Saturday, November 25, 2006

Vinegared thoughts

After that Vietnamese experiment, I'm wondering what the best vinegar substitutions are when cooking different kinds of Asian cuisine.

In the Philippines (as far as I know) there are three kinds of local vinegar:

(1) Sukang puti - coconut palm vinegar, whitish in color but not to be confused with the Western "white vinegar"
(2) Sukang paombong - nipa sap vinegar, brownish in color (traditionally from Bulacan)
(3) Sukang iloko - sugar cane vinegar, reddish or brownish in color (traditionally from Ilocos)

Aside from that, vinegar from other countries (balsamic, apple cider, etc.) are also available in supermarkets at a much higher price.

Of course there's also homemade sinamak (traditionally from Iloilo and Ilocos) which is local vinegar infused with various spices.

For that last recipe I replaced the rice vinegar (usually used in Chinese and Japanese cooking) with a mix of sukang puti and rice wine. I wonder if sukang iloko would have been better since it's naturally sweet and milder than sukang puti. Hmm.

2 comments:

Jhaw, sj said...

Hi Rowie! Thanks again for visiting us at the jesuit gourmet. Hmmm...like you, we're also just experimenting on food...wala naman kaming mapaglalagyan ng excess energies except food...hahaha... you're recipes are spectacular!

anyways, would you mind if we include you in our links?

rowie said...

No problem. Thanks very much! :)