Chicken Ala Jao (or Chicken Adobo in liver sauce) from Adora's Box

This one very nearly didn't get made at all!

We had come back from an unexpected trip to Bournemouth and I was feeling a bit tender in the joints.  Which is funny, considering all I had to do was drive there and sit in the car, listening to The Archers on Radio 4, whilst Hubby ran around doing the errands.  For some reason, however, (probably the rain, as my knee problem is arthritic) my joints were begging for mercy by the time we got home.

Still, after a bit of a lie down and a cup of lemon tea (gorgeous stuff, that.  Would restore life into the lifeless), I had a review of the recipe and decided that if Hubby didn't mind doing the cutting and a-chopping of an onion, I wouldn't have to move around the kitchen much whilst doing the rest and so it was do-able.

Which I'm jolly glad about - now.  You see, this recipe was surprising, intense and very, very nice.  It's a definite do-again!

Looking at my version of it versus the photographs on the Adora's Box blogsite, I reckon I did a fairly good job with it.

It didn't take me anything like as long as is stated in the original recipe (which is available here on Adora's Box) which I can put down to the fact that I used breast of chicken instead of thighs, which take far longer to cook.

I will also admit to the fact that I didn't leave the chicken marinating for anything like as long as I should have, but we'd have wound up having dinner at bedtime if I'd procrastinated any longer!

As it was, the recipe is extremely easy to carry out and I even managed to cook rice and stir-fried veggies at the same time.  All without getting terribly stressed - which can occur when there's a lot of things happening on the stovetop all at once!

The seemingly eclectic mix of ingredients that form the marinade amalgamate into an eyebrow raisingly tasty sauce.  Additionally, the liver pate doesn't remain as a separate flavour, but instead forms a thickener that delivers an interesting amount of Umami to the overall flavour.  I have one word of warning though, which is to not panic when you realise just how intensely sweet the whole recipe has become.  I was so glad that I'd used white wine vinegar instead of the balsamic that had been my first choice.  (The type of vinegar isn't given, on the recipe, you see).  I reckon that balsamic would have tipped it over the edge into unbearably sweet.  However, with the plain white Basmati rice and the plain stir fried veggies (which I did with a little olive oil - and nothing else) they went perfectly with the intense, sweet sauce of the chicken and balanced the whole dish.  Don't be tempted to put anything even remotely sweet with it as a side dish!

I thought we'd like this one, as I'd made Chicken Adobo successfully in the past.  I just wasn't entirely confident about the liver pate's part in the deal!

Chicken Ala Jao (or Chicken Adobo in liver sauce) recipe is available here.