How A Filipino Chef Makes Chicken & Pork Belly Adobo

[Anton] Adobo is the unofficial national dish

of the Philippines.

Every family has their own version type of adobo.

When you're eating adobo,

it reminds me of grandmother's cooking.

It brings comfort and soul to the table.

My name is Anton Dayrit.

My family's from Pampanga, Philippines.

And this is how we make pork and chicken adobo.

Adobo basically in the Philippines is three things:

vinegar,

soy sauce,

garlic.

You can adobo anything from chicken,

pork,

or even vegetables.

Anything you can adobo in the Philippines.

So here we have the most traditional way of cooking adobo,

which is with chicken and pork.

Chicken adobo on its own is good,

but when you add fat from the pork,

it just comes out much more flavorful.

It seems large, but all that meat there

and all that fat is gonna shrink.

For this chicken here, I prefer to use whole chicken legs

because it just doesn't dry out.

So you got your drums there,

the chicken thighs here.

Chop this down to cook faster, number one,

and to have even cooking throughout.

The meat's all prepped.

Let's cook our adobo.

For me when I ever see this,

it's soul food.

It's home.

It's called a palayok, a clay terracotta pot.

I had it shipped from the Philippines.

First step, we're gonna get everything heating up on high.

So we get the pork in there.

Let's go ahead and add Silver Swine vinegar.

Silver Swine is a Filipino brand

that's used a lot in the Philippines,

but it's just distilled vinegar.

But my vinegar ratio is one part soy sauce

to two part vinegar.

Every household has different variations,

but I like the sour.

So Datu Puti soy sauce.

Very traditional in the Philippines.

And then we can add our garlic.

Now, I'm gonna add our Knorr seasoning,

which is like soy sauce,

but it's sweeter a little bit.

This is not very traditional to adobo,

but this will balance everything out.

I gotta put two dried bay leaves in.

Sugar just to balance everything out.

It's not to make anything sweet.

The water to cover.

It's traditional to use whole peppercorns in adobo,

but as a kid growing up,

I bit into those whole peppercorns

and I found it really unpleasant.

So that's why we're using grout peppercorns

for this dish today.

Simmer this for 40 to 45 minutes.

It's time to add our chicken.

So the reason why we're adding the chicken

in the last minute is because

chicken cooks faster than the pork.

And we're gonna cover it

and cook for another 20 minutes.

So traditional adobo always has some boiled eggs in it.

We're putting in the cold water

so we can better control the temperature of the eggs.

So we're gonna wait till the water is starting to simmer.

We're gonna count 11 minutes.

Now it's time to transfer them to an ice bath

to stop the cooking.

I have a little technique that I do.

I crack the egg all around,

and then I roll it.

That separates the shell from the egg.

It comes out easy.

Our boiled eggs are all prepped.

Let's go check our chicken and the pork as well.

So if the chicken is firm,

that means it's done.

All right?

On the other hand, if the pork is tender,

super tender, that means it's done.

We're removing all the pork and the chicken.

We don't wanna cook the proteins anymore.

We're gonna turn the pot back on to high.

We're gonna add a little bit of mushroom seasoning

to amp up the flair a little bit more.

香菇调味料不是很传统。

Basically, this is organic like MSG.

It's actually just dehydrated mushrooms and salt.

So it adds a little bit more umami

and saltiness to the dish.

Dissolve the mushroom powder.

Then we're gonna retaste it.

There we go.

We're just gonna reduce this for a couple of minutes,

and then we're gonna add the slurry.

And this is just cornstarch and water.

All this does is to make the sauce thick.

Probably just half of that.

It's gonna start to thicken.

When it comes up to a boil,

that means that all the cornstarch is activated.

Then we shut the heat off,

add in our protein back to the pot.

Boiled eggs.

Put the lid back on.

We're gonna wait 10 minutes,

and then we're gonna plate.

Let's take some of the rice here.

We're using Three Elephant jasmine rice.

It is the best brand out there.

Oh yeah.

A little bit of chicken over here.

Some of the pork.

Gonna put, like, a little bit of egg here.

A little bit of sauce on the top.

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

So we have our garnishes,

we have our crispy onions here,

our crispy garlic,

sliced Thai chili,

and green and white parts of the scallion.

And this is my pork and chicken adobo.

I use a spoon as a knife

'cause the chicken is tender anyway.

Shovel the chicken and the rice and the egg.

Hell yeah.

I get the fattiness from the pork

and the flavor of chicken.

Oh my god.

The pork has absorbed in all those flavors.

We get a little bit of chili,

the crispy onion,

crispy garlic,

the egg, the rice cooked perfectly.

It's super nostalgic,

super comforting,

amazing, amazing dish.

But actually adobo when it sits in the sauce,

it's actually better to eat it the next day.

The flavors just absorb even better.

But if you can't wait,

it's still delicious anyway.