Chicken Tinola Recipe (Chicken Ginger Soup)

It’s rainy season in the Philippines and one of the best comfort food you can prepare is chicken ginger soup (or stew for others). It will definitely give the desired warmth during cool weather.

Although it isn’t raining here in Abu Dhabi but instead it is scorching hot outside as the summer season is as its peak this month of August, I couldn’t be stopped from craving for a soup.

Tinola is mainly associated with chicken cooked in ginger, onion and garlic and some vegetables, but it can also be done using pork. I'm sticking to the classic tinola though or the Chicken Tinola.

Usually the vegetable ingredients used with tinola are a combination of chili pepper leaves or malunggay and green papaya or sayote. Some of those I know are using spinach as an alternative for chili pepper leaves due to the difficulty of finding the latter in the markets here. I was never lucky too in finding chili pepper or malunggay leaves although some friends say its available in some Philippine stores. I wish we are staying in a villa with a backyard where I can grow malunggay!

Anyway, here's the recipe for this tasty chicken soup.

Ingredients:
500 grams chicken (use any of your favorite parts)
500 grams sayote, sliced to bite size
1 small piece ginger, sliced thinly or matchsticks like
3 cloves garlic, chopped or crushed
1 onion, sliced
1 piece chicken stock or bouillon cube
vegetable oil
fish sauce to taste
water

Cooking Instructions:
Heat oil in a cooking pot. Sauté ginger, garlic and onion. Add chicken and sliced sayote and make a quick stir-fry. Add chicken bouillon cube and water. Add fish sauce if desired (the bouillon cube can already give the required saltiness). Let it simmer until chicken is tender.

Preparation and cooking time: 45 minutes
Serving size: 3

Bon appetit!