one filipino dish a week

This post was inspired by this video. Quite a brave guy if you ask me.

So I’ve been asked why I haven’t written about adobo yet. Here it is. Adobo is considered by many THE quintessential Filipino dish. The hints of sour may put off the uninitiated but the sourness is comforting to displaced pinoy yearning for home. There are different stories of where the name of the dish is really from, is it truly Filipino, is it borrowed from the Mexicans, etc. As far as I’m concerned the Filipinos have made this dish our own and have put our stamp on it that it can’t be de-coupled anymore.

I wanted to make chicken adobo but I wanted to make it a little bit “healthier” with chicken breast. I was kind of skeptical if this would really work. The problem with chicken breast is that there’s not much flavor to it and it dries out quickly. I browned about a 1.5lbs of cubed chicken breast on the pan before I put in the soy sauce, vinegar, bay leaves and garlic mix. I let that simmer a little bit until the chicken cooked through. I took the chicken out and let the mixture reduce. I put the chicken on a plate and poured the sauce over it. I garnished it with some scallions.

It wasn’t bad. But definitely not the best chicken adobo I’ve had. I think if the chicken breast were marinated in the soy sauce-vinegar mixture for about 15-20 minutes before cooking would’ve made it better. Let’s eat!