So, night one of day one of the month of Marzo. Chicken Adobo, you're up. I actually wasn't going to try and make this until mañana, since I thought I needed to go to the grocery store for some ingredients. However, it turned out that for the recipe I decided on that I already had all of the ingredients.
There were also a few cloves of garlic that didn't make the picture, which were crushed and added to the pot along with the above ingredients. I'm following a Food Network TV recipe with the exceptions of (1) cutting the recipe in half, and (2) adding the brown sugar. Gotta have that brown sugar, babe ("I get high off ur love/I don't know how to behave"). Ha. I also plan to finish the chicken off in the broiler -- the better looking pics of other adobo recipes include this final step.
So, ingredients into my Dutch Oven, along with six boneless, skinless chicken thighs.
I am to let these marinate for 1 to 3 hours.
Marination for maybe an hour n 15 happened, then I fired up the stove, got the liquid to boil, and dropped the lid on top of the pot, dropped the flame to low, and let it simmer for 30 minutes (stirring occasionally).
Lid off and more simmer for 20 more minutes or so, so the sauce will thicken. At abt 20 and the liquid still looked pretty liquid.
I let the sauce continue to simmer on its own as I got the chicken onto the broiler pan to secure that crisp I seek.
Maybe 4 minutes total and them thighs were nice and brown.
Within minutes I had my plate prepared and the next days' leftovers separately cooling off. Sat down w/ my plate of first attempt at chicken adobo (w/ white rice, of course). Equipped with fork, knife... and spoon, of course... I dig in.
Verdict: Pretty tasty!
I admit the dish was smelling very vinegar-y early on -- I am historically not a big fan of vinegar-based dishes. However I keep getting that preconceived notion proven wrong -- here, once again. Admittedly I've shied away from adobo in pretty much all instances where I get the opportunity to have Filipino food (which are few and far between -- I live in a Filipino food desert (yeah, I just made that up)), so I don't have much of a reference point for critique.
I admit the dish was smelling very vinegar-y early on -- I am historically not a big fan of vinegar-based dishes. However I keep getting that preconceived notion proven wrong -- here, once again. Admittedly I've shied away from adobo in pretty much all instances where I get the opportunity to have Filipino food (which are few and far between -- I live in a Filipino food desert (yeah, I just made that up)), so I don't have much of a reference point for critique.
I definitely taste the vinegar, but it marries well with the soy sauce. The black peppercorns give it that slightest kick. I am glad I added that TBSP of brown sugar. I'm inclined to add more next time -- play with ratios... Maybe try another recipe. At any rate, this IS pretty good as prepared... And I've learned that I like adobo 😎
