#tinola

Long rainy days of the typhoon season means it’s also time for our local SOUPer heroes. Here are 6 soup suggestions to help fight colds, wet commutes, or to help melt the clouds away in our own minds.

Bisaya halang-halang brings spice, lemongrass, and coconut milk to our lives. Batsoy from Iloilo and Kinalas from Bicol brings us rich, meaty, noodle soups. Tiyula itum from Tausug and Muslim cooks brings us unique flavors from Southern Mindanao, while Luzon’s Tinola and Sinigang make a vegetable-rich soup duo, full of varying shades of green and spice. The names of these soups are illustrated with their names either in Badlit from the Visayas, Basahan from Bicol, or Tagalog Baybayin.

Wherever you are never forget: rain or shine, its sabaw time.

Today I cooked one of my brother’s most favorite dishes. I can basically cook this without a recipe now since I cook it quite a lot in my household. This time however, my mama asked if I could add some pechay (kinda like bokchoy? Or is that different?) to the dish. Tinola doesn’t normally have pechay in it, usually just chicken, zayote, and malunggay leaves(moringa) with a ginger based broth but since my mom wanted some, I added it in.

Cooking Tinola becomes a family activity in, I think, most filipino households since picking off every piece of malunggay leaf is a bit tedious so everybody helps out. While picking out malunggay leaves me, my siblings, and my mother all sat together on the table and it turns into a family bonding moment, chatting about our day, my mom reprimanding my brother for doing a sloppy job, and my little sister yapping about.

I also made homemade calamansi iced tea to drink with it for everyone. Just made a 1 liter pitcher’s worth of regular tea and added a generous amount of sugar then I added the juice of more than a doezen calamansi. Then you drink it with ice or leave it in the fridge for a couple of hours. It’s so refreshing and delicious. I get a great sense of satisfaction whenever my family constantly asks me to make something I’ve made since it meant they liked it so much and my homemade Iced tea is one of them. As well as my brother who lights up when he knows I am cooking Tinola, adobo, or soy garlic chicken. Though he always say “okay lang. (It tastes alright)” with an expressionless face, the way he eats more servings than usual and the way his face lights up when I tell him what I’m cooking is a clear indication that deep down he really liked it, he just can’t praise me directly since that won’t be in accordance to the sibling etiquette code 😂

This is another picture from a couple days ago. It doesn’t look presentable because we were almost half-way done eating it haha. But anyways here is another Filipino dish called “Tinolang manok” which is just okay for me, not as great as dinakdakan or sisig but my brother really enjoys this meal. Even during the rainy season, I’d much rather eat dinakdakan or sisig. 

Basically this is just chicken, garlic, onion, ginger, and malunggay simmers together at low heat ( almost boiling). This way the flavors get extracted and at the same time it can help make the meat tender. Chicken cubes can be added too. After about 40-60 minutes the meal is ready.