On the Menu: Beef Sinigang

Nothing beats a cold, windy day than a perfectly good bowl of steaming Beef Sinigang. This quintessential Filipino dish is made from beef imported from… Tagaytay.   Yes, we went to the home of bulalo to purchase kilos of  beef because the meat there is much more flavorful than the ones here in Manila, or so I’ve been told.   Nevertheless, no matter where you purchase your beef, this asim-kilig sinigang will always be a family favorite.

I did take a couple shortcuts in preparing this dish.  First is that I used a pressure cooker because everybody knows that beef usually takes longer time to tenderize than pork or chicken.  Using a pressure cooker typically reduces overall cooking time in half.   Also, I used powdered sinigang mix instead of using real tamarind and taro (gabi), because I don’t know how to use real tamarind, and these sort of mixes make life a whole lot easier.

The array of vegetables I used in this dish are the usual sinigang staples: kangkong, okra, eggplant and string beans.  You can omit any vegetables you don’t like, but this set is our usual.   

1. To prepare this dish,  I placed my beef, along with an onion sliced in half and some peppercorns, into the pressure cooker.  I added water just enough to cover everything and placed my cooker into high heat.  Once the pressure cooker started whistling, I lowered  the heat to medium and set the timer for 20 minutes.
2. After 20 minutes I turned off the heat and left the cooker to release the pressure on its own.   This is important because you can NOT take off the lid with pressure still inside, or else.  You don’t want to find out what happens.
3. When I was sure that all pressure had been released, I took off the lid and checked the tenderness of the beef.   Mine was tender enough to just fall off the bone, so I’m good to go.
4. I added the vegetables first before the mix, because my mom said once that the veggies will cook faster without the mix.  I started with the string beans, gave it a 2 minute boil, then the okra, and finally the eggplant.
5. Once the vegetables are all in, I finally added the sinigang mix.  Now take note that the amount is definitely to taste.  My brother wants the asim-kilig, while I prefer a combination of sour and salty.  I used fish sauce instead of salt to flavor the soup.

And there you go!  Beef Sinigang for the windy days.  Hope you enjoy and happy reading!