Filipino Adobo Chicken

In Filipino cuisine, adobo refers to a common cooking process indigenous to the Philippines. When the Spanish invaded the Philippines in the late 16th century, they found an indigenous cooking process that involved stewing with vinegar. They referred to this method as "adobo". Over time, dishes prepared in this manner came to be known by this name as well. The first written record of adobo dates from 1613, and can be found in the dictionary Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala, compiled by the Spanish Franciscan missionary Pedro de San Buenaventura, where it is referred as adobo de los naturales (adobo of the native peoples).

The method of cooking pork and chicken in vinegar as a way to preserve the meat probably dates back to the pre-Hispanic times. Like many peoples and cultures living in warmer climates, Filipino natives developed various methods to help them preserve food. Adobo used the acidity of vinegar and the high sodium content of salt to create an undesirable environment for bacteria to develop. It is the Chinese traders who visited the country and introduced soy sauce to Filipinos, which quickly replaced the salt present in the original marinade.

Adobo, which is more of a method of preparation, is often prepared with chicken but can also be made with pork, seafood or even vegetables. Those raw ingredients are marinated what is called adobo sauce: a mixture of vinegar, soy sauce, garlic and peppercorns, before being browned in oil, and simmered in the marinade. The word comes from the Spanish word adobar which actually means “marinade,” or “sauce”.

There are more than 7,100 islands in the Philippines, a nation slightly larger than the state of Arizona, and if you could devote your life to traveling through them asking questions about food, you would discover a different recipe for adobo on each one. It is the national dish, many Filipinos say: protein braised in vinegar until pungent and rich, sweet and sour and salty at once, sometimes crisped at the edges in high heat, always served with the remaining sauce. Its excellence derives from the balance of its flavors, in the alchemy of the process. Cooking softens the acidity of the vinegar, which then combines with the flavor of the meat to enhance it.

What adobo recipes do share in common is the use of soy sauce and vinegar to create the characteristic salty and tangy flavor that melds so well with the characteristic steamed white rice that it is served with. The most important ingredient of Filipino adobo is vinegar. Coconut vinegar, rice vinegar, or cane vinegar are traditionally used, although white wine or cider vinegar are now often used.

In the Philippines, the dish was traditionally cooked in small clay pots called palayok or kulon. Nowadays, metal pots or woks (kawali) are used instead. If you like your chicken a little crispy, after the chicken has stewed, pan fry it on both sides to crisp the skin and don't fully immerse it in the liquid afterwards. You can also add a little hoisin sauce as a glaze on the chicken before pan frying it, so that the sugar in the hoisin sauce caramelizes and adds another layer of flavor.

FMM: Brian & I made this dish using a different recipe than the one on the below left and were not impressed. At that point, I said we should try the recipe with coconut milk on the right or add more vinegar. The chicken did not taste vinegary, a complaint by some reviewers. We used rice vinegar. (The recipe was courtesy of Corinne Domingo, foodnetwork.com, and used 1/2 white vinegar and 1/2 soy sauce). Since then I've seen recipes that use twice as much vinegar as soy sauce. I also replaced the recipe with one from Bon Appetit.