Five Awesome Tumbong Soup Recipes
Tumbong soup may not be an obvious favorite for many people, but it has rapidly gained some infamy over the last few years. This surprisingly delicious Filipino soup uses a surprising ingredient that produces a delicious meal. Here are five different tumbong soup recipe options that may fit into your life. If you still aren’t sure what you’re getting into with tumbong soup, don’t worry: we’ll briefly explain what tumbong is and why it’s worth trying, even if it seems a bit much to the average person.
The 5 Best Tumbong Soup Recipe Options
Let’s just get it right out of the way: tumbong is a dish made with pig intestines. This might sound shocking, but this dish is considered a delicacy in some parts of the world. For example, Mayor Iskos of Tondo is well known as a huge tumbong fan and has claimed that he typically likes to eat it with two cups of rice. Ingredients like leeks and garlic are often added to a typical tumbong soup recipe.
These different options will include tasty ingredients, in-depth instructions, and tips that help improve the overall flavor. We carefully researched each option and tried them out for ourselves. The tastes you get from tumbong are very diverse and more than worth adding to your diet. Note: while we usually like to include a nutrient list here, tumbong soup recipes are often held in great secrecy by their chefs.
However, we can highlight the general nutritional benefits you get from pig intestines. Our research found that three ounces or 85 grams of tumbong have 198 calories, 17 grams of fat (26% of your daily intake), 235 milligrams of cholesterol (78% of your daily intake), 15 milligrams of sodium (1% of your daily intake), and a hefty 11 grams of protein.
These facts make it clear that tumbong isn’t something that you should eat every day, even if many people throughout Tondo do eat tumbong almost daily. It should be considered a once-in-awhile snack or meal, such as eating pizza or potato chips. The delicious flavors that you’ll get from the tumbong soup recipe options below more than making it worth the wait between each serving.
Recipe One: A Basic Tumbong Soup Recipe
A great tumbong soup recipe includes various flavors and ingredients that make it attractive to many palates. This simple recipe is one that we think is easy to adapt to many fresh meals. In fact, it is the base recipe for several of our other options listed here! If you’re unsure if this soup is the right option, try this tumbong soup recipe first to check it out.
Ingredients You’ll Need
- One pound of tumbong (may be called pork rectum in some stores)
- 5-8 cups of warm water (filtered is probably best)
- One teaspoon of spring onions carefully chopped
- One teaspoon of roasted garlic chopped into bits
- Salt and pepper (to taste)
Preparing Your Tumbong
After you buy your tumbong, you need to prepare it first! This step is critical because there may be waste inside the intestines. Do you know what that means? We’ll leave the details out for the faint of heart. Here’s the process for cleaning out your tumbong before serving:
- Place your tumbong in warm water and scrub the outside and inside
- Remove the tumbong from this water and pat dry
- Add more water to another cleaning container
- Wash the tumbong again with salt to further remove any odors
We’ll include this step in each of our recipe sections. After all, we can’t guarantee that every reader will read this list from top to bottom. For example, they might skip to the fifth recipe on this list and not know to clean their tumbong! That’s a mistake you want to avoid.
Making Your Soup
Besides the lengthy cleaning and boiling process necessary for tumbong soup, this recipe is surprisingly simple. You don’t have to chop anything besides the intestines and can serve the soup almost immediately after preparation. Follow these steps to prepare this dish:
- Boil your tumbong in water for about an hour
- Throw away the broth and boil your tumbong again in new water
- Remove the tumbong after it is soft enough to easily chew
- Slice the tumbong into bite-sized pieces and place in a soup bowl
- Season your tumbong with salt, garlic, and spring onions
- Serve in a medium-sized bowl to multiple people
Note that this soup is a very basic type and has minimal extra ingredients. It is a good starter soup for people who want to try tumbong and decide if it is right for their taste. If you end up loving this soup and want to expand, move on to the recipes below to learn more!
Recipe Two: Chicken and Tumbong
Once you have some more experience with tumbong, you can try this recipe out! It is a slightly more expanded tumbong soup recipe and adds a few more ingredients. Later, we’ll expand this recipe to create an even more in-depth meal option.
Ingredients
Buy these simple items to make this tumbong soup recipe:
- One pound of tumbong
- One-quarter cup of distilled vinegar
- One quart of chicken stock
- One medium onion
- One medium carrot
- Two celery stalks
- Two bay leaves
- 12 peppercorns
Cleaning the Tumbong
Before you try making tumbong soup, you need to follow this cleaning process to remove any waste from inside the intestines:
- Place the tumbong in water and scrub the outside and inside
- Remove the tumbong and replace the water with a fresh back
- Clean the tumbong with salt to further remove waste
- Dry the tumbong with a towel before preparing your meal
Cooking This Tumbong Soup Recipe
Follow these steps to prepare this recipe:
- Soak the tumbong in one quart of water mixed with the vinegar and bring a large pot to boil
- Add the intestine to the pot and boil for 10 minutes to soften
- Put the intestine back in the drained pot and add stock
- Mix in onions, carrots, celery, bay leaves, and peppercorns
- Cook for 1-2 hours, stirring regularly to keep it from burning
- Serve in medium-sized bowls or drain and serve in tacos
Recipe Three: Tomato and Tumbong Soup
Tumbong goes well with just about any ingredient, including tomatoes. This simple recipe adds the tangy and acidic flavor and texture of tomatoes to the savory taste of tumbong. The overall results may just replace your standard tomato soup forever.
Ingredients
The following items are critical when making a tomato and tumbong soup. Some of them you might easily find in your local supermarket, while others may be tougher to find. Look through your city’s phone book to find an Asian supermarket that has tumbong and other ingredients like:
- One pound of tumbong
- One-half pound of tomatoes
- Two gloves of garlic
- One can of tomato juice
- Two small potatoes
- Chili powder (to taste)
Cleaning the Tumbong
It is important to clean out your tumbong before cooking. This simple cleaning process will remove any waste and improve your meal’s overall taste:
- Put the tumbong in a large pot of water to soak properly
- Scrub the outside and inside carefully to break apart the waste
- Remove the tumbong and dump out the dirty water
- Clean the water pot you used for this process
- Pour in more water with salt and further clean the tumbong
- Repeat this process multiple times to ensure complete waste removal
Preparing Your Meal
Like most tomato soups, this meal is very simple to make. It adjusts the basic tumbong recipe guideline we’ve been using so far and adds just a few extra steps:
- Boil the tumbong until it is soft and easy to cut and eat
- Chop the tumbong into bite-sized pieces
- Chopyour tomatoes and potatoes into small cubes
- Put the tomatoes and tomato sauce in a blender and pulse
- Pour the tomato mix and potatoes in with the tumbong
- Boil briefly to warm up the mix before serving
- Add chili powder to the top to bring a little more flavor
Recipe Four: Spiced Tumbong Soup
Are you into spicy foods and want a tumbong soup that will give you a kick? This recipe is designed to provide that spice and is perfect for people with more experience with tumbong.
Ingredients
Like the previous recipes, you don’t need a lot of ingredients to make this recipe:
- One pound of tumbong
- 5-8 cups of water
- Two large jalapeno peppers
- Two large green leeks
- One small ghost pepper
- Two gloves of garlic
- Red pepper flakes (to taste)
Cleaning the Tumbong
Removing waste from your tumbong before cooking will improve its taste and minimize contamination risks:
- Put your tumbong in a large pot filled with water
- Scrub the tumbong surface and inside to remove waste
- Remove the tumbong from the water and replace the dirtied water in a new tub
- Clean the tumbong multiple times with salt water to get rid of any waste
Cooking This Meal
Set aside an hour or two to cook this soup using these steps:
- Boil the tumbong until it is soft and easy to eat
- Mix it with the water and boil on the stove
- Clean and chop the peppers, leeks, and garlic
- Add these ingredients to the soup and boil until the peppers are soft
- Add red pepper flakes to make it a little spicier
- Serve in medium-sized cereal or soup bowls
Recipe Five: Stuffed Tumbong Soup
This more advanced tumbong recipe is suitable for people with more tumbong experience. Try it if you feel comfortable mixing various foods together and creating a unique flavor with a bit of spice.
Ingredients
Buy these ingredients to produce fantastic stuffed tumbong soup:
- One pound pork intestine
- One-half cup of olive oil
- Two large red peppers
- Two large green peppers
- One quart vegetable stock
- One-half pound of cooked beef
- Two stalks of celery
- Two large carrots
- Salt and pepper (to taste)
Cleaning the Tumbong
Prepare your tumbong using this simple process to minimize accidental fecal matter exposure:
- Soak the tumbong in a large pot of water-bound
- Clean the tumbong’s interior and exterior multiple times
- Remove the tumbong and change the water
- Repeat this process until you feel comfortable
- Use salt after the first rinse to further remove waste
Cooking This Meal
Follow these steps to produce this delicious tumbong soup:
- Boil your intestines for 10 minutes in water and olive oil mix to soften
- Chop the intestines into bite-sized pockets you can easily stuff
- Mix the chopper red and green peppers with the cooked beef in a bowl
- Spoon this mix directly into the tumbong pockets
- Fold each pocket over and pinch the sides to close
- Place pockets in vegetable broth with celery and carrots
- Boil until the carrots and celery are soft enough to eat
- Serve in medium-sized cereal or soup bowls
General Tips for Serving Tumbong Soup
Here are a few steps to improve your tumbong soup:
- Season with seasoning salt or chili to give it an extra kick
- Serve on taco shells or rice to produce a unique effect
- Add peppers to create more of a diverse flavor
- Use breads, like pitas, to soak up some of the juice
- Soak your tumbong multiple times to avoid excess waste
