Chicken Adobo

Adobo is probably the best known Filipino dish out there. It can either be made with chicken or pork. Both are an amazing explosion of flavor in your mouth. It isn’t really the meat that makes this dish so awesome, but the sauce. The sauce is a mixture of soy sauce and Vinegar and it is a MUST to eat it over rice. It would just be disrespectful not to do so!

I found the following recipe online. I modified a little bit to satisfy the tastes of myself and my fiance. It is also a little different that how my mother fixed it, but still just as good.

Adobo is one of those Love it or Hate it foods. I have only met one person that doesn’t like it, but he’s just a freak of nature and nobody really likes him anyway. I hope you enjoy it!

Ingredients:
1 Whole chicken (cut up) OR 3-5 pounds of boneless chicken breast (cut up) OR 3-5 pounds of boneless pork (cut up)
Soy Sauce
Vinegar
Fresh Crushed Pepper
Bay Leaves (2-3 large)
5-15 Garlic Cloves peeled and sliced (slightly crushed)
Oil (Canola or Vegetable)

Alot about Adobo is making it to taste so don’t be upset if it doesn’t taste exactly like you want it to.

Take the cut up chicken/pork and place it in a large cooking pot. Season with freshly crushed pepper and add bay leaf to pot. Peel the Garlic cloves, crush them slightly (so that a teeny tiny bit of juice comes out) and add them to the pot. Keep in mind that fresh garlic is the best to use. Garlic powder gives it a whole different taste.

The next part is to add the soy sauce and vinegar. This part is alot about taste. If you like more a more sour taste, add more vinegar, if you like a saltier taste, add more soy sauce. A good base is 5 parts soy sauce to 3 parts vinegar. Measure this by how many globs, or splashes that drop into the pot. Don’t worry about perfection, remember this is about taste. Add water so that the meat is covered in liquid and the pot is at least half full. The liquid should be a medium to medium-dark brown. If it isn’t, add a little more soy sauce so that it comes to the correct color.

Cover and simmer for about 15-20 minutes, then remove from heat.

Heat about 3 tablespoons of oil in a sauce pan. With a slotted spoon, remove the meat from the liquid and brown it in the sauce pan. If all of the meat will not fit at once, brown them in batches. Once the meat is browned, remove from the oil and place into a bowl lined with a papertowl to drain the oil from the meat.

Place the meat back into the liquid. Cover, and boil at medium heat for 45 minutes to an hour. Adobo is done when the meat is cooked and tender.

Adobo is served with rice. As I have already stated, it is a MUST to serve with rice. Something about the taste of the sauce mixed with rice is what makes adobo, adobo. The best type of rice is steamed rice, although I don’t expect everyone to have a rice steamer. Any type of long grain rice (jasmine is the best) will work and instructions on how to fix it on the stove should be on the package.

Enjoy!

_{Picture courtesy of http://www.1001recipes.com/?p=131#more-131
Recipe courtesy of my mommy}