Ginataang manok

Chicken simmered in coconut milk, thin first and thick at the end so it never splits.

Chicken. Not vegetarian — contains chicken, fish sauce.

Ingredients

• 1.2 kg chicken pieces, bone in
• 400 ml thin coconut milk
• 400 ml thick coconut milk
• 60 g fresh ginger, in matchsticks
• 1 onion, sliced
• 6 garlic cloves, crushed
• 500 g green papaya, in 3 cm wedges
• 3 tablespoons fish sauce
• 4 long green chillies
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 0.5 teaspoon black pepper

Method

1. THE COCONUT MILK GOES IN THIN FIRST, THICK LAST. The thin milk does the cooking and can boil for half an hour without harm. The thick milk is the sauce and splits into oil and curds if it boils at all, so it goes in at the end and never comes above a shiver.
2. Fry the ginger, onion and garlic in the oil over a medium heat, 4 minutes. Ginger in matchsticks, not grated, so there is something to find in the bowl.
3. Chicken in, turned in the aromatics for 5 minutes until the skin tightens. No colour needed.
4. Fish sauce over it, then the thin coconut milk. Bring up, then down to a simmer, uncovered, 25 minutes.
5. Papaya in, 10 minutes, until a knife slides in but the wedges still hold their edges.
6. Heat right down. Thick coconut milk in, and from here keep it just below a simmer for 5 minutes, stirring slowly. The surface should barely move.
7. Whole chillies in for the last 2 minutes, left whole so they scent the sauce without making it hot. Pepper, and taste for fish sauce.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Philippines · All recipes