Chicken Tinola | Recipes

There are very few soups that are fitting all year round, but tinola is definitely in that small group of them. This Filipino dish is guaranteed to warm the cockles in summer and winter months. You can eat it with rice, or, quite simply, on its own. It's an easy dish to make, so requires very little prep and cooking time.

INGREDIENTS: Chicken (whole) Garlic x half a clove Ginger x 5 inches Bird's eye Chili x 6 Pak choi x 3 Bay leaves x 2 Jasmine rice Lemon and parsley to garnish
METHOD Begin by prepping the jasmine rice for steaming. For this recipe, I used a rice cooker. Thoroughly rinse the rice twice. Save the water from the second rinse; you'll need it for later. As a tip: dip your hand to the bottom of the pot, to measure the level of rice. The amount of water used to cook the rice should be double the level of rice.

Now let's prep! Thinly slice the onions and ginger, and finely chop the garlic.

Now the main ingredient!

After cleaning the whole chicken, chop into serving chunks of preference i.e. drumsticks, thigh, breast.

Sauté the onions and garlic in olive oil.

Add the ginger.

Then add the chicken. Gently fry to lock in the flavour. Continue stirring until ingredients are lightly browned.

Pour the rice water into to mix and add two bay leaves. Bring to the boil for about 5 minutes.

Lower the heat and pop the lid on for roughly half an hour or until the meat is tender.

Greens time!

Chop the chow chow into large chunks.

Chop off the bottom of the pak choi and throw away. Cut the pak choi in halves.

Place the chow chow in the wok, and ten minutes later add the pak choi and some chillies.

Turn off the fire, place the lid on, and let the heat of the mix cook the greens.

Serve with steamed jasmine rice, and squeeze some lemon juice into the tinola to complement the chicken. Wash down with sparkling water and a hint of mint. Kain na!

SERVES: 4 PREP TIME: 25 minutes COOKING TIME: 1 hour
What are some of your favourite year-round soups?
As ever,
Rebecca-Monique All content on www.blaquepearl.com is protected by copyright law and should not be reproduced or published without the owner's consent.