Friday

On the first day of August, it comes to mind the activities that are scheduled that would occupy our time. For most of the world, the Olympics are fast approaching. For those in the industry, plans are in motion to make a good killing this month.
Here at the Ayala Towers, the rains have inundated us with nice cool weather, floods, traffic jams. And in the case of Makati, having hot soup, or at least I hope. For this month we started the Sinigang Festival, featuring Hot and sour soups in three flavours, Classic tamarind, green mango, and Thai.
All base broths uses a light tamarind broth that came with Knorr Sinigang broth, just to make the sourness uniform and to add a unifying flavour. It branches out by the addition of souring ingredients for diversification. For the classic tamarind, we added the juices extracted from fresh tamarind fruit. For the green mango, as the name suggests, we used the unripe fruit and let the broth simmer for about 45 minutes to extract a very fruity sour broth. For the thai, we used chili paste with the addition of fresh lemons and lemongrass. I had the wait staff try the different broths and asked if they could identify the differences. 8 out of nine got the nuances down pat, but all agreed they are perfect for the weather that is engulfing our smog ridden city.
Guest weill expect a bowl of steamy soup, with fresh vegetables and meat or seafood. Nice to warm up and feel good again after braving the rains just to get in an artificially air conditioned cubicle on time. The yuippies never had it so good.
On a side note, the use of Knorr Sinigang broth powder is not really cheating. This product, along with other products such as beef broth and chicken stock, is meant to add convenience to the cooking process. It is what I learned in Les Roches as tro be part of the Assembly Kitchen ingredients. I still veer away from any seasoning with MSG.
So, if you are still interested on how the Sinigang Festival was accepted, I will post the progress during the month.

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