I’m not going to show the final photos I took of this dish, because it is just a sticky, saucy, delicious mess. I’ll leave it with the cleaner looking photo of the chicken and onions, but know that after that point I covered this dish in the amazing sauce until it was unrecognizable and absolutely not pretty. But pretty is skin deep, and delicious is to the bone.
Again, this year was the summer of The Splendid Table’s How to Eat Supper. This is a famous Filipino dish, and I did use breasts instead of thighs (still cannot convince Adam that chicken thighs are worth considering). But the overnight marinading and the sweet and vinegary sauce are just pretty amazing, and this is a cuisine I haven’t tried before. I’m really glad I did.
1/4 cup soy sauce
10 large garlic cloves coarsely chopped
1 Tbsp fresh-ground black pepper
1-1/4 cups Filipino palm vinegar, cider vinegar, or white distilled vinegar ***I used cider vinegar
1 cup whole canned tomatoes with their liquid
2 bay leaves, broken
3 lbs. (about 8) bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs ***Still can’t convince Adam to try thighs, I did skin-on, bone-in breasts instead
Extra virgin olive oil
2 medium onions, sliced thin
2 whole scallions sliced thin (optional)