Chicken Adobo coming right up...

Tonight, after TC had her piano lesson, I made adobong manok (chicken adobo) for tomorrow. Although it tastes really good right out of the pot, it tastes even better the next day. You can even pretend to be healthy by scraping off the layer of nice crisco-ey white fat that rises to the top of the sauce after it's been refrigerated...or you could just leave it there and enjoy the fat covered adobo after it's reheated.

Adobo is considered the national dish of the Philippines. It's not only a dish but a style of cooking. The basic ingredients are usually a meat (chicken or pork) in a sauce of soy sauce, a souring agent - normally white vinegar (or if you want to go native, sugar cane vinegar, which is quite strong), garlic and black peppercorns. Some recipes will use calamansi (native citrus fruit) or even lemons as a souring agent instead of vinegar. I've used personally used pineapple juice and pieces once for my pork ribs adobo. The cooking process (in vinegar) is also a preservation process and if you wanted to, you wouldn't even have to refrigerate your adobo dish.

There are a myriad variations, each uniquely delicious. Where my mom is from in the Philippines (the Northern part), she adds ginger. Sometimes she will add food coloring made from soaking annatto seeds (also known as 'atsuete' in Tagalog or 'achiote' in Spanish; also available in powdered form) in water, so that her adobo is reddish orange. My mom will also cook her adobo really dry so that there are dried bits at the bottom, mixed with the chicken skins that slipped off the chicken pieces! Me and my siblings used to fight for those burnt pieces; we loved the crispy skins! Other people make their adobo soupy or watery. I like mine with a little bit of liquid but I defintely do not like it drowning in sauce. My recipe is below. A few asides: the onions are not a traditional ingredient but it makes the adobo a bit sweeter. You could also add sugar to this recipe. Another variation is adding potato wedges , which cuts the vinegar and soaks up the sauce. One of my friends said she even made adobo in a crock pot before! I'll have to try that method next time.

Chicken Adobo

ingredients:
1 3lbs of chicken pieces (your choice, but NOT the breast - too dry!)
1/2 cup soy sauce
3/4 cup white vinegar (you could even use cider vinegar)
1 medium onion, sliced
1 or 2 heads of garlic, crushed
2 bay leaves
1/2 tablespoon whole black peppercorns
sliced ginger (cut into coins or small smashed chunks) **optional ingredient**
salt to taste

Instruction:

• saute the onions, garlic and ginger in several tbsp of oil
• add the chicken pieces and lightly brown them
• add the rest of the ingredients together (soy sauce, vinegar, bay leaves, peppercorns), bring to a boil then simmer covered for 30 minutes. do NOT stir the chicken!
• after simmering, remove lid and let sauce reduce by half
• add salt to taste (i usually don't - the soy sauce is salty enough)
• serve hot with white rice

serves 6

So there you have it...one of the most popular dishes of the Philippines. Pretty easy. Saute. Dump in ingredients. Leave it alone. It's done after half an hour. Taste better if you simmer it a bit longer. The meat will fall of the bones...

Ronin, you've tried making adobo before haven't you? Any special variations? Thane, have you had adobo since you've been out in Cambridge? Mulysa, I still need to try your pork chops with soy sauce recipe!