Travel Agent

Fridays are non-working days here in the desert though we still get to render overtime. The upside is we get to earn more money and that the bosses are not around. Meanwhile, the concessionaires in our company cafeteria are such amazing cooks that why, even for just one day each week, we would want to prepare our own lunch so we can avoid their amazing cooking skills. Spot the irony.

Anyways, I was recently tasked to cook chicken adobo for one of our Friday lunches. I could have prepared it the usual way but some of my colleagues requested me to make it a little spicy so I experimented using dried chilies I bought from a local supermarket and so this spicy chicken adobo recipe was created.

Ingredients:

• 1 kg chicken, cut into 2 to 3 inches
• 1/3 cup vinegar
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1 bulb garlic, crushed
• 1 tbsp. freshly cracked black peppercorn
• a handful of dried chilies

Place the chicken, garlic, peppercorn, dried chilies and vinegar on a ceramic or glass pot and let it boil without stirring. When the chicken is tender, scoop or use a pair of thongs to remove the chicken as to prevent it from becoming overcooked. Discard half of the liquid from the pot, pour the soy sauce and let it simmer while pressing on the chilies with a spatula until the sauce thickens a little. Return the chicken and let it simmer for another five minutes.

Garnish with toasted garlic bits and serve with steamed rice.

Or you may refrigerate it overnight and heat up for the next day’s lunch or dinner. As you would know with almost every adobo, left overs taste much better when the meat had more time absorbing the flavors from the sauce.