Special Lunch For the Oldies: Tasty and Healthy Chicken Tinola with Green Papaya and Malunggay Leaves

When I cooked Chicken Tinola, instead of papaya, which is most used in that dish, I used chayote because I like that better than papaya. Papaya has its own health benefits too, of course, but I still prefer Chayote in my Chicken Tinola because it tastes yummy for me. I don't know, I don't really like Papaya that much. But I still eat papaya from time to time, like once in a blue moon, lolol - and definitely not that often. Only when I feel like eating it. Whether as a fruit or as ingredients in a dish. How about you? My oldies love papaya in a dish. I'm the only one who doesn't like that here, lol.

Anyway, this morning I went to the market again with Mama. To be honest, I don't have the plan to go anywhere today. But I feel like I need some sunshine on my skin. I feel a little lightheaded in the past days that I know something's wrong with me. I'm still not sure, but whatever. Anyway, back to the chicken tinola. This recipe is really simple, and with a few ingredients, you can finally have your chicken tinola. Even at your home, for sure, you can make this savory dish that you can enjoy with the whole family. And this time, I used Papaya instead of Chayote. This is one of the rare day where I can eat a Papaya in Chicken Tinola. Ehe ┏(＾0＾)┛.

Let's start with the preparation. I asked Mama to pick a papaya for me in the backyard. Here's our thriving papaya tree. It bears fruits again after getting all the first blooms. I immediately clean and peel it and cut it into pieces. We'll cut it into smaller sizes later. For now, let's marinate our chicken for a minute.

I put salt, pepper, msg, and crushed fresh garlic into it. I massage it using my clean hands, lol. You know, just to incorporate all of our seasonings. It's really simple, no? I haven't tried any seasoning in chicken tinola. I don't really like to experiment when it comes to that. So I only use what I know and what I think is good for marinating chicken. How about you?

While marinating the chicken, we'll remove this from our papaya, and we'll cut it into this size. You can actually just put it in this size and don't cut it, but I prefer mine in smaller sizes. After that, we'll put salt into our papaya and cleanse it, lol. I don't know what's the use, I just follow what I learned from Mommy D, so I'm just copying her, lol.

Then I cut the garlic, onion, and ginger into strips. As for the ginger, I crushed it first before cutting. Just to squeeze out its juices and for it's aroma to spread more on our chicken dish for today.

And so, it's cooking time! Ready the pan, heat it, put a cooking pan, and sauté garlic, onion, and ginger. I used a casserole here instead of the pan because we're cooking a dish with soup here. So it's the perfect pan for this dish. I'm using a low heat here as I don't want to burn everything.

Once the garlic, onion, and ginger turn brown, we'll put next the marinated chicken and sauté them together.

Then, after two minutes of sautéing, we'll put three cups of water in it. Then put the chicken cubes and a little bit more pepper and let it boil on high heat for two minutes and adjust it to low heat.

And while waiting, I decided to have a little snack as I'm already hungry, lol. I only had two pandesal this morning, so it's understandable that I am famished already. Right? Right? Lolol.

And here's the freshly picked Malunggay leaves. We had a tree of Malunggay at the back of our house, but this one came from Aunt Velyn, she visited this morning with all these. I should be picking all its leaves one by one, but because it's still a young leaf, I just wash them and I'll put everything as is in our recipe later . You can do whatever on your Malunggay leaves though.

I cooked the chicken for 30 minutes and another 10 for the papaya and malunggay. I cooked it until the chicken became tender. Ehe. And there we have! Our chicken tinola with papaya and malunggay.

Serves while it's hot. It is best to pair with steamed white rice.

Lead Image Edited in Canva.