Chicken Adobo

When I visited the Philippines in 1990, most Filipino food experts believed that many foods from Spain and Mexico had been “adapted” by local cooks during the four centuries of Spanish colonial rule. They would point, for instance, to the rice dish bringhe, assertedly adapted from paella by the substitution of coconut milk for olive oil and saffron. And, of course, there is the most important case of all, adobo, the so-called national dish supposedly descended from Spanish and Mexica