🇪🇸 En español: Pollo Adobo
An adobo marinade for pork, beef or chicken, a combination of spices and vinegar and olive oil. Intensely flavoured with paprika and chipotle. Usually, the adobo combines dry spices along with vinegar or wine and olive oil. Before refrigeration, marinades were very common, since marinating with spices masks any unpleasant flavours, tenderizes, and preserves the meat.
In Portuguese cooking, they use a variant which is known as Carne de vinha d’alhos.
You can buy adobo seasoning but homemade is so much better.
Tips for Cooking With Adobo
When using an adobo marinade, there are a few things you need to keep in mind. It is important to wait before adding salt until just before cooking the meat. Salt draws out the juices. Also, use a glass or ceramic bowl or dish to avoid a reaction between the adobo and the container. Don’t use plastic because the plastic will absorb the colour and flavours of the spices. Refrigerate meat or fish while marinating to avoid spoilage and discard any leftover adobo in which raw meat was marinated.
Try this chicken bake from the Hairy Bikers, it’s a great mid-week meal.
Spanish Adobo Marinade for Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 sprig fresh basil leaves
- 1 hot pepper or 1 tablespoon red pepper flakes
- 3 tablespoons dried oregano
- 1 tablespoon spicy paprika Spanish Pimenton
- 3 tablespoons sweet paprika Spanish Pimenton
- 1 tablespoon dried thyme
- Extra virgin olive oil
- ½ lemon or a few tablespoons vinegar
Instructions
- Finely chop basil leaves and hot pepper.
- Mix chopped basil and hot pepper with the rest of spices in a bowl, and then rub onto chicken using your hands. Coat all surfaces thoroughly.
- Drizzle olive oil over chicken, a bit at a time, continuing to rub chicken with your hands.
- Squeeze lemon juice (or drizzle vinegar) over chicken.
- Allow to marinate for 20 minutes to 2 hours. Roast or grill chicken.
Nutrition
You may also like one of my other recipes …
Grandads Cookbook may reference or include sections of text and images reproduced courtesy of:
- Dane Sigua / Getty Images
- thespruceeats.com
- foodandwine.com
