Hello steemians. I would like to share with you something a Panayanon, or people in Panay Island in the Visayas mainly In Iloilo, Antique and Aklan the fruit we used to make our sinigang, a Filipino soup or stew characterized by its sour and savoury taste. Sinigang commonly uses tamarind to make this dish but in our hometown, we use also batuan/batwan that gives our dish a sour taste. People claim that growing a batuan/batwan tree is considered lucky because its hard to grow this trees from other places unlike in our region Panay. Few years ago, my mother planted a small seedling in our frontyard not expecting it to grow and it did. Now, we have a small growing batuan/batwan tree but doesn't bear fruits yet.
I am fond of eating this with salt too. I love eating sour foods. Green mangoes, pickled cucumber and yes, this batwan.
This is batwan fruit. It is greenish in color which turned yellowish when mature. It has 4-6 seeds inside the fruit and a single fruit can actually make your soup a little sour. I wanted my sinigang to be very sour so maybe 10 pcs of this batwan fruit is enough for a 2 liters of soup. Sinigang mix is available for cooking, a readily made powder like Mama Sita products but Panayanons prefer all-natural ingredients for our dish, and this batwan does the job well.
