Chicken Adobo Recipe
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Recipe Overview
Preparation time: 10 minutes plus marinating time
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Serves: 4-6
Ingredients Needed
- 1kg/2.2lbs chicken thighs skin on or off, bone in or boneless (around 5-6 bone in, 7-8 boneless)
- 60ml/2.1fl oz light soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons dark soy sauce
- 3-4 garlic cloves
- 1 onion, peeled and sliced
- 150ml/5.3fl oz water
- 50ml/1.7 fl oz white vinegar
- 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
- 50g/1.7oz brown sugar (or to taste)
- 3 bay leaves
Step-By-Step Instructions
Step 1 MARINATE - Crush garlic cloves and mix with the soy sauce. Marinate chicken in this mixture for 1-2 hours in the fridge (I do this in a ziplock bag).
Step 2 BROWN - Add 2 teaspoons of oil to a large pot or high sided skillet and brown the chicken on both sides. If there is a lot of oil drain most of it off leaving around 1 teaspoon of oil.
Step 3 SIMMER - Move the chicken to one side, and then add the onion to the pan. Fry until soft, and then place the chicken skin side up and add the water, vinegar, black peppercorns and bay leaves. Reduce heat to low medium heat. Simmer with the lid on, and cook for 15 minutes. Then turn the chicken over and simmer for 15 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.
Step 4 FINISH - Lastly, add the sugar into the sauce and turn the chicken skin side up. Cook for 5 minutes until the sauce reduces.
Personal Note
When I got to Singapore for my father's funeral, this was one of the first things I made with Del, my family's helper. She has been an invaluable support for my family and is always cooking them delicious things like this to help them get through this mourning period.
My father's funeral was set for the Thursday, two days after Chinese New Year. The speeches were fitting and commemorated his quirky nature and the fact that he spent most of his life living in Sydney and even til the end he lived on Sydney time waking up at 4am every day (aka 7am Sydney time). They good naturedly poked fun at his favourite habit of disappearing at the end of every party at their house to sneak upstairs to sleep (some call it an Irish goodbye, to us it was just him).
Afterwards we hosted a wake at their condo for the friends and relatives. We made sure to get all of his favourite foods: beef rendang and chicken curry from Violet Oon, char siu, siu yuk, roast duck from Kham's and a large 1.2kg kueh lapis from Bengawan Solo. All with his very favourite food, steamed rice.
I also made everyone's favourite hokkien noodles and brought over some unbaked frozen Portuguese tarts from Sydney that he adored so much. We packed them in a cooler bag surrounded by frozen ice bricks and stowed them in the checked baggage. On top I put two bags of ziplocked ice just in case. We figured that the hold of a plane is a bit colder that way and it would be surrounded by clothing to keep the cold in even more. At the very least they would defrost slowly on the plane and we could bake them on the first night.
To our surprise, everything including the ice remained solid and chilled and the Portuguese tarts baked up beautifully. I think my father would have loved to have been a guest at his wake, although this time he was the guest of honour.
So tell me Dear Reader, if this isn't a morbid question, what foods would you want served at your wake that represent you?