Snapper in sour soup

There are lots of different versions of sinigang or sour soup. In the province where I came, it is usually with "bangus" or milkfish and lots of vegetables like string beans, "kangkong" or river spinach, tomatoes, green finger pepper and raddish. Each soup have different bases, these includes tamarind or sampalok, calamansi or Philippine lemon citrus, guava and santol. There are also lots of instant commercial sour seasoning cubed or powdered like Knorr sinigang.

A very simple and quick Filipino dish.

A recipe example that we had this lunch:

1k maya maya or red snapper

100 g mustard

4 tomatoes

80 g raddish

2 pieces green finger pepper

200 g sampalok (tamarind) or 20 g powdered tamarind seasoning

2 onions

4 cloves of garlic

3 tbsp of patis or fish sauce

1 l of rice wash or water

Instructions:

Boil sampalok in water until the shell shows cracks. Let cook then peel off the shells and with a strainer pour sampalok (including water) into a bowl.Gently massage the sampalok meat off the seeds, strain again.

In a pot, saute garlic and onion then add the tomatoes. Let simmer for 5 minutes.

Add rice wash or water then bring to a boil then simmer for 5 minutes. Add the fish, remaining vegetables and fish sauce. Let boil for 5 minutes. Do not over cook or else the fish will fall apart.

Serve piping hot.

Tip:

Instead of sampalok fruit (tamarind), you can substitute it with the powdered tamarind seasoning.

Enjoy!