Vegan Sinigang Recipe

#3 Turning one old favorite comfort food that I thought I would say goodbye to into one vegan dish to last me for days

One of the things I thought I would miss once I started going veg is sinigang. This sour soup with meat and vegetables in a tamarind base is one of my favorite comfort foods and since it needed meat to make the broth (or so I thought) I thought I'd be saying goodbye to it forever. Sure, there are fish alternatives like fish (bangus or salmon) or shrimp, but I'm not very good at advanced level seafood in the kitchen, and we're doing this DIY. In DIY cooking though, because I'm a cheapo, I was able to google a lot of blog posts like this, this, and this and found a lot of vegetarian sinigang versions, some even vegan. Some had a lot of ingredients, others had few. Some were strict up to using the tamarind from scratch while others allowed the tamarind soup base. Anyway, what I did was base my DIY recipe from my past knowledge on how to cook it as well the ingredients the recipes I searched for into this vegan dish. The result? It practically tastes the same.

VEGAN SINIGANG

Ingredients:

• 6 tomatoes, sliced
• 2 pcs gabi (taro corm), peeled and diced
• 3 small onions, quartered
• one pack fresh button mushrooms (they're better fresh, I tell you)
• 2 pcs. eggplant, quartered
• one long radish, peeled and sliced diagonally
• 1 small bunch string beans cut into 1-1/2 inch length
• 1 cup spinach or kangkong
• 1/2 cup broccoli florets
• 1 pack sinigang soup mix (if you're very strict, check the ingredients if they still have essence of pork or beef. if none, then you're good. the one I had didn't. Yay!)
• to season: rock salt, ground pepper, vegan patis or liquid aminos

Procedure
1. Place the tomatoes, gabi, and onions in a mixing bowl with some salt. Mash them together until well-blended. You might experience some itching from the gabi. Just wash your hands with soap and water after. Place them in a soup pot and fill with water until the veggies are covered. Allow to boil.
2. When the mixture boils, add in button mushrooms and radish and boil some more.

3. Mix in the tamarind soup base.
4. Add radish, broccoli, eggplants, and string beans. season to taste with salt, ground pepper, and a bit of liquid aminos. If the flavor of the soup is too strong, you can add some water.
5. If you want, you can add long green peppers too.
6. Lastly, add the spinach, press them a bit down. wait for a few seconds, and turn off the fire.
7. Serve with hot and steamy plain  rice.

For those wondering, it's quite hard to describe but the taste is just the same. For those who cook sinigang the omnivore way with pork or beef, you guys remember that we have to skim out the white scum that floats at the surface as the broth boils? None of that. It has a much "cleaner" taste though. One recipe I think is good for 5-6 people.