Adobo for Dinner, No Matter the Season You’re In

The first time I met Priscilla Lasmarias Kelso, she had joined us on a walk at the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain — the Boston neighborhood where Christopher and I lived before we planted our flag in Truro. The arboretum is a link in the city’s “Emerald Necklace,” a seven-mile-long string of parks designed in the 19th century by Frederick Law Olmsted, and its paths traverse a landscape planted with an astounding collection of trees.

If I’m being honest, the only things I remember about that walk are one tree — the arboretum’s century-old parasol beech — and Priscilla.

She was our good friend Rachel’s mother, so I already knew a little about her: She was from the village of Cabanlutan in the central Visayan Islands, a group of islands among the thousands that make up the Philippines. She was an accomplished poet. It was her habit, I would learn, to breeze through small talk and drill down to the most important aspect of whatever moment she was inhabiting.

“Oh, Edouard! It’s nice to meet you at last,” Priscilla said. “Tell me, what season of life are you in?”

What season? I wasn’t entirely sure I knew what she was asking. But we did have a long and delightful conversation as we walked, eliciting more than one eyebrow raise from our tour guide, Bart, who also happened to be Priscilla’s husband.

Her frank question has stayed with me in the same way as my grandmother’s warning when I headed off to college in New Orleans — that city of sin: “If you get arrested, don’t call me.”

As with my grandmother’s words, Priscilla’s were a surprise. Her question was memorable because it forced me to think. It seemed to slow things down and invite perspective. A season doesn’t exist on its own but only in relation to other seasons.

In the years since that walk with Priscilla, when life has presented challenges, I ask myself what season I am in, for perspective. “What season now?” I asked when we left our house and jobs in Boston and moved to Truro. I asked it, too, when Christopher’s open-heart surgery rattled my world a couple of years ago. I find the chance to take that longer view calming.

In any case, by the time we got to the parasol beech, I felt very grounded. And I had learned a ton about the Philippines, including, as will come to no one’s surprise, about adobo — which some people argue is the unofficial Filipino national dish — and Priscilla’s way of making it.

I remembered my meeting with Priscilla recently when we were in New York to see Here Lies Love, the David Byrne and Fatboy Slim musical based on the life of Imelda Marcos. A Filipino restaurant would have been the obvious choice for dinner that evening, but we couldn’t find one nearby. I resolved to dig up Priscilla’s family recipe for chicken adobo as soon as we got home.

Some variation of the recipe has been made for generations in Priscilla’s family. “My secret is the star anise,” Rachel told me when she gave me her version of it.

The word adobo is derived from the Spanish adobar, to marinate. While the name may be Spanish, the ingredients and cooking method certainly precede the colonial conquest. To me, the sweet, salty, sour flavors are reminiscent of Hunan-style sweet-and-sour dishes. In adobo, a protein is slowly simmered in a mixture of soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, and spices until the flavors soften and meld. The result is tender, succulent meat infused with a tangy, savory sauce that is comforting and addictive.

Sam Sifton wrote in the New York Times in 2011 that there are as many variations on adobo as there are Filipino islands. At the time, there were 7,100. Since then, more islands have been identified, bringing both the island and the presumed recipe count to 7,641. I’m sure there are more variations on the recipe — probably as many as there are Filipino households.

“Adobo is as much jazz improvisation as it is symphony,” said Rachel. Still, there are limits. Coconut milk is sometimes included, particularly in recipes from the southern end of the archipelago. Rachel is dubious about that.

If you can manage to get your hands on it, Filipino cane or coconut sap vinegar would be the most authentic kind to use, though supermarket rice vinegar works. Priscilla’s recipe doesn’t call for it, but I decided to marinate the chicken thighs in the sauce for a few hours, thinking that its saltiness would have a brining effect on the chicken. After that, the chicken is simmered in the sauce until it’s cooked through, then then the skin is crisped in the oven. That’s all there is to it.

Priscilla died a couple of years ago. She lived her life fully right up to the end. She can’t have known how the question she asked me all those years ago would become a talisman I use to calm myself at difficult times. A dish of her adobo does the same.

And in case you’re wondering, I took my grandmother’s advice: when I was arrested in college, I didn’t call her.

PRISCILLA’S CHICKEN ADOBO
Makes 4 servings

1 cup soy sauce
1 cup Filipino coconut sap or cane vinegar, such as Datu Puti (available online, or substitute rice wine vinegar)
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 cup water
2 bay leaves
1 Tbsp. white peppercorns (or substitute black peppercorns)
3 whole star anise pods
8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
8 to 10 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed

1. Mix the first seven ingredients together in a large nonreactive bowl and add the chicken thighs, submerging and turning them from time to time. Allow to marinate for at least 2 hours or overnight in the refrigerator.
2. When you’re ready to proceed with the dish, preheat the oven to 375° F. In a deep-sided frying pan or Dutch oven that will hold all the ingredients, heat the oil over medium-high heat. When it shimmers, add the onion and garlic and sauté until onions are softened and translucent, about 3 minutes.
3. Add the chicken to the onions and garlic, placing it in the pan skin side up. Add the marinade and turn up the heat to bring it to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. To keep the skin intact, don’t turn the chicken.
4. Remove chicken to a baking dish, setting it skin side up in a single layer. Spoon sauce into the baking dish around the chicken. The sauce may come about two-thirds of the way up the sides of the chicken but should leave the skin exposed. Reserve and strain any remaining sauce.
5. Bake chicken for about 20 minutes or until the skin is crisp, keeping a close watch to make sure it doesn’t burn. Serve over rice with extra sauce if desired.