I was gifted some bilimbi recently. I had heard of it but I had never had the chance to cook it. Locally, it is used to make sinigang, a Filipino soup that I love so I decided to try it with whatever ingredients I could find at my house. My own version of a Chopped contest. I simmered some chicken broth, a can of stewed tomatoes, chopped onions, and the chopped bilimbi. I found some okra and eggplant in the garden and chopped those up and threw that in the pot with a few dashes of patis. I also had a couple of pipinola squash that needed to be used and added that in too. I didn’t have any protein readily available that I wanted to use for the soup so I added some rehydrated sliced shiitake mushrooms for some umami let that simmer for a while. A little while before I was ready to eat it, I picked some mizuna from the garden and chopped and added that to the soup. That is it.

The bilimbi gave the broth the sour flavor I like in sinigang. Do you have a bilimbi tree? What do you cook with your harvest? Living Hilo Style.