tartaric, which unlike the acetic acid of a vinegar does not volatilise, so simmering never blows the sourness off. It is therefore safe at either end, and what decides this pot is not the acid but what the acid would be sitting on. Forty minutes of pork wants a neutral broth; the acid goes in once the meat is done.
And the vegetables are split around it on purpose. The radish goes in before the tamarind and the aubergine, beans and okra after. Acid sets pectin firm — which is why a dense root gets its time in a broth that is still neutral, while the quick vegetables go into a sour one and stay crisp rather than collapsing. The same property is a problem in one half of the pot and the point in the other.
The leaves last is a different clock again. Water spinach wilts in seconds, so it goes in at the very end and the heat goes off as soon as it has wilted. Read the recipe backwards and it is three groups sorted by what the acid would do to each, not a list of what takes longest.

The basics behind this dish

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