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Chicken Adobo

Ingredients

  • Around 6 to 8 bone-in chicken thighs or substitute other pieces
  • 120 mls or half a cup as the Americans say, of soy sauce
  • One 400 ml can of coconut milk
  • 120 mls cider or rice vinegar or any you may have
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 heaped teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper
  • 8 garlic cloves peeled, chopped, minced or whole, as you prefer
  • 3 bay leaves
  • Some scallions thinly sliced
  • A little oil for frying
  • White rice to serve

Instructions

  1. Trim the excess skin off the chicken thighs and marinade in a bowl with the soy sauce for about an hour or as long as you can wait. I tend to puncture the flesh of anything I am marinating to let the flavour seep into the meat.
  2. Remove the chicken from the soy and reserve the liquid.
  3. Place the chicken, skin side down, into a large frying pan and cook on medium high heat until the skin is crisp and golden. While the chicken is browning, mix the coconut milk, vinegar, sugar and pepper into the soy sauce marinade. There is no need to turn the chicken as there is more cooking to come. Remove the browned chicken from the pan, discard the fat and wipe the pan clean with a paper towel.
  4. Now transfer the soy, vinegar, coconut milk mix into the frying pan, throw in the garlic and bay leaves and add the chicken, this time skin side up. Bring the heat up to a gentle boil then lower the temperature and simmer for about 30-40 minutes, depending on the thickness of your chicken pieces. Fish one piece out and check it is cooked through if you are not sure.
  5. When the chicken is cooked through remove it from the pan and set aside, covered with tin foil to keep it warm. Take out the bay leaves if you can find them and skim any fat off the surface of the sauce. Turn the heat up again and cook until the sauce is thickened to your liking, about 5 minutes should do it. Taste the sauce and adjust to your liking, some salt perhaps, or if it is too sharp you could add a little more sugar.
  6. Serve over rice of your choice which you naturally had cooking as your chicken simmered, garnish with the scallions and that’s it.
  7. Ok, there’s a little bit of work involved and this method takes a little time but it is worth it, and sure what else do we have these days but time?

Recipe Notes

If you don’t like bone in cuts of chicken then by all means use breast fillets but then there is no need to sear the skin, which speeds up the cooking time too, you can even skip the marinating bit if you really want, just fry the chicken and simmer in the other ingredients for about 20 minutes.