We would like to thank Ms. Anna Valmero for her kind words. Please see more photos from her original blog article by clicking here.
Candelaria restaurant is known for its ‘sinigang na sugpo’
CANDELARIA, ZAMBALES— A resort-based restaurant in this quiet coastal town of Zambales offers what I would dare describe as the most delicious sinigang na sugpo I have ever tasted.
Sugpo or prawns are larger than your usual shrimps. In the Philippines, giant tiger prawns could weigh up to 500 grams apiece and are usually the top export items to countries like Japan and Singapore.
You normally see the medium-sized shrimps sold at local groceries or at the public wet market. This is the reason why it is best to order sugpo when traveling to coastal towns because they are served fresh and sold at a much cheaper price considering there are no transport costs added.
It was a particularly hot January morning but I chose to order the sinigang na sugpo because Jojo, a staff at the Dawal beach resort’s restaurant, said it is one of the house specialties along with other seafood dishes. He added that the prawns are caught by local fishermen and supplies are stocked every morning.
A quick note, Dawal is named after Pascual Dawal Climaco Magsalin who worked as an agricultural helper, mason, horticulturist and ambulant vendor to raise and educate his eight children. Its owner, lawyer Buenaventura “Tuy” Magsalin, dedicated the resort to his father.
With the use of shrimp, cooking sinigang na sugpo takes no longer than 30 minutes than cooking it with pork, beef or big fish such as bangus or talakitok.
Sinigang is made by boiling water with salt, tomatoes and onions. Kangkong or malunggay leaves, eggplant, radish, sitaw, okra and sometimes gabi (taro) are added after the first boil and followed by the choice meat.
The sinigang na sugpo turned out to be a good choice after all. The sour and spicy broth made using tamarind and kamias is a refreshing take from the usual broth made by instant tamarind soup base while the green chili, locally called siling panigang, added zing to the flavor.
Even the ample vegetables in the dish were a little sour and spicy in taste sans the soup. The shrimp was of course the star of the dish, with one piece weighing almost 250 grams (it was as large as a small bowl of soup). Locals usually suck the shrimp’s head or ‘supsupin’ to get the extra flavor aside from eating the meat, suggested Jojo.
It took me several big bites to finish the shrimp and several spoonfuls of rice. For a small bowl containing three pieces of prawns, P168 is a sweet deal after all and could be good for two hungry tummies before taking an afternoon swim to nearby Potipot Island.
But aside from the taste, one thing that struck me as I took every mouthful of sinigang soup was the fact that it was considered the dish that “most represented Filipinos,” as what the late food writer Doreen Fernandez puts it.
In a paper published the New York University website, she was quoted saying: “This native cuisine sinigang is still soured with sour fruits and leaves from the Philippine landscape. It is still as flexible, friendly to any kind of fish, meat or vegetable, adjustable to any kind of budget or circumstance,” Fernandez noted.
It was even enjoyed by national heroes over 100 years ago. National hero and La Solidaridad editor Marcelo H. Del Pilar and his group were noted to have shared a sinigang dish in Paris in the home of Juliana Gorricho, said historian Ambeth Ocampo.
He was referring to notes of Gorricho in her recipe book which also includes Filipino favorites such as lechon. The book is found at the library of Ateneo de Manila University.
So before taking another sip of that mouthwatering sinigang, take pride of how the recipe was handed down from mother to child and the taste preserved over generations of Filipino cooking. I bet our national heroes enjoyed it before as much as we enjoyed it now.
