Start to finish: 1 hour 45 minutes (30 minutes active)
Servings: 4
Thousands of islands make up the Philippines. And there probably are as many recipes for chicken adobo, the classic Filipino dish that turns a handful of ingredients—loads of garlic, black pepper and vinegar—into a bright and tangy meal. The name comes from a Spanish word for sauce. Food historian Raymond Sokolov reasons that the Spaniards, when they arrived in the Philippines, gave the native Filipino dish the name because it resembled the Spanish adobo they knew. We tailored our recipe for weeknight ease, using a hefty dose of rice vinegar blended with soy sauce and aromatics to create a potent marinade for bone-in chicken thighs. For heat, we used bird’s eye chilies (sometimes called Thai chilies), but if you can’t find them any small chili will do. Look for chicken thighs that are uniform in size. If some are smaller than others, begin to check them early and remove them as they come up to temperature.
Don’t use regular soy sauce. As the chicken braises, the cooking liquid reduces, concentrating the flavor—and salt. Low-sodium soy sauce produced a broth that was well seasoned.
1½ cups unseasoned rice vinegar
¾ cup low-sodium soy sauce
6 garlic cloves, smashed
6 bird’s eye chilies, halved lengthwise
4 bay leaves
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (3 to 3½ pounds)
1 cup coconut milk
⅓ cup chopped fresh cilantro
Steamed white rice, to serve
1. In a large Dutch oven, combine the vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, chilies, bay leaves and peppercorns. Add the chicken thighs, submerging them. Cover and refrigerate for 30 to 60 minutes.
2. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high. Reduce heat to medium- low and cook, turning the thighs occasionally, until the chicken registers 170ºF, 25 to 30 minutes, adjusting the heat as necessary to maintain a medium simmer.
3. Heat the broiler with an oven rack 6 inches from the element. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil. Remove the chicken from the pot and arrange skin side up on the baking sheet. Pat dry with paper towels and set aside.
4. Strain the cooking liquid, discarding the solids, then skim off the fat. Return 1 cup of the defatted liquid to the pot, stir in the coconut milk and bring to a simmer over medium. Take the pan off the heat, stir in the cilantro, then cover and set aside.
5. Broil the chicken until the skin is deeply browned and blackened in spots, 3 to 8 minutes. Serve in shallow bowls with steamed white rice, ladling the broth over the rice.