Page 14 of Sex On A Plate

SECTION TWO

BRING THE HEAT

Adobo Chicken

Banging Shrimp Tacos

Pork Chili Verde

Crispy Chicken Quesadilla

Pork Enchiladas

Sriracha Burger

Best Chicken Wings

ADOBO CHICKEN

DIFFICULTY: Keeping your fucking hands clean.

TIME: 55 minutes.

What you’ll need from the cupboard: A skillet, tongs, a decent-sized spoon, and a platter (or plate).

What you’ll need from the pantry: two pounds of chicken, garlic, soy sauce, vinegar, brown sugar, bay leaves, salt, pepper, a few jalapenos (or red pepper flakes), and your favorite rice.

* * *

Wings, legs, thighs, breasts, it really doesn’t matter. Although I prefer chicken on the bone (I’m convinced it tastes better), my wife likes boneless breast meat. That’s all her happy little ass will eat.

I’ll let you decide what kind of chicken to use. My instructions will assume you’re cooking chicken on the bone. Thighs. Cook at least one. They’re the forgotten meat.

Get the deepest (and largest) skillet you own. A Dutch Oven works if you have one. Add enough oil to coat the bottom lightly.

Heat to medium.

Add your chicken to the skillet, skin side down. Legs are covered in skin, so just toss those fuckers in without worry—they’ll always land skin side down. Be careful, the oil’s hot. From experience, I can say being burned sucks, so use caution.

Cook the chicken uncovered for roughly 10 minutes, toying around with the individual pieces 2-3 times while it’s cooking. The benefit of this is two-fold. One, it makes it look like you know what you’re doing in the kitchen. Secondly, it allows the fat to migrate beneath the chicken each time you lift it, which ensures a golden-brown skin.

Golden-brown is good.

Unless you’re being burned.

After 8-10 minutes, remove the chicken and place it on a paper towel lined plate or platter.

Add equal parts vinegar and soy sauce to the skillet. Three-fourths of a cup of each should do unless you’re cooking for a dozen.

Add a half a cup of brown sugar to the skillet. Toss in 3-4 bay leaves. If you don’t have the bay leaves, don’t worry too much, it’ll taste fabulous without them.

Bring to a simmer. Stir it while it comes up to temperature. Once the sugar is dissolved, add the chicken that you set aside a moment ago. This time, do it skin-side up.

Take the entire head of Garlic and place it on the countertop, stem up. Slice in from left to right through the center (through each clove). If you followed directions, this should give you two pieces, each of which has exposed (sliced) garlic cloves.

It’ll look like a big fucking garlic flower.

Smash all the cloves that fell out of the head (a few always do) with the side of a knife blade. Chop them into fine pieces.