Philippine – Sinangag

by Fauzan Anandika

Philippine is one of the tropical countries that bless with fertile soil that can grow any plant above it. With this geographical advantage, they can create various food tastes mixing traditional spice into Chinese and Spain dish makes Philippine food has a rich flavor, a combination of sweet, salty, savory, umami, sour, and spicy. Philippine culinary used similar spices like Thailand and India to make their food smells good.

Like other Asian countries, rice becomes their food staple, especially white rice. They eat steamed rice with a variety of beef, fish, and vegetables. When there is leftover rice, they fried it with some garlic to cook Sinangag and serve it for breakfast. 

Sinangag is a genius cooking creation to process leftover rice with a simple ingredient to awaken your sense in the morning. Served with a side of fried egg and cooked using garlic oil makes your mouth sense a delicious morning booster. The secret is in the fried garlic. 

They fried the garlic until really crisp to make a caramelized effect and create a flavorful taste. During the cooking process, rice will absorb this spice to create a new flavor that makes Sinangag tastes so good even it only uses simple ingredients.

Even using simple ingredient Sinangag contain various mineral from garlic that useful for our body such as selenium, manganese, zinc, phosphor, and magnesium, and also protein from the egg. When cooking Sinangag, choose old garlic that has big cloves and thinly slice it. 

Even it easy to cook, some detail needs attention when cooking Sinangag. Below is a recipe to cook delicious Sinangag in your own home.

Ingredient  

• 4 garlic finely chopped
• 6 garlic thin sliced
• 2 plate white rice
• 2 egg
• 2 tablespoon onion leaves
• 2 tablespoon vegetable oil

Seasoning ingredient

• 1 tablespoon chicken broth powder
• ½ teaspoon pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon salty soy sauce

How to cook

1. Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan.
2. Fried sliced garlic until turning yellow. Set aside.
3. Stir fry chopped garlic with two vegetable oil.
4. Add rice, pepper, salt, soy sauce, chicken broth powder, stir until finely blended.
5. Add egg and stir again until cooked.
6. Add fried-sliced garlic, onion leaves.
7. Serve while still warm.

Cooking tips

1. Use only day-old rice to make it easy to stir in the pan since it already dry and firm enough.
2. Divide half of the fried garlic as a garnish to get the amount of garlic taste and adding different texture with a crispy topping.
3. Use long-grain rice to avoid rice stick to each other during the cooking process. High-grade Basmati will be a good choice to make Sinangag.