Filipino Spicy Chicken Soup ("Tinola")

This common dish from the Philippines is actually sort of a combination soup and stew. I made it as a soup (that is, very thin), and I removed the chicken pieces as the vegetables finished cooking, and took the chicken meat off the bone, then returned it to the soup. It is my understanding that rice is often served on the side, or the soup/stew is served over rice, and the chicken meat is left on the bones. Typically, Filipinos use hot pepper leaves, but I've substituted fresh spinach. If you don't like spinach, this is not going to taste like the gob of spinach you were served as a child, trust me. Also, don't worry about the fish sauce overwhelming the soup, it will just add a subtle taste to the broth. Further, the hot pepper is not likely to make the soup too hot, but rather just give it a little "kick." I like hot and spicy food, and this was far too mild for me, so next time I'll add more serrano pepper.

 Ingredients:

3 lb. whole chicken legs
1 serrano pepper, chopped (you can use jalapeno pepper)
1 papaya, cut into small wedges
1 cup fresh spinach, roughly chopped or torn, but not too finely
4 cups water
3 tablespoons chopped ginger root
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 medium onion, chopped
3 tablespoons Thai fish sauce
salt/pepper to taste (the fish sauce is salty, so beware how much loose salt you add)
2-3 tablespoons canola oil

Add the oil to a skillet or large pan and add the onion, garlic, serrano pepper and ginger root. Cook for a couple of minutes to barely soften, stirring to keep it from sticking. Add the chicken and brown lightly, this will also further soften the onion, garlic, etc. If using a large pan, add the water and fish sauce, bring to a low simmer, cover and cook for about one hour. (You can then remove the chicken, let it cool for a couple of minutes and then take the meat from the bone, if you like.) Add the papaya and spinach and cook a few minutes until the papaya is tender (return chicken meat to the pan, if using this method). Add salt and pepper. 

WORD HISTORY:
Have-This extremely common and essential word, related to "heave," goes back to Indo European "kahp," which had the notion of "seize, grasp, take." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "habjanan," essentially with the meaning, but also with a developing sense of "possession;" that is, "the result of seizing or grasping something." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "habban," meaning "to hold, to keep, to possess." This then became "haven," before the modern version. The word is often used by the Germanic languages to form the perfect tense of verbs (example: "I have eaten already.") German has "haben," Low German Saxon has "hebben," West Frisian has "hawwe," Dutch has "hebben," Danish has "have," Icelandic has "hafa," Norwegian has "ha" (obviously a contracted form), and Swedish has "ha" and "hava."