Prawn sinigang
Image source: Paul Ancheta
ONE OF the best things about Spencer's Hyper is discovering food ingredients that would have been extremely difficult to find in India. Imagine my joy of finally getting the right ingredients for sinigang, my all-time favorite Philippine recipe, after two years of living in India! I had tried Philippine dishes in two Asian restaurants in Mumbai and Bangalore, but they were too spicy for Filipino taste buds. Sinigang requires a myriad of vegetables and meats (pork, fish, prawn, or shrimp) stewed in sour broth. In Spencer's, I found organically-grown radish, onions, tomatoes, pumpkin (to replace taro or yam which was not available), string beans, spinach (to replace kangkong), and tamarind—all staple ingredients in this much-loved dish. In the absence of pork, I used huge prawns which were ridiculously cheap at 50 rupees (50 pesos or 1 dollar) apiece. What a delight to cook my first honest-to-goodness Filipino dish in India!
