one filipino dish a week

Growing up in Cebu you see rotisserie chicken all over the city. And I looove lechon manok or chicken inasal or Filipino style rotisserie chicken or whatever you want to call it! So I decided to make one. Unfortunately, I don’t have that awesome rotating cooking apparatus so I had to improvise and make do with what I have.

This is how I made it:

2 cornish hens
2 stalks lemongrass
1 medium size spanish onion
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup soy sauce
salt and pepper to taste

I used cornish hens because they’re smaller and could easily be eaten by just one person (aka Me!). I rubbed the chicken inside and out with salt and pepper. I then stuffed it with the lemongrass, minced garlic and julienned onion. I marinated it in the soy sauce overnight. The marinating is the key part to this whole operation. So make this ahead of time like on a Friday night after happy hour and before going back out again (ok I know that’s not very realistic but hey I can dream).

After the chicken has been bathing in the soy sauce marinade for a long time it’s time to reap your rewards. I wanted to broil the chicken to give it the cooking that I think would be closest to the rotisserie. The one thing about the broiler is that it was too close to the fire and it was burning the skin too much before it was time. So I had to move it farther from the flame. Continue basting the chicken with the marinade as you are cooking. Cook the chicken until it’s 165deg F using an instant read meat thermometer.

We ate the chicken with a nice bottle of riesling. It complemented the chicken pretty well. This was one of those sweet and fruity, low alcohol (9.5%) rieslings. This also would’ve been great with some atsara (which I had in the fridge but didn’t take out… doh!).

I’m not that good at carving I tore up all the skin as I was trying to plate this chicken. So it looks naked right there. But still real gooood nonetheless! The chicken was juicy and you can smell and taste the lemongrass.

Eat Filipino Food!