Pininyahang manok

Chicken in pineapple and milk, with the chicken marinated in milk so the acid cannot curdle it.

Chicken. Not vegetarian — contains chicken, fish sauce.

Ingredients

• 1.2 kg chicken thighs, in pieces
• 400 g pineapple chunks, with 150 ml of their juice
• 300 ml evaporated milk
• 1 onion, sliced
• 6 garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 carrots, in coins
• 1 red bell pepper, in strips
• 3 tablespoons fish sauce
• 3 tablespoons oil
• 0.5 teaspoon black pepper

Method

1. MARINATE THE CHICKEN IN THE MILK, 30 minutes, before anything else happens. Pineapple juice and milk added to each other in a hot pan curdle on contact; milk already absorbed into the meat does not. This one step is the difference between a smooth sauce and a grainy one.
2. Lift the chicken out of the milk and pat it dry. KEEP THE MILK.
3. Brown the chicken in the oil, 4 minutes a side, in two batches.
4. Onion and garlic in, 4 minutes.
5. Pineapple juice in and boiled hard for 3 minutes on its own. Boiling the acid down first blunts it, and that is the second half of the curdling problem.
6. Chicken back in with the fish sauce. Cover and simmer 20 minutes.
7. Carrots in, 10 minutes.
8. Heat right down. The reserved milk in, poured round the edge rather than into the middle, and stirred through. No boiling from here -- a bare shiver for 8 minutes.
9. Pineapple chunks and bell pepper in for the last 3 minutes. The chunks only need warming; simmered long they fall to threads.
10. Pepper, and taste. It should be faintly sweet rather than sweet.

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