I know! It’s about time I made this. It’s the quintessential Filipino comfort food. It’s probably also why Filipino kids are fat. When I’ve had it at restaurants and at some people’s places, there is a thick layer of fat and oil covering the top. The fattier/oilier/MSGier the adobo, the fatter the kids I saw were eating it. Adobo to Filipinos is like fried snickers and moonshine to the deep south.
I decided to make the chicken variety. I’ve also seen pork, beef, and even squid. I don’t know how it would be with fish. If you tried to marinate it, the vinegary adobo sauce might denature/coagulate the fish protein and you’d end up with a ceviche type thing happening. I think.
Chicken thighs and drumsticks and two onions + sauce, cooked on medium till satisfactory
Now the sauce is usually vinegar, garlic, soy sauce, peppercorn and bayleaf. Pretty basic, but the combination is amazing. Now I’ve heard of a lot of varieties in the recipe. I did everything. Everything. Except maybe coconut milk (which I actually did earlier in this blog). Flavors probably clashed, a lot got overpowered, but whatever I did, it turned out amazing. The kind of good that makes you scream its name at the top of its lungs before collapsing into a trembling, exhausted heap, gasping for breath.
The best part? I didn’t use measurements. All to taste. So with the sheer amount of ingredients I used, there is probably no chance of me ever making this same sensational adobo again (much less chance for anyone reading this). I know, I know, I’m like the Joseph Smith of Filipino food right now. But it was amazing and I’m fairly confident I could make another pretty decent adobo with the following ingredients:
- Head of garlic, minced
- Soy sauce: Marukin Low Salt and Kikkoman Original
- Vinegar: plain rice vinegar and apple cider vinegar
- Ginger, grated
- Lemon and calamansi
- EVOO, sesame oil
- Black pepper, crushed
- Oyster sauce – “secret ingredient” I got from some relatives in the Philippines
- Chicken bouillon
- Bay leaves
- Garlic chili paste, a little bit of Sriracha
- Cornstarch to thicken
Picture quality sucks because someone misplaced the damn camera so my shitty phone had to do.
thefattyinside
Briana Dacoscos
Emma
Greg Johnson
