- 8 (5-7 ounce) bone-in chicken thighs, trimmed
- 1/3 cup soy sauce
- 1 (13 1/2-ounce) can coconut milk
- 3/4 cup cider vinegar
- 8 garlic cloves peeled
- 4 bay leaves
- 2 teaspoons pepper
- 1 scallion, sliced thin [Eh]
Mise en place for what is broadly considered as the Filipino national dish.
Toss the thighs with the soy sauce and marinate in the fridge for at least 30 minutes and up to 1 hour.
Brown the skin.
Braise for about 35 minutes.
Finished dish. It struck me as truly remarkable that such a relatively simple amount of prep (the most arduous thing was probably peeling the garlic) could provide such an enormous return on flavor. The first time I made this somehow I misread the list and bought boneless, skinless breasts instead of bone-in, skin-on thighs. It stilled turned out quite well.
Here my mistake was in walking away for too long to play with my Ipad and letting the sauce over-reduce until I only had fond and fat left in the pan. Oh well. But this is definitely something I'll break out every now and then since it's so good and nearly entirely based on pantry items. Right next to Chicken Marsala (which I haven't made in a while) and Chicken and Lima Beans (which I seem to drag out once a month).
Most chicken adobo recipes don’t use coconut milk. That chef they consulted is from a small region in the Philippine Islands which puts coconut milk in EVERYTHING. 99% of Filipino chicken adobo recipes have no coconut milk.
ReplyDeleteAmerica’s Test Kitchen screwed up in that regard.
They also had way too much vinegar in that recipe. Reduce the vinegar to 1/3 cup. The ideal ratio of vinegar:salty for Adobo is 1:1.
These are the authentic recipes:
http://ivoryhut.com/2010/04/my-quick-and-easy-chicken-adobo/
http://www.tartineandapronstrings.com/2012/11/23/chicken-adobo/
Well isn't it also true that there are about as many recipes for chicken adobo as there are filipino househoulds? The write of recipe searched high and low for this recipe until a coworker who had recently been to nyc recommended that the writer eat at: http://www.menupages.com/restaurants/purple-yam/
ReplyDeleteThis is also a place that was reviewed in the NYT: http://events.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/dining/reviews/30rest.html?_r=0
I personally went there when I was still living in NYC and remembered it being quite all right.
I don't know if you can really apply the words authentic to a food like chicken adobo.
Adobo with Gata (Coconut milk) is an interesting variation that is prevalent in an area (Bicol) of the Philippine Islands roughly only 50 to 60 miles in total. The majority of Filipino cooks make Adobo without coconut milk. It's not the standard recipe. It's a poor choice to present to the majority of the USA who know nothing about Filipino cuisine as "the standard recipe". It's not. Bless America's Test Kitchen and that one chef for exposing the cuisine to the rest of the USA, but his version is not what every other Filipino cook or chef makes.
ReplyDeleteRead this and maybe you'll try to see the point I was trying to make:
ReplyDeletehttps://likeitiz.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/americas-test-kitchen-you-just-did-a-snafu/
I don't want to be argumentative on your space, but my point is not an invalid one.
And the point of ATK isn't necessarily trying to recreate a recipe that won't clash with the majority rule on a dish.
ReplyDelete