Palau : Tinola Soup

CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE I USED

Palau was a struggle for me. I live with someone who is absolutely disgusted by the smell of fish and I cannot cook fish if they are going to be in the house that day. I cook it when they go out of town for awhile but they do not currently have any plans to go out of town. So, I tried to find something that didn't involve fish/seafood with ingredients I could find locally and found next to nothing online.

I am not 100% sure how Palauan this is. I found a few sites saying Tinola Soup is a Palauan soup but I also found people complaining about that statement stating that it originated in the Philippines and should be considered a Filipino dish. In either case, it appears that it is something that is eaten in Palau and it will have to do.

This is a delicious chicken soup made with plenty of garlic and ginger, fish sauce, Bok choy, and spinach. It called for either a green papaya or a chayote squash but I couldn't source either of those so I substituted zucchini which the internet told me was a good substitution. I love zucchini so it worked out well for me.

The soup itself is very flavorful with all of the garlic, ginger, and fish sauce. I did use less fish sauce than the recipe suggested because it has a powerful flavor and is very salty, and I'm trying to keep an eye on my salt intake these days. The flavor was still very present and very good, I didn't feel like I missed out on anything.

I really really enjoyed it - just a perfect blend of flavors that I enjoy in a good soup. I will happily eat the leftovers and I can absolutely see myself making this again!