Cook’s notes
The sauce / glaze
Filipino adobo sauce is salty and sour, and spiked with heat from garlic and black pepper. The saltiness comes from soy sauce (in the case of dark adobo) or fish sauce (in the case of white adobo). The sourness is supplied by vinegar. Boiling these two liquids together will concentrate the flavors but the reduced liquid will not be glossy and sticky. And these last two — glossiness and stickiness — are ideal characteristics of a sauce meant for glazing fried chicken. So, we add a syrup. The choices are simple syrup (sugar boiled with water), corn syrup (the kind you’d drizzle on your pancakes) or honey. I chose honey. By boiling the ingredients for traditional black adobo sauce with honey until the mixture is reduced, we create a sauce that’s perfect for glazing. And while the adobo sauce has been modified (chill, purists!), it retains all traditional flavors — salty and sour with the boldness of garlic, the punch of black pepper, and the earthiness of bay leaves and oregano.Chicken
Drumettes are used here but feel free to use whole wings with the wingtips. The chicken is seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic powder, and allowed to marinate for four hours (overnight is even better). Marinating is important if you want the chicken meat to be seasoned all the way to the bone. That won’t happen if the only flavor in the dish is in the sauce. The seasoned chicken wings are tossed in potato starch and fried twice first, to cook the meat through and, second, to create the lovely crispy crust that will catch all the goodness of the honey adobo sauce.Make the honey adobo sauce before frying the chicken to allow the flavors to infuse.
Fried chicken wings with honey adobo glaze
Ingredients
Chicken
- 900 to 950 grams chicken wings (about two pounds)
- 1 tablespoon rock salt
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
Honey adobo sauce
- ¼ cup soy sauce
- ¼ cup white vinegar
- ¼ cup honey
- 2 tablespoons minced garlic
- 2 pinches ground black pepper
- 1 pinch ground oregano
- 2 bay leaves
Frying and garnish
- cooking oil for deep frying
- 3 cloves garlic peeled and thinly sliced
- ¼ cup potato starch
- finely sliced scallions
Instructions
Marinate the chicken
- Rinse the chicken then wipe dry with a kitchen towel.
- Place in a mixing bowl, add the salt, pepper and garlic powder, and toss repeatedly.
- Cover the bowl and marinate the chicken in the fridge for four hours.
Make the honey adobo sauce
- Place all the ingredients for the sauce in a small pan.
- Simmer until reduced by half.
- Set aside.
Fry the chicken
- In a frying pan, pour enough cooking oil to reach a depth of at least three inches.
- Spread the garlic slices in the oil then set the stove to medium heat.
- When the garlic turns golden, scoop out and spread on a plate lined with paper towels.
- Toss the chicken with the potato starch; shake off any excess.
- Fry the chicken (in two to three batches if your pan is on the small side) over medium heat (310F to 325F) until a pale crust forms on the surface. Scoop out and move to a strainer.
- Turn up the heat to high (350F to 375F) and fry the chicken a second time until the crust turns golden.
Glaze the chicken and serve
- Dump all the fried chicken in a mixing bowl and drizzle the adobo sauce (with all the solid bits) over them.
- Toss repeatedly until all chicken pieces are coated with the sauce.
- Garnish the fried chicken wings with honey adobo glaze with the fried garlic slices and scallions.
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