Pork Ribs Sinigang

Hey everyone...it's been a long ass time!!! The last recipe was for E.Coli salad!

This one is PORK RIBS SINIGANG

For those of you who don't know, Sinigang is a type of sour soup enjoyed as a starter in the Philippines. The sourness of the soup stimulates the appetite. In the hot tropics, hot soups are also used as a "cooling" mechanism because one sweats when they eat hot food. The souring agent in sinigang can come from lemons or guava, or in this case tamarind. I'm cheating her because I'm using a prepackaged soup mix. The vegetables I used here are completely arbitrary. One can substitute the greens with another type. All of the vegetables don't have to be used. It's up to the individual. This is just one version.

Ingredients:
3 lbs pork ribs
1 pkg. or Knorr (or Mamasita's brand) Tamarind Soup base
one bunch of swiss chard (I used red chard)
green beans
1 peeled, cut up potato
1 or 2 peeled carrots cut into chunks
1-2 yellow banana peppers
10 cups of water

Instructions:
Here's the soup base, bought for less than $1.00 at the local Filipino food store, plus some ribs I got at Henry's...

Separate the ribs...
like this...
Boil the ribs in 10 cups of water (or more, depending on how deep your pot is)---you should cover the meat with water). Make sure to skim off any scum that floats to the top. Bring to a boil, then simmer on low/medium for about 1 hour or 1 hour and 1/2.

Now you could do this recipe two ways. The easy way (but fatty):

1) after meat is done boiling, add the soup base, then add the carrots, potatoes, green beans, and peppers and boil until tender. Boil the cut up red chard last. Then serve immediately with white rice.

That was the "easy- I can't wait to eat this"way


2) the more time consuming/complicated way is boiling the meat the night before and SEPARATING the meat from the soup.

DO NOT COOK THE VEGETABLES UNTIL THE NEXT DAY.

Put the unseasoned soup in a container and refrigerate it overnight. The next day, scrape off the fat that's hardened at the top. Then boil your vegetables with the soup mix in the water and add the meat last. Serve hot with white rice.

Here's the cut up red chard. Wash it well. I took out the hard stalks but they could also be included.
Here are the Blue Lake green beans I bought at Trader Joe's.
Here's what nearly two hours of simmering gets you...mmm. See the peppers floating? I poked them with a knife to release some of it's spiciness. My mom also recommends adding black peppercorns. I didn't add any because TC doesn't like biting into them. Not fun for a 6 year old.
Enjoy!
Do you have any favorite recipies you'd like to share?