It really is true what they say — there are as many adobo recipes as there are peo­ple who make it. I decided I would write down my recipe which I con­sider to be a very good ver­sion of a Fil­ipino adobo. I like my adobo chicken crispy but not with too much oil. My secret for this is bak­ing, then bast­ing the chicken with coconut oil, and finally plac­ing the chicken under the broiler. The recipe is fin­ished by reduc­ing the adobo sauce to a nape. Try this ver­sion of a tra­di­tional Fil­ipino adobo and let me know your thoughts. I have pro­vided all the tech­niques here to ensure your meal is delicious.

• 1 whole cut up chicken. I pre­fer to use skin­less chicken with a mix­ture of dark and white meat
• 12 cloves gar­lic (minced)
• 4 Turk­ish bay leaves or 6 Cal­i­for­nia bay leaves
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 1 1/3 cups cane vine­gar. For sweeter adobo use coconut vine­gar
• 2/3 cups light soy sauce. Do not use dark.
• 20 whole pep­per­corns
• 1 tsp. light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup coconut oil

I pre­fer to use a cast iron pot with a heavy lid so that my chicken will remain ten­der after it is cooked. The heavy lid helps to keep the mois­ture and pres­sure in the pot so the chicken cooks quicker and stays ten­der. Add 8 cloves of gar­lic, bay leaves, chicken stock, vine­gar, soy sauce, pep­per­corns, brown sugar, and chicken to the pot. Bring the pot to a boil with the lid off, then place the lid on the pot and reduce the heat to sim­mer Cook for 40 min­utes. 30 min­utes through cook­ing pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Using a brush, apply a small amount of coconut onto a bak­ing sheet. When the oven has reached tem­per­a­ture, remove all the chicken from the pot and place the chicken on a bak­ing sheet. Bake for 15 min­utes. While the chicken is bak­ing turn the heat up on the pot to high (Note: For a stain­less steel pot use medium high. Con­tinue to reduce the sauce in the pot to nape (where it coats the back of a spoon). Remove the sauce from heat and set aside.

Cut up the remain­ing 4 cloves of gar­lic then quickly fry in the remain­ing coconut oil until golden. After 15 min­utes, remove the chicken from the oven and brush lighty with coconut oil. Then broil the chicken on a high rack in the oven for 5 min­utes at 450 degrees.
Remove the chicken from the broil, and pour
reduced sauce over chicken. Then add fried gar­lic atop chicken.