- 1 cup soy sauce
- 1/2 cup rice vinegar
- 2 cloves minced garlic
- 2 bay leaves
- i dried chili pepper broken up with seeds
- 2 tbl fresh chopped basil
- 1 1/2cups coconut milk
- 1 whole chicken, or a mixture of pieces, we used thighs, legs, and wings
twitter is my new recipe book 
i follow mark bittman*; a journalist, cookbook author, nyt columnist, and blogger. i also own one of his cookbooks, how to cook everything vegetarian. the other night he posted a recipe for chicken adobo. with the snow and j being sick i figured we would be home all week anyway so it was a good week to experiment with new recipes and take a trip back to my childhood and re-create some old school favorite comfort foods my mom used to serve us on cold snowy days.
this morning while we watched the neighborhood kids playing in the snow i got the recipe out and started prepping for dinner. i had some random chicken pieces in the freezer that we defrosted and threw together his very simple marinade/sauce. i added some basil and chili pepper but other wise this is his version.
chicken adobo
in a bowl or big measuring cup add and whisk; soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, chili pepper, basil, and a cup of the coconut milk. add bay leaves and pour into a skillet big enough to cook all the chicken pieces in one layer.
- bring the mixture to a boil and then add chicken making sure the chicken is in one layer. bring flame down to a simmer, cover and set your timer for 10 minutes. flip your chicken then set timer for another 10 minutes. it’s done. let it cook and transfer to something you can refrigerate.
- when ready to cook, it can stay in the fridge for up to a day, take the fat off the top of your storage container and then separate the chicken and sauce. his recipe says to blot chicken dry with a towel, i forgot, i put it on a cookie sheet and then broiled for 7 minutes on each side. in the meantime, place the sauce in a pot, add a 1/2 cup coconut milk and cook till sauce had reduced to about 1 cup.
this was a great dish. i was really worried at first because i tasted the sauce and it was very salty. i had added basil, no need, you couldn’t even taste it and i actually added a tbl of sugar which of course didn’t do anything, but when it was all cooked down, it was perfect. the saltiness of the sauce was great and the chicken was tender and cooked perfectly. i recommend plating the chicken and then letting your guest or yourself drizzle the sauce over the chicken. we served this with white rice which we also drizzled a touch of the sauce over.
* you can find mark bittman‘s recipes and info at markbittman.com.
