Chicken adobo

Ingredients

• Chicken thighs1 kg
• Soy sauce120 ml
• Cane or rice vinegar120 ml
• Garlic10 clove
• Bay leaves4
• Black peppercorns1 tsp
• Cane sugar1 tbsp
• Water200 ml
• Neutral oil2 tbsp
• Cooked rice400 g

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Marinate the chicken in the soy with the crushed garlic and peppercorns for thirty minutes.

   30 min

2. 2

   Lift the chicken out, dry it and brown it skin down. Keep the marinade.

   10 min

3. 3

   Pour in the marinade, water and vinegar, add the bay and sugar. Bring it to the boil and neither stir nor cover for ten minutes.

   12 min

4. 4

   Cover and simmer for twenty-five minutes, turning the chicken once.

   25 min

5. 5

   Uncover and reduce the sauce for five to ten minutes, spooning it over the chicken. Serve with rice.

   10 min

About the dish

Adobo began as a way of keeping food: vinegar and salt preserved meat in the tropics long before the Spanish, who gave the dish its name. That is why the proportion of acid is higher than feels normal.

Once the vinegar goes in, it is neither stirred nor covered for about ten minutes. The sharp volatile acids need to boil off; stir too early and they stay in the sauce, which then tastes raw.

There is no single adobo recipe — every family has its own ratio of soy to vinegar. One to one is the starting point, and it is adjusted from there.

Worth knowing

• — Adobo is markedly better the next day: overnight the soy and vinegar go deeper and the sharpness disappears entirely.
• — Soy sauces differ enormously in saltiness. Start with less and adjust at the end.
• — Pork follows the same recipe, only with half an hour more braising.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

580 kcal

Protein

44 g

Fat

26 g

Carbs

42 g

More from Philippines

• Sinigang — A sour tamarind soup with pork and vegetables. Sourness is the main flavour here, not an accent.