Adobo is probably the unofficial national dish of the Philippines. It’s one of those divisive dishes, kind of like how coddle is here in Dublin. It changes from household to household but it always contains the same ingredients, more or less. Some households have their adobo with pork or prefer a dry adobo, where all the liquid has evaporated, leaving that tasty pork or chicken fat to spoon over your rice. It’s a dish I have eaten all my life, and come to think of it, I’ve eaten a wide spectrum of adobos as my father makes many styles of adobo. I guess it depends on what mood he’s in. Here’s my recipe for chicken adobo, inspired by the many versions my father has made for me.
Serves 4–6
1.5kg chicken drumsticks (or a mix of bone-in, skin-on thighs and drumsticks)
200ml soy sauce
200ml sugar cane vinegar
50g garlic, roughly chopped
6 bay leaves
15g black peppercorns
3 tbsp vegetable oil
20g dark brown sugar
275ml water
1 spring onion, thinly sliced, to garnish (optional)
To serve:
steamed white rice
Put your chicken in a large mixing bowl with the soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, bay leaves and peppercorns. For the best flavour leave your chicken to marinate in the fridge overnight, but at least 2 hours.
Remove the chicken from the marinade and set aside on a plate. Don’t discard the marinade, as it will be the basis for your sauce.
Heat a large, wide, heavy-based pot on a medium heat. Add your vegetable oil – once it starts to shimmer, you’re good to go.
Working in batches, add your chicken pieces to the pot, skin side down. What you’re looking to do here is develop some nice colour on the skin and render out the fat, as the chicken fat adds to the sauce and helps it to emulsify. Plus who doesn’t like chicken fat? Remove the browned pieces and set aside on a plate while continuing to brown the remaining chicken.
Add all the browned chicken back to the pot along with the reserved marinade, the dark brown sugar and the water. Stir to make sure everything is well acquainted. Crank the heat up to high and bring to the boil, then drop the heat and maintain a gentle simmer.
The chicken should take 20–30 minutes to cook, so leave it to do its thing. After 20 minutes, take a look at the chicken – it should be soft and should easily pull away from the bone. This is what you want. If it’s not quite there yet, give it another 5–10 minutes. By this time, the liquid should have also reduced by more than half and become nice and thick.
To serve, grab a bowl of steamed white rice, add some chicken and drown everything in the sauce. Garnish with some thinly sliced spring onions if you like.
From Blasta Books #8: Masarap by Richie Castillo and Alex O’Neill
