Maritime Southeast Asia · Volume 50, The Vinegar Line, the Sizzling Plate and the Whole Roast Pig
Chicken Inasal
Ilonggo Iloilo and Panay
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- Not statedNo source states a time and the atlas has too few comparable dishes to estimate one.
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Ilonggo cooking carries a documented sweet hand, a legacy of the nineteenth-century Negros sugar wealth that built Iloilo's haciendero class, and inasal's brown-sugar marinade against sinamak's sharp, spiced vinegar is that sweetness and that sourness worked side by side rather than one cancelling the other.
As tradition built it
At least 4 hours' marination, ideally overnight, then grilling.
Ingredients
- About 1.5kg (3 to 4 lb) chicken thigh and leg pieces
- ¼ cup coconut vinegar
- ¼ cup soy sauce
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 2 tbsp chopped lemongrass
- 2 tbsp grated ginger
- 2 tbsp calamansi juice
- 4 cloves grated garlic
- ¼ cup, plus extra for the rice annatto oil, for basting and for cooking the rice
- to serve rice, to serve
- to serve sinamak (Ilonggo spiced vinegar), to serve
Method
- Marinate the chicken thigh and leg pieces in coconut vinegar, calamansi juice, chopped lemongrass, grated ginger, grated garlic, brown sugar and a little soy sauce, a representative ratio being a quarter cup each of vinegar and soy, a quarter cup brown sugar, two tablespoons each of lemongrass, ginger and calamansi juice, for at least four hours, ideally overnight.
- Grill over charcoal, basting repeatedly with separately prepared annatto oil, until the skin is deeply coloured and lightly charred.
- Serve with rice cooked in the leftover annatto oil and sinamak, an Ilonggo spiced vinegar of vinegar, garlic, ginger or galangal and chilli, on the side.
What a modern chef changes
Doneness controlled sous vide, char and colour left to live fire alone
Rung 4
Method
- Cook the marinated chicken sous vide at 64°C for 90 minutes for precisely even doneness through to the bone, then dry it thoroughly.
- Finish over live charcoal on the Big Green Egg, basted repeatedly with a longer, more deeply infused annatto oil, so the final char and smoke, per Rung 4, do the real work of colour and flavour rather than papering over an unevenly cooked interior.
- Build the sinamak with a wider aromatic base than the everyday version, fresh galangal alongside ginger, a mix of bird's eye and longer chillies, and a longer maceration, served in a small dish for dipping rather than poured over.
- Cook the annatto rice in oil strained twice for total clarity, so the grains carry colour without any bitter sediment.