French Baked Adobo

There I was talking about shallots the other week, when the American living the sweet life in Paris, David Lebovitz, whose incredible wit and humor I absolutely adore, writes about a roast chicken with caramelized shallots a few days later.

I have been experimenting with different flavors and seasonings for roasted chicken for years because it's so versatile and very kid-friendly (for my own kids as well as for me being a kid still, though I was a kid myself when I started cooking chicken). So naturally the post interested me, apart from the fact that I got curious about the seasonality of shallots from half-way around the world.

But what got me really hooked on the recipe was that, on closer inspection, the marinade consisted of nothing more than the ingredients - soy sauce and vinegar - for a proper Filipino adobo, which is almost the Philippine national dish.

Well almost....the archipelagic nature of the country makes it difficult for one thing to represent the entire nation. In the case of adobo, it is eaten in the entire expanse of the archipelago, but the variants can be as many as the more than seven thousand islands spanning the country.

And I'm not even talking about the origins of the dish. Its main use in the past was for preserving meats in the absence of refrigeration, but history doesn't confirm whether adobo was created here, or was an adaptation of the Mexican adobado, which was probably brought here via the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade (or maybe it was taken to Mexico from here?).

But back to David's roasted chicken. He writes that he adapted the recipe from a book containing French farmhouse cooking. Now how did adobo arrive in France? Or maybe the French originated it?

The original recipe calls for only vinegar as marinade, but David is enamored of soy sauce for its umami angle, so he added some. The Filipino adobo also uses mainly vinegar, with the addition of salt or coconut milk depending on the region, though a large percentage of the Philippine population favors adobo with vinegar and soy sauce, so it's quite safe to say it's the most popular version.

One main difference between the French and the Filipino adobo, though, is the use of shallots in the former and garlic - lots of them! - in the latter. Which makes the French version sweet with the caramelized shallots, while the Filipino variant uses a small amount of sugar to sweeten the dish a bit.

One thing more - the Filipino adobo is mainly braised, and usually eaten with some of the thickened sauce from the marinade spooned over hot rice, while the French farmhouse one is baked dry.

Truth to tell, the adobo taste of the baked version was not really strong because of the small quantities involved (but it's easy to remedy that!), but what's forceful is the sweetness of the shallots. The soy sauce-vinegar served only to enhance the flavor of the chicken and support the savory effect of the shallots.

Which tells me exactly why adobo is a great way to cook chicken, be it in France, Mexico, the Philippines, or anywhere else in the world.

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French Baked Adobo

1 kilogram thigh fillet (about 12 pieces)
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
4 bulbs shallots

1. Mix the first four ingredients and set aside for an hour up to three days in the refrigerator, turning over the chicken pieces twice a day.
2. When ready to bake, pre-heat the oven to about 180 degrees C, then mince the shallots finely.
3. Arrange the chicken pieces, skin side up, on a shallow dish large enough so they can be laid down in a single layer. Sprinkle the minced shallots evenly on top.
4. Bake for about thirty minutes, or until the shallots have caramelized.

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Original recipe here.

Notes:

• David used red wine vinegar and advises against balsamic. I had an open bottle of white wine vinegar so that's what I used. The Filipino adobo uses vinegar made from cane or coconuts - I'd like to use that next time.
• The original recipe called for one whole chicken cut up into eight pieces. I used thigh fillets to avoid the added task of deboning at the table for the children. If using bone-in cuts, increase the baking time by about 15 minutes.
• I'd like to increase the amounts of vinegar and soy sauce, and decrease the olive oil, next time to pump up the adobo flavor. And use garlic!
• In David's recipe the chicken was mixed with the marinade then baked immediately. I like to set aside marinated chicken first before cooking - it enhances the flavor. And chicken is more delicious reheated, so we don't eat it right after cooking, but prepare and cook it in advance so it can be eaten reheated the next day.

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Katuray

As the heat intensifies the surroundings become awash with vibrant color. Nature loves to come out in the heat, in every color imaginable and even in varying shades. That's why we have flower festivals and festivals honoring the Virgin Mother with flowers during summer.

But there is one tree who appears to counteract the intensity of hues during the season. But it still looks festive, like a host to thousands of immaculately white butterflies come home to roost in its crown, finding haven after a tiring but filling day flitting from one bright flower to the next.

And that's how the katuray tree looks like during summer. Its blossoms, prized for its anti-hypertensive benefits, appear like folded white butterfly wings. When the tree flowers, the tree top burgeons with the blossoms. The tree blossoms generously, for all the neighbors within the block who didn’t have the wisdom to plant their own katuray tree on their own front yards.

It is difficult to find katuray blossoms in markets because they are so delicate and fragile, like real butterfly wings, bruising easily. Harvested from the tree they discolor within the day. So it’s best to cook them right after gathering. At most there will be one or a couple of vendors selling a small bilao of the blossom, probably a surfeit after all the neighbors have had their fill.

afternoon wilt

I saw a tray of the blossoms, though, this evening, at the vegetable section of the SM Hypermarket at the Mall of Asia. I was so amazed I stopped breathing for a full minute. I’ve been seeing vegetables of my childhood there lately – tonight there were baskets of native sitaw, samsamping, and even baeg, apart from the tray of katuray.

They were all in good shape, as far as I could tell, and my heart fluttered with happiness, because now I could get a taste of home more frequently. These are not known and never eaten in my adopted home in Cavite, and I only get to have them when the family goes on a trek to Pangasinan during long holidays, or when I get the craving so hard that I lug a big bag to the Guadalupe market in Makati to locate my suki (favorite) Ilocana vegetable vendor.


Katuray blossoms are cooked simply. In Pangasinan we either steam them, eating them dipped in a sauce of kalamansi juice and agamang (salted fermented krill), or boil them with fish in a sinigang (soured broth). Before cooking, a curling pistil is removed from among the enfolding diaphanous petals, and then the green stamen is detached.

katuray in sinigang na Bonuan bangus

For the ultra-sensitive tastebuds of a young child, there is a certain bitter edge to the taste of cooked katuray, so that I grew up not being fond of it. But I do not have a problem eating it now – it is ironic how even those vegetables I had previously loathed I now find myself craving for. My desensitized tongue now cannot detect even a hint of bitterness and I'm the better for it, as it aids in keeping me strapping fit.

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Lasona

During summer, you'll know when you've hit the province of Pangasinan going through the Camiling, Tarlac route, which goes into Central Pangasinan, an alternative and less-traffic-dense way from the MacArthur Highway (the way to Dagupan or Baguio) skimming the northeastern part of the province. You'll know you've arrived by the pungent smell that wafts from the warm earth and assails your nose, even inside an airconditioned vehicle.

For in Bayambang, the first town of the province bordering Tarlac, are hectares of onion plantations. And by onion I mean THE red onion with which I grew up. Small but powerfully pungent, red and red-hot, a single cut of the knife is enough to induce a crying spell that seems rooted in heartbreak.

We never dared eat small red onions raw. Cooked, it retained its kili-kili power (our slang for the smell and taste - similar to the overpowering scent of underarms of the great unwashed), imparting great flavor to vegetable stews with bagoong (fermented salted fish sauce). Sautes are elevated a notch higher.

Early in my life I never knew there were onions tamer than these, such that when I learned that there's such a thing as French onion soup, I vowed never to have it. I imagined I'd gag on the pungency of it right at the first spoonful.

But there's a variety of red onions we actually use for summer salads of sliced native tomatoes and bagoong, eaten raw. It's red, and still flavorful, but the pungency is not as pronounced, refreshing more than cutting the tongue, and it's more succulent, the bulb segments thinner.

This is what is known as sibuyas Ilocano, and called by the local term lasona. Funny, I recently found out that lasuna, which I think can also be the spelling of this red onion as it is how it is actually pronounced in the native tongue, is the Sanskrit term for garlic. Our Indio ancestors must have mixed up the terms in confusion, specially since down the line we still associate onions with the Indians....


And that's not all. I also found out that the term for lasona in Bahasa, a language used in many parts of Southeast Asia, is bawang, which in turn is the name for garlic in most Philippine languages. Really quite confusing. More tidbit of information - the French shallot originated in Southeast Asia, and it looks like lasona is an ancestor.

Lasona is sold in bunches, the bulbs growing in bunches, too, such that not one is perfectly round like the common red onion. A flat side with a bulbous half is the normal shape.

As with garlic, lasona is said to have healing properties, as well. The bulbs are harvested with their spring leaves and sold thus, or trimmed just a little. This is because the leaves are eaten, too, providing a different dimension in texture and level of flavor. This can be particularly evident in ingisan lasuna - chopped bulbs and leaves sauteed with garlic - served as a side to fried or grilled fish and heaps of steaming rice.

Across the country this is what is used in pickled onions, and thinly sliced fried onions mixed in arroz caldo/congee and fried rice. I prefer fried minced garlic in my arroz caldo and fried rice, since I'm not very fond of fried onions.

Lasona harvest had been early this year, as with the regular red and white onions that I wrote about in the previous post. The air had been pungently thick since before Christmas. Probably better for all of us, hoping the health effects of lasona countered the excesses of the season.

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Bahay Kubo

Bahay kubo, kahit munti
Ang halaman doon ay sari-sari
Singkamas at talong, sigarillas at mani
Sitaw, bataw, patani

Kundol, patola, upo’t kalabasa
At saka meron pa, labanos, mustasa
Sibuyas, kamatis, bawang at luya
Sa paligid-ligid ay puno ng linga


Roughly translated as:

Bahay Kubo
(Filipino folk song)

Nipa hut, even though small
the plants surrounding it are varied and many
turnips and eggplants, winged beans and peanuts
yard-long beans, hyacinth beans, lima beans

wax gourd, sponge gourd, bottle gourd, squash
and there’s more, radish, mustard
onions, tomatoes, garlic and ginger
the surrounding spaces filled with sesame

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