My Chicken Adobo
Chicken adobo recipes vary from region to region, house to house, and even person to person in the Philippines, but the core components are the same. It’s a braised dish with a base of soy sauce, vinegar, and garlic.
If you’re Asian and you don’t have the pantry staples to make this dish, wow, shame on you.
Ingredients
6 chicken thighs
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
1 tbsp. bacon fat (optional but recommended)
8 garlic cloves, smashed
1 yellow onion, thinly sliced
6 bay leaves
scallions, chopped
cilantro, chopped
kosher salt and a ton of ground black pepper
1. Season the chicken thighs lightly with salt and heavily with black pepper.
Notes on the chicken:
I prefer thighs because dark meat is delicious and it has the best combination of meat, skin, and fat. Some people like legs and I use those too sometimes. If you want a healthy version, you can use breast, but just reduce your cooking times. Whatever cut you use, buy it with bones and skin.Notes on the black pepper:
Many adobo recipes tell you to use whole peppercorns, but I don’t like crunching on whole peppercorns in my adobo. If you don’t mind whole peppercorns, add 2 palmfuls. My adobo has a heavy black pepper presence.
2. In a huge pan (that you have a cover for), heat a small amount of oil over medium high heat. Add the thinly sliced onions and cook until they are soft and translucent, stirring constantly. This should take about 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
3. Remove and reserve the onions in a bowl.
4. Using the same pan, heat another small amount of oil over medium high heat. Place the chicken thighs skin-side down. Cook the chicken until the skin has browned. You should see a pool of rendered chicken fat forming. That is liquid gold.
5. Put the soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, bay leaves, and bacon fat into the pan. Increase to a high flame and bring the braising liquid to a rapid boil.
6. When the braising liquid is boiling, reduce to a simmer, and cover the pan. Do not remove the cover until…
7. After 20 minutes, flip the chicken over and cover with the reserved onions. Cover the pan again and cook for an additional 15-20 minutes.
8. Uncover the pan. Don’t put your face directly over it lol. If there’s still a lot of braising liquid, increase to medium high heat. With a spoon, baste the chicken with braising liquid and continue cooking until the sauce has reduced by half. You want to have some sauce, but you don’t want the chicken to be swimming.
9. Remove from heat and garnish with scallions and cilantro. Serve over steaming white rice!
Notes:
Cooking time is really approximate here. If you have a meat thermometer, you are looking for 165˚.
If you don’t have rice, you can make chicken adobo tacos. You might even want to make these tortillas for them.
In the Philippines, they adobo everything. If you don’t have or don’t want to eat chicken, you can make pork adobo or fish adobo or steak adobo or mushroom adobo. There is no limit as to what you can adobo.