Sinigang and Ube Shakes

Ingredients
Sinigang
Pork, Sampaloc (tamarind), onions, tomatoes, gabi (taro), eggplant, string beans, salt
Ube Shake
Ube (Purple yam), milk, sugar, ice

In my stubbornness, I want to do as much of this project from scratch as possible! Usually, families these days just use little packets of sinigang mix because no one really has the time or energy (or the maids, as many people have in the Philippines), to do it the old fashioned way. Well, it being summer, I have nothing but time on my hands.

For those that don’t know, sinigang can be made with pork or shrimp or other meats I guess, but what makes it sinigang is the sourness of the soup. According to the book my cousin gave me, sinigang is one of those dishes that has always been Filipino – separate from Spanish, American and Chinese influences. Anyway, so to make it sour, Filipinos use different tropical fruits. The particular recipe my mom gave me used sampaloc (or tamarind). So the process – you have to boil the tamarind separately. Then, once it’s all soft, you have to squeeze all the juices out of the tamarind, making sure not to include any of the actual solid matter in the sinigang. It apparently takes a lot of tamarind and a lot of squeezing, but it’s so much better from scratch than from the packages!!!!

Ube is another ingredient that I’ve always thought of as distinctly Filipino. It’s basically a sweet yam that’s purple. We make ube shakes, ube jam (ube halaya), ube ice cream, ube cake, ube pastillas – pretty much any dessert or sweet thing, we’ve probably put ube in it at some point. Ube ice cream and ube halaya have always been some of my favorite desserts (actually made some halaya with my mom last night, but that’s for the next post). I’m so glad the Filipino stores here in Glendale carry fresh and frozen ube. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find any.

Actually, this is kind of a tangent, but I never actually thought about how much Filipino stuff is so accessible to me. I sort of took it for granted and didn’t really appreciate it until I left Glendale for Philadelphia, where there is virtually nothing Filipino anywhere. In LA (15 minutes away) there’s Historic Filipinotown and the Filipino American library; in Eagle Rock (5 minute from my house) there’s Seafood City Grocery, Jollibee, Chow King, Goldilocks Bakery, Filipino traditional clothing stores; right here in Glendale there’s Arko Grocery, Red Ribbon and a Max’s of Manila; and more importantly, within a 20 mile radius, probably around 40 members of my extended family. I finally appreciate how much of my native culture has been around me growing up and I’m glad that I’m finally taking advantage of it and accessing all of this material.

As for other updates, almost missed jogging today. I didn’t hear my alarm clock go off, but luckily I woke up naturally, just about 10-15 minutes late. I’m slowly but surely getting into my summer reading, though it’s taken a back seat to the cooking and Mandarin projects. In Mandarin, I’m starting to get the grammar a little more; the vocab is getting pretty heavy; and I don’t think I’ve gotten very far at all with reading the simplified Chinese characters. Tonight I’ll be making Lumpiang Sariwa and for the dessert, the Ube Halaya my mom and I made last night. That’s it for now. Till next time!

Other Summer Projects
Books Read: 0
Current Book(s): The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Memories of Philippine Kitchens
Progress with Mandarin: Unit 1, Lessons 1, 2, & 3 – Language Basics
Weekdays Missed Jogging: 0