Paksiw na Lechon Manok

I got the recipe from Pinoycook. At first, I followed it to the letter but found that her recipe is too salty for my taste. So I ended up modifying it some.

This is very easy to cook and is a lot like adobo.

Ingredients:
1 kilo of chicken (go for big cuts)
1-2 white onion, chopped
1 tsp. of pepper (or more!)
1-2 bay (laurel) leaf
1 cup white vinegar (use Marca Piña or sukang paombong for a richer taste)
1/3 cup soy sauce (or less)
1 small can of liver spread
garlic (I typically just use 3 cloves because I don't like garlic)
1 cup water
1/2 Maggi Magic sarap

Procedure:
1) In a big pot or pan, place the chicken pieces skin-side down. Add 1 cup vinegar, chopped white onions, bay leaf, garlic and pepper. Turn on the heat and simmer, covered, without stirring.

2) Continue cooking till the vinegar has evaporated. Then brown the chicken pieces in its own fat. Notice that the onions would have caramelized too, adding some sort of liquid into the mix.

3) Add the water, sugar, soy sauce. Dissolve the liver spread in a half cup of water and add to the chicken. Stir to blend the new ingredients well.

4) Continue simmering for about 10-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the Magic sarap and add more pepper or vinegar or sugar according to taste.


My household actually demand a lot of the sauce (for the rice) so I don't simmer till it dries. The chicken also gets really cooked already while waiting for the vinegar to evaporate so by the time all the other ingredients are added, the chicken actually gets flaky and some get dissolved in the sauce (wich is absolute heaven for my household). Thus, I recommend big cuts of chicken, otherwise you'll be picking on bones (which get really tender and chewable, again, something my household loves).

If cooking as a pulutan, I guess chicken wings and necks would be ideal for this.

The fat you'll see is all chicken fat. So if you want to avoid that, go for chicken breasts (and remove the skin?).

No need to add salt. The liver spread is also salty so you can really reduce the amount of soy sauce if you want to make this dish lower in sodium.