Adobo

This week’s recipe is derived from the adobo served at Purple Yam. It is a dish Dorotan developed at Cendrillon, a restaurant he and Besa owned and ran together in SoHo until 2009. (A version of it appeared in their 2006 cookbook, “Memories of Philippine Kitchens.”) There is soy sauce in it, and the coconut milk that is common to the southern part of Luzon, the island from which Dorotan hails.

As the mixture cooks, the rice vinegar turns mellow, and the sauce thickens in the heat. There are notes of garlic and bay, of chicken fat and chili fire, coconut sweetness and the nutty saltiness of soy. The combination is ridiculous: a dark and creamy flavor that covers the chicken in silk.

Care should be taken in the assembly of the ingredients. If you can manage to secure Filipino coconut sap vinegar, that would be best, though good-quality rice vinegar from the supermarket will yield excellent results as well, and white wine or even cider vinegar will do in a pinch. (Coconut sap vinegar is available in specialty markets and, as always, online.) A fresh bottle of soy sauce on the lighter end of the taste spectrum would also not be in error, rather than something from that dusty bottle in the back of the larder.

Combine these with your chicken thighs (best-quality again, please), a ton of garlic and chilies, bay leaves and pepper. Allow the marinade to do its work. Then place the mixture in a heavy pot, bring to a simmer, and cook for around a half-hour, until the chicken is tender. Remove the chicken and allow the sauce to reduce. (Really, that’s it.)

At Purple Yam, Dorotan finishes the process by tossing the chicken into a deep-fryer, to crisp and to caramelize it at once. Then he returns the pieces to a reduced version of the sauce and serves the dish in a small clay pot, where it bubbles and steams enticingly. For the home cook, however, some time under the broiler will achieve much the same effect.

Serve with white rice and some steamed or sautéed greens.

Now taste what you have. Next time you may wish to increase the amount of vinegar or soy sauce in the marinade, or reduce it a little or a lot. You may wish to add more chilies or even Vargas’s crazy brown sugar. You may wish to have less coconut milk, or none at all. You may wish to have more.

This is adobo. Every man an island.