Chicken Tinola

 When my mom came back from the Philippines, one of the biggest surprises she brought with her is a bunch of "dahon ng sili", leaves from bird's eye chili peppers we have in our backyard in the Philippines. Well, that's one thing about my Tatay, he's not very demonstrative or vocal about his love for all his children, but you can truly feel it with the smallest of things he remembers that he knows would make you happy. And for the longest time, since he was also still here in Qatar, he knew that our Chicken Tinola's were never complete without the leaves, oh we so love our leaves! We even thought of planting our own just so we could have leaves for our Tinola, but somehow they are just not the same...

So this time, as I saw the leaves I immediately told everyone we're having tinola for lunch, who cares about the box of pork, hehe! Surely it wouldn't beat a steaming hot Tinola with freshly halal-slaughtered chicken :)
Our traditional family recipe for Tinola which I also learned from my father is different from the usual Tinola recipes you find in the internet and most recipe books. In our family, we don't saute our chicken with garlic and onion since we do not like an oily Tinola. For us we just want the flavors derived from the chicken and ginger, we just want our chicken boiled and that's what I did. Personally when it comes to this dish, I really want to use a whole chicken, as my favorite part is the chicken liver and gizzard, which I always reserve before serving the dish :)

Ingredients:
1 whole fresh chicken (about 1.2kg)
1 small green papaya (about 400gms)
ginger (about 1inch size, sliced thinly)
1 small onion, sliced thinly
bird's eye chili leaves
3-4 cups water
salt and pepper to taste


Method:
Chop chicken to serving pieces (If you're in the Philippines, you can actually buy tinola-cut chicken pieces from the supermarket or ask the meat vendor to chop the chicken for you).
Season chicken with salt and put in a pot with water, ginger and onion.
Put over high heat to boil (do not include the heart, liver and gizzard at this point as they cook fast). Remove scum as it rises, then adjust to medium-low heat.
Check and adjust taste with salt and pepper as necessary. Simmer for  another 15 minutes then add the papaya (and the remaining chicken offal, if available). 
Cook for another 5-8 minutes, or until papaya is fork-tender. 
Turn off heat, add the chili leaves and cover. Let it sit for another 3-5 minutes before serving. The steam will continue to cook the leaves while covered.
Transfer into a serving bowl and serve with hot rice (I would also recommend a dipping sauce of lemon, fish sauce and chili). Enjoy!