Sinigang With Calamansi

Couple of teaspoons vegetable oil

1/2 to 1 small onion or 1 shallot, sliced thin

2 cloves garlic minced or crushed

1 Fish bouillon cube (Knorr makes a great product)

2 1/2 cups boiling water

1 cup yard long beans, winged beans or regular green beans, cut into 1 inch pieces

4 fresh Calamansi (or 2 tbsp juice)

1 tomato, peeled and chopped

1 tsp. toyo (Filipino soy sauce), regular soy sauce or oyster sauce

1 tbsp. patis (Filipino Fish sauce) or other fish sauce

Fresh black pepper to taste

1/2 lb. your favorite white fleshed fish

1/4 lb. sea scallops (cut in half if they are large)

1/4 lb. large shrimp, shelled and deveined

1 cup Kangkong (Water Spinach), or regular spinach

6 oz Asian egg noodles, pre-cooked in salted water

1.  Heat the oil add in the onion or shallot and the garlic, quickly cook for 30 seconds.  Add in the stock cube and pour in the boiling water. Mix well to dissolve the cube.  Then add the beans, calamansi juice, the tomato, the soy or oyster sauce, the fish sauce and season to your taste with the black pepper.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes.

2.  If you are using the water spinach add that at this time (if using regular spinach wait to add until the last minute), cook for 5 minutes.  Add in the seafood and continue to simmer for 3 minutes, then add the water spinach or spinach.  If you are using regular spinach, add this at the end of cooking with the cooked noodles, heat for no more than a minute.  If you are using the water spinach, add the noodle at the end of cooking and warm through.  Serve hot.

Pork Sinigang

Variations

Really, though the seafood is pretty traditional, sinigang really just means a soup or dish cooked with sour fruit, there are version that replace the seafood with pork or just add cooked pork to the above recipes. Okra, Daikon and Asparagus are all imported ingredient that have made their way into the sinigang pot as well.

You can make this without the noodles or serve the noodles in the soup bowl and ladle over the hot soup.  You make this with other type of noodles, like cellophane.

You can add in other ingredients, like cherry tomatoes, mild chilies, fresh or dried mushrooms, I've even seen a sinigang recipe made the strawberries!

You make it more sour by adding some tamarind or replace the calamansi the tamarind altogether.  

A Beef Rib Sinigang

Harvest Ingredient 25: Calamansi

I'm treating this as a special "guest native ingredient," since they are native to the Philippines--and comprise the back bone of Tagalog cuisine in all of it's varied glory.  Unlike the bitter or Seville oranges used in some traditional foods of Mexico and Central American, Calamansi cannot be easily duplicated by mixing other citrus and/or mild vinegars together.  The Calamansi has a completely unique flavor that is quite complex, with bitter, sweet and sour all interwoven.  The sour flavor is almost impossible to duplicate, and considering that some of the most widely used recipes for these weird little "green lemon" are simple preparations that comprise much loved dipping sauces.  In fact, the Philippines is basically the land of dipping sauces!  When calamansi is used, they are usually only mixed with one other ingredient, such as soy sauce or the native shrimp paste bagoong.

Ripe Calamansi

Known in the rest of the world as a "Calamondin orange," it does ripen to a "golden tangerine" color, but in the Philippines, it is almost exclusively used in it's unripe green state, further highlighting it's sour taste.  It is not uncommon to receive a couple of these tiny light green oranges on your plate, with just the tops removed, like you would a lemon wedge in other parts of the world.  In addition to fresh and citrus dipping sauces; it is also used in ceviches, Ades (drinks), as a base for seasonings paste, such as annatto, canned sodas, and it a whole class of dishes called "sinigang" in the islands (Calamansi sinigang seasoning packs can be purchased).  It is indispensable in the native ceviche KinilawIn some "down home" households traditional Bifteck (Beef Steak) wouldn't be proper bifteck without "kalamonsi."  It also flavors lamb chops, Filipino Fried Chicken, barbecues, traditional fruit salads, in relishes and some pancit (noodle) dishes.  It also the backbone of Toyo't Kalamansi, a traditional soy sauce concoction flavored with garlic and chile. The juice for cooking can be purchases sold in bottles.  When ripe it flavors layer cakes and cupcakes, is candied for use alone, as a garnish or in fruit cakes and baked goods, as well as fruit pies and coconut confections, as well as gelatin desserts, candies and sorbets.  In the modern Filipino household it makes a luscious Kalamansi Chiffon Pie. It is also popular made into a marmalade; and it dries well.  It is also sold as a powder for easy seasoning, and is great rimming glasses for Filipino style margaritas.  It is also sold as a concentrate and as an extract.  Knorr and Maggi also sell calamansi "soy sauces."  It goes into flavored teas; and it is a popular home flavoring for vodka the Filipino households.  There is even a calamansi flower honey.

They also have a variety of non-food uses as well.  They are used in everything from cough drops to beauty products.  There are soaps, body washes, skin care products and, of course, perfume.  Eskinol makes a Calamansi facial wash. Tawas has a roll on deodorant.  Human Nature makes a Calamansi hair conditioner.  In it used in the laundry room as an ink stain remover.  In the Philippines products bearing the image of the much beloved orange can be found on place mats, handbags, key rings, chops stick, ceramic soup spoons, belts and dishes--you name it, somewhere in the world, calamansi decorates it.

Calamansi is the Tagalog/Filipino word for the fruit, in a couple of the major Visayan languages of the islands it is simuyaw or they call it limonsito borrowed from the Spanish word for the fruit; in other parts of the island chain it is known as suter.  It has a number of really useful medicinal qualities, including a popular hot drink for coughs.  The juice is used to treat bug bites and skin inflammation reduction.  It is also a natural acne medicine.  A poultice of the juice, mixed with pandanus leaf and sea salt to put on abscesses.  The juice is also mixed with pepper as an expectorant.  In the Philippines the root is used in child birth.  The little trees are very easy to grow and they like containers, so they can be brought indoors during the winter months.  But they don't typically grow more than five years, so buying a new one each year to stagger the ages of home grown trees will keep in fruit, since they can take up to two years to bear fruit in the first place.

As far as nutrition is concerned, they are, like most other citrus fruits high in vitamin C.  They also have a full range of fats:  saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated.  Unusual for citrus, for their size they are quite high in protein.  They are a good source of fiber and are very high in Vitamin A and a wide range of B vitamins. And they have a nice amount of magnesium and phosphorus. 

Fresh calamansiade with mint