Chicken and Mangoes in Coconut Cream (Ginataang Manok at Mangga)

Joan of Foodalogue is taking a virtual culinary tour around the world, tasting each country's cuisine, learning a little bit of different cultures. All these to raise awareness about hunger in the world for BloggerAid. This week, our tour's destination is the Philippines!

Welcome, everyone, to this beautiful Pearl of the Orient! This is the land of warm white sands, clear blue waters. This is the land of Chocolate Hills, Rice Terraces, majestic waterfalls and rapids, the Palawan Underground River, and numerous seas where you can swim with dolphins and tortoises. This is the land of the world's smallest volcano (Taal) and the volcano with the most perfect cone (Mayon). We also have several of the best diving sites in the whole world.

This is also the land of the most resilient and patient people (we have to be, with the kind of government we have... ha ha ha!) The Filipinos are also known for their hospitality, and their kindness. Do you know that if you come and visit a Filipino home, you will surely be treated to a feast? Even if the family is not financially well-off, they will give you the best of what they have, they will make sure that you will be fed and fed, again and again... :) It is the culture. :)

I think I do not make a good travel writer :) Did I make you want to come and visit?


So, let's talk about food instead.

Philippine food is as diverse as its seven thousand and one hundred islands. Really! Each region, each locality always have their own version of a dish. And each dish is as tasty and delicious as the next one.

We have many delicious dishes to choose from. We have our famous sour tamarind soup (sinigang) , our fragrantly grilled (inihaw from charcoal) food, to roasted (whole) pigs (lechon) and chicken (inasal), to bopis (pig's lungs), dinuguan (pig's blood) and of course, our infamous balut (boiled fertilized duck eggs.) And this list barely scratched the surface yet... :)

I chose to feature a dish in mango and coconut cream (gata). As I have written in a post before, Philippine mangoes are really popular around the world. I may be biased, but a lot of people agree with me when I say (or rather write) that Philippine mangoes are the best in the world! Aside from mangoes, Philippines is also famous for its coconuts. We practically grew up drinking fresh coconut juice everyday! It is healthy and refreshing!

Coconut cream is different from coconut juice, though. The coconut juice is the water we get from young coconuts. The coconut cream is what we squeeze out/extracted from mature coconut meat. Nowadays, we have gadgets that extract the coconut cream from the meat, so we do not have to manually do the extraction at home. :)


1 kilo chicken, cleaned, chopped, skin removed
5 T canola oil
5 slices fresh ginger
4 T minced garlic
1 onion, chopped
2 T shrimp paste (bagoong)
3 pcs finger chillies (siling haba) whole or sliced, according to taste
1 can coconut cream
2 mangoes, deseeded, sliced
salt and pepper to taste


1. Heat up the cooking oil in a wok or skillet. Saute ginger until fragrant. Saute the onions until soft. Saute the garlic until fragrant.

2. Add in the shrimp paste. Stir for a while, then add in the chicken. Mix for a while until chicken changes color.

3. Add in the finger chillies, coconut cream. Cover and let cook for 15 to 20 minutes until chicken is cooked through. Do not overcook chicken as the meat will harden.

4. Add in the sliced mangoes, season to taste and serve warm.











Sharing this dish with the BloggerAid community's Culinary Tour Around the World over at Joan's Foodalogue. Please visit BloggerAid and help stamp out world hunger. And please visit Fooadalogue aroound March 25 to see the round-up of delicious Philippine dishes.