How to make Sukang Sinamak

Ingredients for making classical spicy Filipino vinegar Sukang Sinamak. Iti s very nice vinegar, and it have very long shelf life, so it is easier to make it in large. This recipe is for making 2 litres of this vinegar.

• Vinegar – to fill 2 litre bottle. It is better to use apple or white wine vinegar.
• Ginger – 2 cups
• Garlic – 2 cups
• Hot chilli – 1 cup. Traditionally, birds eye chilli with heat rating 50,000 – 100,000 on the Scoville scale is used. But I’ve add a bit of Scotch Bonnet chilli with heat rating 80,000 – 400,000 on the Scoville scale to make vinegar more spicy and rich in flavours.
• Onion – 1 cup.
• Sea Salt – 1 tbsp. Traditionally, in Filipno cuisine, the sea salt is used
• Brown sugar – 2 tbsp
• Fish sauce – 1 tbsp. I’ve use 2 tbsp to make more rich flavours.
• Black peppercorns – 1 tbsp.
• 2 litre bottle or jar with lid.

Further ingredients for making more smooth taste. These ingredients are not used in classical Filipino spicy vinegar Sukang Sinamak, but in some variations of spicy vinegar they are presented.

• Soy sauce – 1 cup. Yes, this make the colour of vinegar very dark, almost black.
• Black Tsaoko cardamom. A bit unusual spice for Filipino cooking, but it makes very nice extra aroma for this vinegar.

In small bowl mix sugar, salt and a bit of vinegar and make sure that salt and sugar are dissolved completely. Some version of this vinegar making required to blend in mortar few garlic cloves, a bit of ginger and few chilli with salt and sugar. This make vinegar a bit more cloudy and more rich in flavours. But you can omit this technique, just make sure that salt and and sugar are dissolved.

Prepare all ingredients. Peel garlic, peel ginger, wash chilli and remove green stalk. Slice all ingredients, to make sure they can go into the bottle. Slice ginger into thin stripes, even if you use jar with very wide neck, to make sure it give away all flavours in reasonable time. Pierce cardamom bulbs.

Mix all ingredients together and leave in dark place for 1 week to mature. It is not necessary to keep it in cold place. Originally, this vinegar stored in cupboards in Philippines, where temperature can be very high.