Glossary S

The food glossary +++ Popular Articles: 'Sotong', 'Sitaw', 'Siomai'

Sampalok is a Filipino word for Tamarind. In the Philippines its pulp/fruit are eaten and used as a souring agent. Its young leaves are also used for souring agent or as filling for whole chicken for grilling to remove its fishy taste.


Sampalok can be cooked as one of the ingredient for Filipino sour stew/soup, like Sinampalukang Manok (Chicken soup cooked with Tamarind) where its young leaves are used. Its fruit brown pulp is made into a sweet candy with tamarind flesh/pulp mashed and cooked with brown sugar


Moreover, in the Philippines, the pulp of the Sampalok fruit is very much used as a souring agent for dishes like Sinigang, a cross between sour soup and stew and also made into delicious candies. Likewise, when the fruit is fully ripe, they are eaten in the Philippines as is with a bit of salt

In Kerala, India, Puli is the Malayalam word for Sampalok. It is the basic ingredient for making their sour soup called Rasam. Meanwhile, Thailand is very popular for their Tamarind candies called Makham Gao that most tourists bring them back home.

Using Sampalok as a souring agent can be a long task as you need to squeezed the pulp from the fruit until you get its juice so my mom rarely use Sampalok as a souring agent. But as a child, together with my siblings and cousins, I enjoyed eating Sampalok as is when fully ripe and in season. It is sold in most wet markets (Palengke) during its season very cheap in the Philippines by a kilo.

I only found Sampalok fruit after 7 years of living in Germany by chance, few packs of ripe Sampalok fruits were offered in one of the groceries I go to and they were imported from Thailand

Other countries also used Tamarind fruits for making sweets or candies. Mexico has its own version called Dulce de Tamarindo. Some countries called them Bolitas de Tamarindo (Tamarind balls)

Seswaa refers to one of the national specialties of Botswana in Africa which is prepared mainly using the inner parts of a cow or goat. The only other ingredients needed for this particular preparation are salt and water. Seswaa is usually prepared by men and served on festive occasions and ceremonies .

Likewise, Seswaa also consists of ground beef cooked in water with only salt as an additive.

Meat dishes are common in Botswana which is well known for its quality beef

Seswaa is also called Chotlho.

Sake is a Japanese beverage which is fermented from rice, a kind of grain, hence, it made Sake more of a beer than a wine. However, Sake is not carbonated, and flavor-wise is closer to wine than beer, although it is quite unqiue on its own and so different from wine. Sake is not a distilled beverage, and is not even remotely related to Gin, Vodka or other spirits There are different types of Sake based on taste and flavor, namely: (1) Amakuchi - Sake which has a sweet flavor (2) Futsu-shu Sake - is a normal Sake. (3) Genshu - is undiluted Sake. Most Sakes are slightly diluted (4) Ginjo-shu - is Sake brewed with rice milled so that no more than 60% of the grain remains (5) Hi-ire - Pasteurization (6) Honjozo - Sake to which a small amount of distilled alcohol is added (7) Jizake - is Sake from smaller Kura -- originally, Sake from the boonies (8) Junmai-shu - Sake brewed with only rice, water, and Koji and no additives added (9) Karakuchi - sake which is dry in flavor (10) Kasu - The lees remaining after the sake has been pressed from the fermenting mixture (11) Koji is the rice into which Koji-jin has been propogated (12) Koji-kin or Koji-kabi - it is Aspergillus Oryzae, a starch dissolving mold Kura refers to a Sake brewery. It is also known as Sakagura Kurabito is a Sake brewery worker. Kuramoto is the Head of the Sake brewery Toji is the Head brewer at a Kura Meigara is a brand name of Sake Moromi refers to the fermenting mixture of rice, water, Koji, and yeast which yields Sake Moto is the yeast starter of a batch of Sake. Moto is also called Shubo Nihonshu-do is the specific gravity of a Sake. An indication of dryness or sweetness of Sake Seimai means rice polishing or milling Seimai-buai is the degree to which rice has been polished before brewing Seishu is the officiall name for Sake as far as taxes are concerned Shochu is a traditional Japanese distilled beverage Shubo is the yeast starter for a batch of Sake
Scrod refers to a young cod, under one (1) kilogram in weight. Cod is a kind of fish.
Silver Tequila refers to thestandard quality of Tequila, silver sees little or no oak aging.
Silverside is a culinary term in Great Britain that refers to a cut of beef that is taken from the crown of the rump.

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