COMFORT FOOD: Cream Spicy Chiken Adobo

Ingredients:

-Half a kilo of chicken thigh fillet

-42 ml Chinese soy sauce

-42 ml vinegar

-1 tbsp. oyster sauce
-1 tbsp. sugar

-6 cloves garlic, minced

-3 pcs. siling haba chopped

-6 pcs. whole peppercorns

-2 bay leaf

-1 star anise

-1 to 2 cups water (depends on the consistency you want)

-1 tbsp. coconut powder

-Thumb size ginger sliced thinly

Procedure:

1. Parboil the chicken to remove scum and rinse.

2. In a pan, saute the chicken with all the ingredients except all liquids, chili, and coconut powder.

3. Once you already smell the aroma of the spices, add the vinegar and simmer for 1 minute.

4. Add in the rest of the liquid ingredients. Simmer over low heat until liquid is reduced. more or less around 15 minutes.

5. Once reduced, add in the coconut powder and siling haba and simmer for another 5 minutes if consistency is too thick add water. 

6. Transfer to a serving dish and enjoy with garlic fried rice or steamed rice.

    Makes 3-4 servings.

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Filipino food is the next big thing. We can find Filipinos in any part of the world 😄 that is why Filipino dishes are slowly being introduced to the global market. One of these dishes Filipinos are well known aside from Jollibee is Adobo, derived from the Spanish word "ADOBAR" meaning to marinate.

Adobo is a very versatile dish because in every region or family they have their own recipe of adobo or same recipe but different methods of cooking. You can use pork, chicken or beef to make adobo. I put an extra ingredient which is coconut powder to create that extra smooth and creamy texture of the dish. I liked my adobo extra spicy so chili is a must for this dish.

For my recipe, I used chicken thigh because... well I love dark meat and thigh is my favorite part 😋. The most common cooking techniques I know about cooking adobo is boiling or simmering all ingredients together over low heat, some would fry the meat first before incorporating other ingredients. But for my recipe, I parboiled the meat because even if you washed the meat prior to cooking, there is still dirt left behind. You will see foams are floating when you boil the meat and those are actually dirt.

 And after reading tons of books about cooking and watching youtube videos hahaha, one of the most used Chinese techniques I know in cooking meat is parboiling which is an effective way to clean the meat and I assure you, any rancid smell will be removed and dirt will be removed as well. I used this technique every time I cook meat that requires boiling for a long time. The dish tasted much better and tasted clean as well. Trust me on this one. My mom used to teach me how to cook and I always watch here cooking but when she tasted my chicken arroz caldo, she said it was delicious so she asked me how did I cook it. I told her I parboiled the meat then I fry it. Parboiling is very important in cooking meat. 

You may know other techniques in cooking dishes, you may share it with me and let's all enjoy cooking. 😘👍