Chef reacts to amateur trying to duplicate his restaurant's adobo chicken dish

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Adobo chicken is a staple dish for many Filipino people. It's also a popular item on the menu of Free Bird Restaurant in Lumsden, Sask., about 20 minutes northwest of Regina. 

Co-owner and chef JP Vives opened the restaurant in 2019 with his mother, Pam. 

Filipino adobo chicken is traditionally made with braised chicken thighs and drumsticks, drenched in a sauce made with vinegar, soy sauce, garlic and pepper.

This is not to be mistaken for Mexican adobo sauce, which is made from dried chilies and spices.

Vives wanted to put his own spin on the dish, so he added ginger to enhance the flavour of the comfort food staple.

Filmmaker and foodie Curtis McGillivray asked Vives to share this recipe for the latest instalment of his Creator Network video series Cooking with Culture, where McGillivray tries his hand at a dish using only the ingredients but no instructions.

Free Bird Restaurant adobo chicken

Vives shared his full recipe and all the directions with CBC, so you can make the delicious dish yourself at home.

(Serves four to eight people, depending on how much chicken you want to use.)

• 2 to 4 chicken drumsticks.
• 2 to 4 chicken thighs.
• 1.5 cups of soy sauce.
• 2 cups of vinegar.
• 2 cups of lime juice.
• A quarter cup of berry preserve or jam (darker the berry the better).
• 1 cup dark brown sugar.
• 2 bay leaves.
• 8 garlic cloves.
• 1 ginger root.
• 1 tbsp pepper.
• 2 cups jasmine rice.

Instructions:

1. Prep all your ingredients, mince garlic & ginger.

2. Season your chicken with salt, a little oil, and pepper.

3. In a hot pot, sear the chicken until it's a bit golden and gets a brown crust out the outside.

4. Remove the chicken from the pot and set aside.

5. With all the juices from the chicken in the pot, add garlic, ginger, & berries and sauté.

6. Add soy sauce, lime juice and vinegar.

7. Allow this sauce to mix for a minute before introducing the remaining ingredients: brown sugar, bay leaves, pepper.

8. Let sauce cook and begin to reduce.

9. Once your liquid has reduced to about ¾ its original volume, put the browned chicken back in the pot of sauce.

10. Simmer until chicken is fully cooked, add a bit of water if you need to keep the sauce from fully reducing, and use thermometer to check chicken's temperature (the thickest piece should be at least 165 F or 74 C).

11. You can reduce the sauce as far as you want depending if you like your sauces thick or thin.

12. Serve over a bed of rice, and enjoy!