Why everyone should try making Filipino Adobo

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Everybody knows that Filipino adobo tastes amazing. But for me, what makes it life-changing isn’t just about the flavor. It’s about the lifestyle behind it. First, it requires low activation energy. All you need to do is sear a few pieces of meat, add in some aromatics, then pour in the soy sauce vinegar bracing liquid, and just let it do its thing. Secondly, it’s great for a crowd or prepping ahead of time to eat for the next couple of days. This is one of those dishes where the leftovers taste just as good the next day. And lastly, it’s really versatile. You can use different kinds of meat, switch up the aromatics, and really make your own version. So, let’s cook my version live, and then I’ll meet you back here for a final taste test. [Music] Okay, so a couple of things to talk through here, but yeah, I mean chicken adobo such kind of a good just staple recipe and kind of framework to know and have in your back pocket. Now, I will say the one that I’m making today, I’m making some of my own little tweaks on it. It’s maybe not a hyper traditional one. Um, if you want to kind of find a really traditional recipe, there is this really good uh YouTube video of it’s like a a mom and her daughter, they both cook their own version. I think one does it with chicken, one does it with uh pork belly, and you can kind of just see like there’s some slight differences. Obviously, they changed up the meat, but I’m going to add some my own little tweaks in here a little bit. Now, the core thing is we need a meat of some kind. Pack of chicken thighs. A lot of times you’ll see um bone in chicken. Um I’m just going to keep it boneless cuz I’m kind of going for like a more of like a meal prep that I can kind of eat throughout the week. Um busier week. Just got back from a trip. And then there’s a mixture of soy sauce and vinegar. Now, these are like the more traditional ones that they do use in um in the Philippines, but you can use any soy sauce you want. I’m actually going to add a little bit of dark soy sauce to mine um which is probably not super traditional, but I want that kind of deeper, darker color in it. And then for the spices, again, very simple. Bay leaf is going to be kind of has to be in there. And then typically they’ll use some black pepperc corns. Now, I’m going to use some chipotle or sorry, these aren’t chipotles. Uh chilies are bold today just because um I want something a little spicy. I want to mix in a little spiciness. Um again, that’s just something I’m kind of doing. It’s just what I’m in the mood for. It’s not like not trying to be hyper traditional. And this is kind of one of the things that we’re we’re kind of building into um the app that we’re building. So we have these kind of frameworks. So for example, the Filipino adobo braze. And you can kind of see it’s like you have protein. You can choose from different proteins. Chicken thighs, pork belly, tofu, cooking oil. Um your aromatics is typically going to be garlic. Oh yeah, I have to get the garlic out. Good thing I I opened this up. The bay leaves, the black pepperc corns, like I said. Then our brazing liquid is the soy and the vinegar and some water to top it off. And then you can add a little bit of dark soy sauce, palm sugar, whatever you kind of want to mix it up with. Yeah. So, this is kind of a great example of like a framework based recipe. And in these, we’re actually making it so you can kind of create your own specific version of it. If you have like a if you want to start creating your own version, you can kind of click through. I’m going to use chicken thighs, garlic, bay leaves. Um, I could add my chilies, our bowl here. Add that to the framework. And then you can kind of see it it updates and like this will make my own version that then I can go back to. We’re also we’re working on the ability to add custom photos too, which I’m really excited for. But anyway, again, very simple dish. Um, so for the chicken, we’re going to lightly salt it and then just sear it. Um, you know, pretty pretty basic here because the soy sauce itself is going to be fairly salty, but we need some um salt added as well. So, nothing too crazy here. So, I’m just going to add salt to one side. And then, again, this doesn’t really matter too much. Um, like you don’t need to really about worrying about thinning these out cuz they’re going to cook down um in that liquid. So, I’m going to salt one side, put them face down in the oil, and then I’ll kind of salt the backside of them as well. And yeah, I mean, one of the best ways, like I think this pack cost me like 10 bucks. Um, like $10 of chicken thighs. Uh, you know, can get several meals out of this. So, a little bit of salt there. Then yeah, like I said, so for the aromatics, I’m going to grab out like two chilies, our bowl, some garlic, um, and then a little bit of bay leaf. And this is one of those dishes where if you have super fresh bay leaves, you probably want to be careful so you don’t overpower it and it ends up tasting just like bay leaf. Um, I’m just going to kind of finish up these last two leaves that I have. And this is a reminder, I need to run to the grocery store and grab some more. And then as well for the garlic, I think I’m just going to keep it whole. You could dice it, mince it, whatever you want to do. Um, if you kind of want to make it more garlicky. I just want to kind of have it there as more of a I guess more of as like a background ingredient or something. So, garlic. And basically after this chicken um browns up, I’m going to toast all these aromatics. And then we’ll just pop the I’ll pop the chicken like out on a plate. And then we’ll add our brazing liquid over top. And then you can finish it on the stove. You could do pressure cooker. You can do whatever you want. I kind of like just tossing stuff in the oven. So, I’ve got the oven at like 300° right now. And then it kind of just sits in there for like an hour or so. Um, the the vinegar will kind of help everything break down and make the the chicken really nice and tender. So, we’ve got our aromatics here, and I’m just going to do little snips of this uh this chili. And again, yeah, just one of those dishes where it’s fun to play around with. Um, mix up your aromatics and then, yeah, I mean, the the leftovers for this are so good. Um, perfect thing to make ahead of time, like if you’re trying to serve a crowd. Um, and I I assume that’s probably why it’s pretty popular, you know, in the Philippines is is that like you can make it ahead of time, you can make big batches. It’s kind of that I mean, it just makes sense. Like from a home cooking perspective, that’s that’s a thing that I think about a lot. Like when I think about c why certain dishes become popular, it’s like okay the flavor and like how it tastes is definitely part of it. But two, it’s like a lot of times it’s from like a lifestyle perspective, you know, like was it is it easy to make? Can you make big batches? Um all these sorts of things um are also really important. And oftent times you’ll see like oh like I get why it’s so popular. Like obviously it tastes good, but two it’s like, “Oh, this is really easy to make.” Um, you can use any type of protein. This cast iron’s sticking on me a little bit. Didn’t quite get it hot enough, but it doesn’t really matter for this recipe. It’ll it’ll all be good. So, you see we got some little browning in there. Put all the spices away. Then while this is searing too, um I will say uh this is like a a cane vinegar and I was actually kind of testing it side by side some other vinegars. So if you don’t want to like order this specific bottle, um this does have like vinegar um cane vinegar, water, and a little bit of caramel color. And it’s 5% acidity, but to me it tastes closer to like I think it’s like in between a rice vinegar and a distilled white. like it’s not quite as harsh as distilled um but not quite as like subtle as a rice vinegar would be. So if you again it it’s going to be good regardless of which one you use. If you happen to have rice vinegar and distilled I’d maybe do like a 50/50 blend. If you want to get this just you know obviously you can go out and buy it. Um or just use distilled white. Like like I said, it’s going to be good. Um don’t let that hold you back from like making this dish in some way. Okay. So, I’m just going to kind of shift all the chicken to one side. Let that oil go down that way. And like I said, just toss in the aromatics. Grab my bay leaf and my chilies and see and really just letting that sweat in those aromatics just to get infused by the oil. You know, nothing crazy. Just like 30 or so seconds. And then we’ll just mix it all together. And then for our container here, I’m going to do basically just one ratio of the vinegar to the to the soy sauce. So do like a 100 grams 100 grams of each. Oh, spilled some. And then I’m going to add the uh the dark soy sauce separately just so you guys can kind of see. how it kind of changes the color. So, bring that up to a boil. And the chicken’s not cooked through at this stage. Obviously, we’re going to finish it. And then I’m just going to do a little drizzle over the top of the dark. So I’m going to guess that was maybe 15 g or so. But that’s really going to give us like look at that. I mean that deep dark color. Again, in this amount, it’s not going to like drastically change the flavor profile, but it is going to give us like a clear darkness um and you know, a slight gloss to the to the chicken. And this is one of those dishes probably looks a little bit better if you use like skin on and really, you know, get it um get those like pieces fried up really nicely. Um, for me, I’m kind of going more the utilitarian route today. Um, I just want to have this in my fridge and I can eat it right away. I don’t need to worry about bones or skin or anything like that. And then I’m going to add a little bit of water to this and actually a little bit of sweetness as well. So, you could add sugar, you could add whatever you want. Um, this is a little agave syrup I’ve been trying to use up forever. So, I’m going to give this a little drizzle. probably 20 to 30 grams. And that’s it. So, all I’m going to do is just toss this into the oven. Um, probably with the lid on and kind of just like slightly open and then I’ll kind of sear it and then I’ll let it I’ll let it cook down. And I want to get this a little saucy. That’s just kind of how I like it. But, um, sometimes you’ll see it more watery. It kind of just depends on on what you’re looking for. [Music] Okay, so after just an hour or so, I mean, this is just an incredible amount of flavor that we have created. The chicken thighs are absolutely falling apart. That vinegar helps kind of soften all the muscles. And let’s give it a quick taste test. But I am going to actually store this for later before we do our final taste test. Man, the depth of flavor on this is just nuts. And that’s another reason why I think specifically chicken adobo should be in your repertoire because I mean if you’re doing like a big brazed chuck or or something like that, you kind of need 4 to 6 hours in the oven. But like in just an hour, we have created super shreddable chicken. Little spicy from the chilies in our bowl. And then man, just a great great dish. So, what I’m going to do is actually store this in the fridge because it’s like 2:00 for me. I already ate lunch. I’m eating this for dinner. And like I said, the leftovers when heated up, I feel like are just as good as it is fresh out of the pan. So, I’m going to pack all this up and I’ll meet you guys back in a few hours when I’m just heating it up and we’ll do our final taste test. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Okay, I am so ready to dive into this again. Just like shreddable chicken, super flavorful. Also, I will say for reheating purposes, I kind of like storing the sauce in a separate jar and then you can heat it up and kind of spoonful it over the top. Kind of gets down into the rice. The fresh scallions, the spiciness from those chilies I added, the bay leaf totally comes through too as well. And then, yeah, the the sour and salty mix of the soy sauce and the bear is just a super unique but really really good flavor profile. This is also one of those dishes just really kind of addictive and feel like you just want to keep going in bite after bite. But anyway, I’m going to finish this. That will wrap it up for me in this video. Hopefully you guys try this recipe. Link will be down below if you guys want to check it out. But that’s going to wrap it up for me in this one. I’ll catch you all in the next one. Peace y’all.