I've been confused about the word "adobo" for a while, and I still am. I do now at least realize that it seems to be two completely different things. I had noticed something in the grocery aisles by this name, but also noticed some dishes resembling stews using the same name. The former is available in several varieties from Goya and Badia. The latter is appears to be an entire category of Filipino cuisine. I'm still not sure whether there is a direct connection between the two, but I did manage to make a simple chicken adobo for this week's nueva receta.
This was a week in which our blog project really did push us forward a bit. We were not as crazy-busy as we had been the week before, but we did get to the end of the week before realizing that we had wimped out quite a bit, and had not yet cooked anything new. We turned once again to Extending the Table, which we have cited at least five previous times. It seems to have the right balance between diversity and adventure on the one hand and a reasonable level of simplicity on the other.
On page 227 is a recipe that calls for simply boiling the following together in a pot:
A three-pound chicken, cut up
1/2 cup soy sauce
2/3 cup vinegar (not specified -- I used apple cider vinegar)
1-2 cloves crushed garlic
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper corns
Being only two diners, we used two chicken breast fillets -- just under a pound -- and reduced the other ingredients by half. I brought all to boil, covered, and then simmered until cooked through. I then continued simmering, uncovered. I was supposed to let the sauce reduce by half, but toward the end I underestimated how quickly it was reducing, and ended up with something more like a paste than a sauce. We served this with plain, hot basmati rice. The result was quite savory, especially given the simplicity of the ingredient list, and the chicken relatively tender. I think it would have benefited from using bone-in breasts to add a little fat to the sauce, and even more important would have been to stop the cooking a bit earlier.
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