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Good morning Gravy Heads. Welcome back to our little food “thing” we’ve been doing for the last 11 some-odd years. Actually not some-odd, every season has been “all-odd.” Glad to be a part of that.
Oh shit! Tonight is Oscar night too!
If you harken back to last September our own Horatio Cornblower did his final mock draft of the season. In that draft the subject was “This week’s mock draft is, with his enthusiastic approval, (at least I think it was enthusiastic), we’re drafting dishes you would like to see Yeah Right make for next season’s off-season Sunday Gravy.”
I do remember quite a few of you taking the effort to drop in food suggestions. Some of them were excellent suggestions too. Which brings us full circle. Because one of the picks was this:
“How about a Filipino dish, like chicken adobo?”
Excellent suggestion!
Let’s go ahead and do exactly fucking THAT!
My familiarity with Filipino food is strong. Eldest brother’s wife was half filipino and her mom and sisters were full. They used to throw the fuck DOWN when they held a party.
The mom “Nanay” and her daughters would start the kitchen work at 2-3 in the morning. All of them got busy chopping and finely mincing the veggies for the lumpia and the pancit and the adobo and the desserts. You would be floored to see the number of lumpia that came out of the kitchen. My brothers family and my family plus whoever else was in attendance, usually around 20 or so folks, would straight PLOW through plate after plate of lumpia. A plate would come out of the kitchen and less than 30 seconds later that platter was left with nothing but a grease spot.
No shit, they would buy 4-5 bottles of banana sauce just for the lumpia alone.
A couple of times they bought and cooked a whole pig in the ground “lechon” style.
I miss the hell out of those get togethers. The food and the folks. Excellent stuff.
Right up the 110 freeway from where I live is Carson, California. Home to one of the biggest Filipino communities in the US. They have excellent markets and restaurants and of course this.
Which Litre and I posted about previously.
So we are in close proximity to Filipino food.
In other words my Filipino “propers” are fairly well in order.
Y’all ready for this?
Here we go!
Chicken Adobo! or “Padobong manók”
recipe courtesy of the always terrific recipetineats.com
For the chicken and marinade:
1.5 lb chicken thighs, boneless and skinless (5 – 6 pieces)
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/3 cup soy sauce, ordinary all purpose or light – not dark soy sauce
1/3 cup + 2 tbsp white vinegar
3 dried bay leaves
For cooking
2 tbsp oil, separated. Vegetable, canola or peanut
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 small brown onion, diced
1 1/2 cups water
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp coarse cracked pepper
Green onions for garnish
As an added bonus recipe, we will also be making “sinangag” or garlic fried rice to serve the chicken on.
Garlic Fried Rice or “Sinangag.”
recipe courtesy of thefoodietakesflight.com
2 tbsp neutral oil
1/2 tsp salt or more to taste if needed
10 cloves garlic minced
2 cups rice cooked and cooled (leftover is best)
Got all that?
Cool.
Let’s do this motherfucker.
Both padobong manók and sinangag are pretty damn simple to make and the flavor to difficulty ratio is fucking through the roof.
We start with the chicken marinade first. This will also chill the fuck out overnight to build flavors.
White vinegar, soy sauce, bay leaves and garlic on hand? Get them in a bowl and combine until well mixed.
Well then shit, all you have to do is get some chicken thighs. Boneless and skinless please!
Get that shit in a bag and marinate overnight.
Go ahead and cook a batch of white rice on the day before too. We want it “old and cold.”
Store this in a container in the fridge overnight.
You’re done until tomorrow. Grab a drink and chill the fuck out.
Next day get after that garlic again.
Mince that shit!
This is the 10 cloves of garlic for the rice and the three cloves for the chicken.
Grab an onion next.
And finally a bit of brown sugar.
Get that marinating chicken out of the refrigerator to come up to room temperature.
Keep that marinade dammit! We’ll be using that.
Heat up the cooking oil.
Then start searing the chicken. Couple of minutes per side is great. Don’t want to overcook this shit during the searing stage.
Just a couple of minutes per side should do.
Set the chicken aside for now and get the onion and the three cloves of garlic in the pan. Yeah, just dump them right on top of the juices from the searing of the chicken.
Cook for 2-3 minutes.
Then add the brown sugar and the reserved marinade and season with the cracked pepper.
Simmer and reduce for around 5 minutes.
Get that chicken back in there.
Kind of a little chicken jacuzzi if you will.
Make sure you fully immerse the chicken in the liquid.
Return to simmer.
Cook on a medium low simmer for 25 minutes while flipping the chicken over at the 15 minute mark.
Let’s get to work on the rice while the chicken finishes doing it’s fucking thing.
Get another skillet.
Yeah it does need to be a skillet rather than a pot because this is basically going to be fried rice.
Thought that was a cool trick adding the salt right to the oil as it heats up.
Get the 10 cloves of minced garlic in there just for a quick browning.
Not too long because, class?
Class: “Burnt garlic is bullshit!”
Thank you class.
Add the rice.
Combine real well. Want to break up those rice clumps right there for maximum flavor dispersion.
See that batch of rice? That isn’t anywhere near enough rice. You want to make the biggest batch you can because it’s fucking INCREDIBLE.
The rice only needs to cook for 6-7 minutes, Season with salt as needed. Then that’s pretty much fucking that!
Chicken should be about done.
Fucking lovely.
Rice should be done now as well.
Finally, remove the chicken from the sauce and cover with foil.
Reduce the remaining adobo sauce until it is reduced by about half.
It should be thicker and kind of syrupy.
Plate that shit up already!
Garnish with a healthy amount of the sauce and some diced green onion.
Goddammit this really needed a dozen or so lumpia because just look at this shit.
The sauce from the chicken when mixed with the garlic rice?
GODdamn is that good.
This shit is so easy you could make a big ass batch on a Sunday and you could have just chicken and rice for the next few days. It’s a beauty and I’m gonna make me another batch just so I can do that. Fucking hell, the flavor this stuff brings is legendary.
Bet that chicken would be great on the grill too. Just simmer and reduce the sauce while the chicken is grilling and ladle the sauce on top of the grilled chicken.
In fact, I’ve had chicken adobo on the grill more often than from a stove top.
Who gives a FUCK? Either way, this is some mighty fine eatin’!
Outstanding. Thank you for the suggestion Gumby Girl!
You just added a really simple but outstanding dish into the regular dinner rotation!
That’s the shit I’m talking about!
I’ve got a couple more of your suggestions from Horatio’s Mock Draft in the pipeline and you’ll see them soon.
So little time and so many cooking engagements.
Today’s Holidays taken directly from A Bit of Good News: “March 2nd is: International Rescue Cat Day, National Banana Cream Pie Day, National Egg McMuffin Day and Read Across America Day”
Leave it to fucking McDonald’s to pay to have their own “Holiday.”
Oh shit!
Dude, Banana cream pie sounds incredible.
Got one?
And read!
Always read.
Enjoy the Oscars tonight folks.
Be well.
See you next Sunday.
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