to make: wash the flower well and drain. remove most of the hard branches, add some salt and squeez to release the juice. you may add it as it is to the simmering chicken as you would do with the leaves. or if you dont want to mess your sinampalukan with “basura” (in our household, we refer to the errant branches as “basura” of the soup, he he) you have boil the squeezed leaves in some water, strain the juice before adding it to the chicken. yum!

I’m back, after checking in with a reference material by Doreen Fernandez, I am more likely to agree with her suggestion of broad types of food preparation that were likely in use in the archipelago for centuries. Therefor, kinilaw as a way of preparing dishes, with the actual ingredients changing from place to place, season to season. The same goes for halabos for steaming food, or inihaw for grilling and paksiw for cooking with vinegar. Sinigang would be the equivalent for cooking with a souring agent such as santol, kamias, sineguelas, green mango, batuan, alibangbang leaves, etc. This theory also seems to build on the fact that there was once a distinct sampalok season, where it was plentiful during the traditional rainy season for say 2-3 months, and less available another 3-4 months of the year, and not freshly available for another 4 months of the year… so the sour soup with sampalok would have been most common only during a three month window, and not surprisingly, when one would want a hot soup. So in periods when sampalok was not available, other souring agents were likely used so that the style of cooking, the sour soup sinigang, would be possible the whole year round… However, what is interesting is that in Malay, singgang refers to a sour soup with tamarind… so one would have to see if that led to the origins of sinigang as we know it today… Interesting, to say the least. :)