Chicken & Chayote Ginger Soup
Tinola na May Sayote
“Hindi sa akin yan…Sayo te!” A friend jokingly commented, to many people they know the vegetable as ‘chayote’ in Filipino language it’s ‘sayote’ haha!
Tinola is a classic Filipino dish with the chicken, ginger and either chayote or green papaya. When my papa taught me how to cook this dish at 10 years old, he added an amazing ingredient that I haven’t seen someone else use. I’m not sure if that was his own twist or that was a regional. He added chili leaves to the soup which blown my mind. At this time I wasn’t a fan of the heat from chili so I really enjoyed adding the leaves as I can taste the chili flavours but not the heat. Now as an adult I love adding chili leaves and chillies too! haha! I didn’t chili leaves with this recipe but you can definitely do that if you want. Thank me later *wink*.
I make Tinola a lot in winter and even in the summer time. Especially when I’m feeling a little under the weather. It’s a lovely soup and it will defintely hug you from the inside.
For this recipe I used chicken thighs, I deboned and took the skin off. I kept the bones for the soup and threw the skin away. I personally like chomping on the bones but my family prefer their chicken bonesless (they spoilt!).
I bought my chayote from Chinatown like most of my Filipino ingredients. Unlike before there’s only a few products available in Chinatown. Today they have so many fresh, dry and frozen goods! I hardly use an alternative ingredients unlike before.
Ingredients
Instructions
In a large pot pour water, add ginger, onion and garlic. Bring it to boil. Once boiled add chicken bones from the thighs if you have them and let it boil again. Add chicken thigh meat into the broth and simmer for 20 minutes.
Place chayote into the chicken soup, add salt and black pepper. Bring it to boil. Turn the heat down to simmer and cook the chayote for another 20 minutes. You can tell that the chayote is cooked when it turns translucent. You can take the bones out of the soup at this stage if you want. You can take the bones out at this point.
Serve with some jasmine rice and fish sauce on the side or if you like some heat like I do add some chopped fresh chillies too.
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