chayote al dente, fragrant ginger and fresh malunggay leaves – this chicken tinola recipe is a comforting and delicious chicken soup when you want to curl up under a blanket. As a traditional Filipino dish, it’s loaded with familiar flavor profiles of ginger and fish sauce.
When I was
growing up, my mother made a large batch of chicken tinola (also known as tinolang manok) whenever I was sick with the flu or cold because it was easy to make and light enough for someone in the weather to eat. This dish is an ode to my mother’s recipe where she marinates the chicken beforehand and adds a ton of malunggay leafy greens.
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What is
chicken tinola?
Chicken tinola, or tinolang manok in Tagalog, translates to stew or chicken soup. While quite different from chicken marinade, chicken tinola is also a popular food for comfort. It’s an indigenous soup to the Philippines and was even included in Filipino hero Jose Rizal Noli’s novel Me Tangiere in the 1800s.
This soup is similar to many chicken soups: eating it feels good to your soul. It is steaming, warm and full of flavor of tender chicken, fragrant onions, ginger, garlic and rich in vegetables such as malunggay (moringa) or chili leaves.
These days, you can find many variations of chicken tinola. You can add watercress, spinach, taro, long-fingered peppers, chayote and more. It’s one of the easiest chicken soup recipes to make in the Philippines, and it’s often a household staple as it’s such a simple comfort meal.
Marinated fish and
chicken sauce
While fish sauce, or patis, is very popular in Vietnamese cuisine, it is an equally important flavor profile in Filipino cuisine. Filipino food historian Doreen Fernandez wrote that Filipinos often brought small bottles of patis with them when traveling abroad to acclimatize the “strange” taste of the new foods.
For this recipe, I use patis to marinate the chicken to give it more flavor early on, even if get go means marinating for two hours. Trust me, marinating will be worth it! I’ve tried to give up marinating the chicken or even reduce it to 30 minutes, but I felt like I always needed more flavor. I used a ratio of one pound of chicken to a tablespoon of fish sauce. I also add the extra fish sauce from the marinade directly to the stir-fry.
Malunggay
/ moringa
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Malunggay leaves are also known as moringa. These days, moringa leaves have become very popular for their health benefits like vitamin C, beta-carotene, and antioxidants that help fight free radicals.
Tinolang manok traditionally includes sili or hot pepper leaves, but my mother (and the whole family) loves malunggay leaves so much that we ate chicken tinola exclusively with green moringa leaves. For this recipe, I added some spinach to get more vegetables, but you can also add sili leaves or other types of vegetables depending on your preferences.
I have many fond memories as a child helping my mother choose malunggay leaves from the grocery store and then helping her prepare them in the kitchen. Years have passed since then, but the memory of using my fingers to pinch the stems and remove the heart-shaped leaves from the abundant stems is still part of me.
Cooking
- Marinate chicken for tastier chunks. While some recipes don’t call for marinating the chicken at all, I follow my mother’s direction and marinate the chicken for two hours before cooking. Previously, I tried marinating for as little as 30 minutes, but found that the best-tasting chicken is made by marinating for at least two hours. I haven’t gone beyond this since I’m marinating with fish sauce and I don’t want the chicken to get too salty.
- Brown the chicken before stewing. This helps you get tender, evenly cooked chicken that is full of flavor.
- Adjust the seasoning of your tinola: If your soup lacks flavor or salt, add more fish sauce. If your soup is too salty, add more water to even out the taste.
Is tinolang manok healthy?
Like other types of chicken soup (such as chicken phở, Vietnamese chicken noodle soup, miến gà recipe), chicken tinola is a light dish to serve to someone under the weather or just someone who craves light and comforting food. The warmth of the soup also helps soothe sore throats.
What is the English of tinolang manok
?
Tinolang manok is a Tagalog dish that translates to chicken soup.
How do you cut chayote for tinola?
To cut the chayote for
tinola, cut the chayote in half and then use a spoon to remove the seed in the center. Then cut the tinola in half again and cut it into half-inch cubes.
