Sinigang na baboy, a sour pork soup from the Philippines that cures hangovers.
We already gave you some tips and tricks to get rid of your hangover. But every country has its own traditional dishes to make the process go faster. We like to give you a taste of the international anti-hangover cuisine. This time we take a look in the rich cuisine of the Philippines. More specifically a dish called sinigang na baboy, a delicious soup made with pork meat which is traditionally kept or ordered for mornings after heavy drinking.
Philippines is a country with quite a vibrant drinking culture. There’s even a saying that ‘good friends drink together and new friends are made over drinks’. In the streets it’s quite common to find locals gathering around a bottle of gin, which is currently the most popular drink in the Philippines. An impressive 43% of all the gin in the world is consumed in this country. The Filipinos also have their own national hard drink called lambanog, a spirit distilled from coconuts. Local fermented drinks are tuba (coconut), basi (sugarcane) and tapuy (rice and corn). The drinking culture on the archipelago is that strong that even when it was under control of the United States between 1898 and 1946 it never suffered from prohibition.
The most well-known hangover cure from the Philippines is called balut. At the islands this boiled duck embryo in the egg is considered quite a treat, but foreigners usually gag just from the idea. The author of this piece tried to eat it and failed miserably. No wonder balut made our list of the 15 weirdest hangover cures around the world.
Luckily for tourists the Filipinos have a second effective cure called sinigang na baboy, which is a soup made from pork belly. You’ll find the taste a bit sour, which is perfect to chase away a nasty hangover.
Ingredients:
10 tamarind fruits
1 liter water (or rice washing)
1 kg pork belly, sliced into cubes of 4 cm
1 big onion, sliced
3 tomatoes, sliced
3 pieces of taro, pealed
2 radishes, sliced
100 grams string beans
3 finger chillies, whole
2 cups sliced mustasa leaves
fish sauce
Preparation:
Boil the tamarind fruits, mash them, and drain the juice. Save this juice. Now put the water, pork meat and onion in a large pot and bring to a boil. Let it simmer till the meat gets tender. Then add the tomatoes and the tamarind juice. Let it simmer some more, so the pork meat can absorb the tamarind flavour.
Then add the taro, followed by the radish, string beans, pepper and mustasa leaves. Now season the dish to taste with the fish sauce and your sinigang na baboy is ready for serving.
Micky Bumbar
Lords of the Drinks 