My Chicken Adobo Experience

“Popularly regarded as the Filipino national dish; made of meat, poultry (or a combination of both) or seafoods in a dark, tangy sauce. – recipegoldmine.com”

 I’m not much of a cook. Well … if frying is not considered cooking, then I can’t cook at all. I have acknowledged that the only true skills I possess in the kitchen are food tasting and peeking into the refrigerator. I have always found it odd that no matter how I have practically memorized the contents of a refrigerator, I still find myself opening the door every time I am near it.

 Need is the mother of invention. As such, I have decided that I should start developing an ability that sits perfectly with another of my hobbies – eating. How there are skinny chefs, I will never understand. It’s quite amazing how anyone can resist the kaleidoscope of colors and aromas that dominate an active kitchen.

 As I stood in the middle of the kitchen, I ran the ingredients in my head … half cup of dark soy sauce, half a cup of vinegar, water … uhmmnn … how many cups of that again? … lets make it two (I’ll just add soy sauce if it looks too light). Black pepper .. crushed of course … and garlic, enough garlic to kill Count Dracula himself … what else … ahh … chicken … of course, chicken.

 I took the ingredients from the refrigerator one a time. I was so careful with them you’d imagine I was handling holy artifacts. Whether I do right in putting black pepper and garlic in the fridge is something I will have to learn in the future.

 I put the thawed chicken legs into the pot and poured the soy sauce on top them and watched the dark liquid stain the pale raw meat. I then took the cup with vinegar and transferred its contents into the pot. Some of the meat was still poking out of the mixture, so I compensated this with water. I added about two tablespoons of crushed black pepper and threw in my vampire killers with a flick of the wrist. Please understand, of course, that by that time, I imagined I was the world’s best kitchen magician. My heart skipped beats, but my hands were as steady as any expert surgeon. It was adobo, for Pete’s sake … if I still screw this up, then I am truly a hopeless case … besides … I LOVE the dish. I would probably be my own best critic.

 I left the pot cooking on medium flame for exactly … EXACTLY 20 minutes. Three minutes before that, the kitchen was filled with the deliciously familiar aroma. I steeled myself as crept into the kitchen and snuck a peek into the pot. Yes, the dish looked great. I didn’t know whether is was the steam that stung my eyes or that I was crying for joy but I knew from that point on that I could cook an official recipe that could, at the very least … LOOK good!

 I drank one full glass of water before proceeding to the last test of my adobo experience. It was meant to optimize my taste buds, allowing them to fully appreciate or ultimately reject my attempt in cooking. The spoon shook in my hand as I brought the steaming sauce closer to my lips … closer, closer, until the heated metal touched my skin. I slowly breathed the now-thick liquid in and closed my eyes …

 The mixture exploded in my mouth in a fury that caught me off-guard. The tangy soy sauce battled the acerbic vinegar, the course hot black pepper collided with the normally overpowering taste of garlic. The two seconds it took me to discern the flavor of my concoction was the same time it took for the war to rage in me before it finally and smoothly calmed ... rollng into my throat in piquant bliss. I smiled … it was … good.

 … z …

Posted by tuliro at 11:01 PM | 8 comments