MY RECIPES: Chicken Adobo
Some chicken adobo I made with cauliflower rice and over-hard eggs.
Dear Foodie Fam,
I’m no recipe blogger but you asked! And this is a fairly simple recipe so I’m not afraid to share.
Here’s how I make chicken adobo!
WHY I’M NOT A RECIPE DEVELOPER: AAAH EMBARRASSING! FOODIE FAM, I HAD A HUGE TYPO IN MY ORIGINAL RECIPE INVOLVING THE VINEGAR AND SOY SAUCE MEASUREMENTS! WE ARE OK, NOW!!!!!
First, some Deets!
Filipino families have varying recipes for adobo but they will always (unless you are in the Visayas where salt is used) use mainly soy sauce and vinegar.
Filipino dishes love to use vinegar. This stems from the way early Filipinos use to keep their food fresh in the tropical climate. They used vinegar!
Some believe the process of using vinegar to keep food fresh was started by the Malaysians who came to the Philippines. The Malaysians used salt with vinegar to preserve food. When Chinese traders came to the Philippines, they brought soy sauce which the Filipinos substituted their salt with.
When Spanish settlers came to the Philippines between the 16th and 17th centuries, they saw Filipinos using this cooking technique and called it “adobo” after the Spanish word for “marinade” (“adobar” - pickling sauce made with olive oil, vinegar, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, oregano, paprika and salt.). Spanish adobo uses a more chili and tomato based marinade than Filipino adobo. Mexican and Caribbean cuisine also use the word “adobo” for some dishes.
Adobo is not so much a recipe as much as it is one of four Filipino ways of cooking with vinegar. You can prepare lots of different meats adobo-style: pork (adobong baboy), beef (adobong baka), shrimp (adobong hipon), goat (adobong kambing), fish (adobong ista) and even squid in it’s (adobong ng pucit).
The secondary (but still important) flavors in adobo come from garlic, bay leaves, and peppercorns. Some families add any or some of the following: ginger, brown sugar, onions, coconut milk, chile, liver, potatoes, morning glory, laurel leaves.
Just like Jo Koy (above)- I don’t know anyone who eats meat that has had chicken adobo that doesn’t like it!
My Filipino Chicken Adobo
Serves 4 to 6
Ingredients
1 lbs chicken (drumsticks and/or thighs)- KEEP THE SKIN ON!!!!!!
1/3 cup low sodium soy sauce
1/3 cup white vinegar
2 cups water
4 minced garlic cloves
2 whole bay leaves
3/4 tbsp crushed black pepper
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp sesame oil
1/2 tspn ginger
1 tspn garlic powder
Let’s Do this!
Put chicken, vinegar, garlic, bayleaves and peppercorn in a large pot. Add about 2 cups of water to the pot so the chicken is just covered with liquid. Bring this all to boil, then cover the pot and let it simmer for 20 minutes.
While the pot is simmering, mix soy sauce, honey, sesame oil ginger and garlic powder in a mixing bowl until smooth.
After it’s simmered for that first 20 minutes, open the pot and add the soy sauce mixture. Cover the pot again and simmer it for another 20 minutes.
Heat the olive oil in a pan until it’s sizzling but not smoking.
Remove chicken from the pot. Let the sauce boil, reducing it for another 15 minutes or until it’s come down to about 1 1/2 cups of sauce. Then, let the sauce cool and remove the bay leaves.
While the sauce is reducing, pat down the chicken lightly to dry it a bit before putting it into the pan to sauté it. I do this until it’s fully cooked and the skin is lightly crisp.
Place fully cooked chicken into a bowl and pour the sauce over it. Serve with rice. You can also serve it with banana, hardboiled egg, or Filipino pico de Gallo (diced tomato, diced mango, diced white onions, chopped cilantro leaves, dash of fish sauce).
Alternative Notes
NOTE: I like to boil the chicken before sautéing it because I am better at keeping the chicken tender that way but some people sauté the chicken with the garlic in the pot before boiling everything.
NOTE 2: You can also marinate the chicken to make it more infused with flavor. Panlasang Pinoy does this (video below:)
