Pinatisang manok 2 (chicken soup with fish sauce)
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Filed under My recipes; Poultry; Asian, chicken, Filipino, Superb soups
Almost everyone I know cooks pinatisang manok with sili leaves. I did, too, but my kids are not fans of sili leaves. Cooking sili leaves can be tricky — overcook it a minute longer than necessary and the bitterness will become very pronounced. That’s why sili leaves are never boiled; they are added to a dish after it is cooked. With tinola, for instance, the sili leaves are added to the cooked dish while still in the cooking pot. The cooking pot is covered and the heat from the broth, plus the steam, cooks the sili leaves.
So, my kids have had some bad experience with sili leaves. Not from overcooking but with reheating. Reheat leftover tinola or pinatisang manok and the broth turns bitter. But despite the dislike for sili leaves, my kids love the basic pinatisang manok. I experimented with substitutes for the unpopular sili leaves and came up with a winner. 
A few tips for a flavorful chicken soup. First, use parts of the chicken that has lots of bones. The flavor, and the body of the broth, come from the bones. That’s why it is never a good idea to use fillets when making soup. I must admit that there were times when I did that but that was more out of desperation than anything else as when there’s nothing else on hand.
My personal choice is the thigh and back. When you buy cut up chicken, those labeled as soup packs usually contain only the backs of the chicken. While they are perfect for the broth, they have too little meat. In Filipino cooking, a lot of soup dishes are actually main dishes. And if all you have in your main soup dish are backs of chickens, well, you won’t get much meat. So, try to look for the pack of choice cuts that say “thighs and backs”. This doesn’t mean that there are thigh pieces and back pieces, respectively, in the pack. It means that the chicken pieces are so chopped so that each piece actually contains a whole thigh and a part of the back. You get the bones from the backs; you get the meat from the thighs. In the alternative, you can always chop up one whole chicken.
Now, how does the broth acquire that golden color? Two things. One is the patis. But unless you drown your broth with patis which will make your soup dish inedible, the broth wll still look a little pale even after adding patis. So, what’s the secret? The secret is unpeeled onions. Not only are whole onions great for flavoring your broth; the golden color of the skin of white onions will help the broth to acquire a deep golden color.
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Wow! A simple dish with only 6 ingredients. Dadanin na lang talaga sa pagalingan ng timpla…
Hehehe true. True.
Wow! great tip! I’m going to try it next time i make pinatisang manok, it does make the broth a lot more appealing. Usually if sili leaves aren’t available i make do with malunggay leaves. Before I was so conventional in the kitchen…pero thanks to you i’ve been an expert at substituting unavailable ingredients hahaha. Pinatisang Manok, Sinampalukang Manok, Tinolang Manok and Nilagang Manok….all these are comfort food for me. And you are so right, fillets are never meant for soups. So glad you’ve found a way to enhance the appearance of such a simple (but wonderful) dish. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better…:wink:
hi… tnx for the tip. i would love to cook this dish. check ko lang po ung garlic dito kung chopped ba o whole garlic, and do we have to leave it unpeeled like the onion… thanks!
Good for you, Nadia. Substituting allows the creation of more varieties of a single dish.
Pinky, whole unpeeled garlic. Better if you pierce it in several places with a small pointed knife.
Connie,
do you have a recipe for pickled chicken? Sa Marikina, kapag fiesta, di pwedeng walang “pickles”. Yun ang tawag nila sa dish na ito. I have tried cooking it with chicken using pickle relish. Just thought if you have another recipe for this.
connie,
can i add luya to this dish, just to take out the “lansa” from the manok??
Hi Connie,
Your website is grrreat! I’m here in Sydney with my family (we have a 12 y/o girl and 11 y/o boy). I always email my mom (in the phils) for recipes. Although I have lots of cokbooks here, I still prefer to cook pinoy food. However, your website is vey handy, instead of me waiting for a few days for my mom to answer my email.
Anyway, can I ask if the onion leaves the same as the spring onions or eschallots?
Thanks!
Racquel from Downunder
,,,,ilove it very much!!!
Hi Ms. Connie, tried this dish yesterday, i add beef stock to the water coz medyo matagal na sa freezer, and it turned out great mas lalong lumasa. Aside from that, i considered it meal in a flash coz i just cooked it in less than half an hour. Its because i chopped the chicken thighs into bite size pieces hehehe..might be too small but im in a hurry to feed my kids and me too
Ayos! A hot home-cooked meal in less than 30 minutes. Talagang cooking in a flash.
Chicken soup is one of my favorite dishes when i was a kid and until now. It is tasty and very yummy.