Aay Doe Beng Menak ala Noo Yok

You are not Filipino if you do not know how to cook adobo. But there are many ways of cooking adobo. It's either pina-uga (dry) or sarsiado (with lots of sauce). But the commonality of the dish, is that it is made with vinegar, soy, garlic, (sometimes onions),salt/pepper and a little sugar for added flavoring.

Adobo in spanish really means marinade. My tagalog friend normally marinates her adobo for a few minutes before boiling them together. After which, she takes them out from the sauce and fries them. After frying, she puts them back for a few minutes more and then serves it.

My aunt, stews it for awhile and instead of frying, she takes it out of the pot and places them in a cookie sheet to bake (frying them per piece is tedious and oily). Then she places them back with the reduced sauce.

Some prefer to stew them until the sauce is all gone and if your meat pieces have a lot of fat, they will eventually just fry in it's own oil. This is the dry kind.

The procedures above, although handed down through generations, are a bit dry due to the shrinkage of the meat. The sauce camouflages its dryness and gives it the wonderful taste that Filipinos love. I decided to make my own version of adobo by innovating and still keep the juiciness of the meat.

With 4 pieces of leg quarters (cutting them in half thus making 8 pieces composed of legs and thighs) I massaged the meat with salt, pepper, garlic onion and garlic powder, herbs such as rosemary and tarragon. I fried them until golden but half cooked. Place them on a pot with 1 piece of cut up celery rib. Then I poured 1 can of chicken broth. Boil till tender. This way, I not only have cooked chicken but the sauce/broth I can use to boil my vegetables for later use. Cooking it this way retains the juiciness and flavor of the chicken.

In a sauce pan, I placed balsamic vinegar, datu put vinegar, bay leaf, lots of garlic and onion. (No need for soy sauce since the balsamic vinegar is dark as it is) and a little sugar. This is the basis of the adobo sauce. When the sauce has been reduced and the spices are soft, I mashed them and returned them to the sauce pan. If the concoction is too thick, I took broth from the chicken, and mixed it with the sauce for the right consistency.

this is my aay doe beng menak ala Noo Yok





Of course nothing is complete without the side dishes.

The mangoes here do not compare with what we have back home. They are not as fibrous and lacking in flavor. I grated the mangoes, chopped one piece of small red onion, placed cut up salad and mixed them together. To add flavor, I mixed a few tablespoons of the olive juice which is salty.

Another side dish I made was cucumber in salty kyamoy. And that's just what I did. Peeled the cucumber. Separated the skin from the flesh. Mixed the flesh with kyamoy and bwalah! Red flat strands of cucumber.

The other pinky item is the Japanese ginger--store bought and still yummy to go with my adobo.



Notice in both pictures above, you can see the kyamoy sticking out.
The above picture, I placed the sauce right below the chicken piece, and garnished it with my cucumber and manggo side dish. This plating, I gave to my husband who is my critique.

Below is another plating style, where I placed the sauce separate like a condiment, and the side dishes atop the rice.



Okay, so if you want to know how to make it the regular way, check this out.
(my aunt sent this to me last year, but I saw it again last week from a friend's site)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTwagrvCJ4o