summer eats
one hot day in July, when i was feeling sluggishly sloth-y, and not feeling like doing any cooking, let alone moving at all…the urge to eat this moved me greatly.
i should have this memorized by now! from Delia Smith’s Summer Collection, i added extra of everything (garlic, chili, anchovies, basil, capers, tomatoes, olives), used thin spaghetti and added a can of solid white tuna in olive oil.
all strong, punchy flavors, over pasta: somehow it just worked on a hot summer day.
and then on to more summer eats! i have three kids at home, very hungry and constantly checking out the fridge and checking in on mom at the kitchen–so i tend to be preparing quick and easy dishes, such as this bbq chicken a la Bacolod Inasal, a style of grilling marinated chicken.
i had heard about it a lot, and finally got to try it at a chain restaurant in the Mall of Asia, by the seaside Roxas Boulevard, Manila.
i used a recipe mostly based on Chef Pauline Gorriceta-Banusing’s via the Inquirer.Net. i added lemongrass stalks (as suggested by several recipes i found in other sites) and marinated the minimum 30 minutes (more than that and the chicken meat will get “de-natured”).
the special technique is the butter-calamansi-atsuete (annatto seed, used as a vibrant colorant) basting sauce. (i could not bear to use margarine, which is the original recipe).
i was nervous about using all that vinegar, with no soy sauce to soften all that acidic kick.
but it was a hit, yet i’ve decided i will use chicken leg quarters instead of whole chickens–i used baby “young chickens”–because the breast meat dried out. NO MORE BREAST MEAT. 
highly recommended with achara as side dish…
achara of green papaya plus:not-so-secret formula here.
recipe for Chef Pauline’s chicken inasal follows…
Chicken Inasal (italics are my substitutions/alterations)
1 whole dressed chicken, sliced into quarters, or 8 pieces chicken drumsticks or thighs
1 c native cane vinegar
1 bottle (about 1 1/3 cups) 7-up
1 thumb-sized ginger, minced
6-8 stalks of lemon grass, trimmed, cut into fine strips, smashed with flattened knife/cleaver
6 pcs calamansi
2 tbsp rock salt
2 tsp pepper
For basting sauce:
1/4 c cooking oil
2 tbsp butter
2 tsp salt
2 tbsp achuete seeds
2 pcs calamansi
Marinate chicken in mixture of vinegar, 7-Up, ginger, lemongrass, calamansi juice, salt and pepper for at least one hour, or overnight in refrigerator.
When ready to cook, heat an indoor grill or charcoal in an outdoor grill to medium. If desired, thread chicken into barbecue sticks. Cook chicken over grill until done, basting frequently with the basting sauce.
To prepare basting sauce:
Heat oil in a saucepan then add butter and salt. Drop in achuete seeds and stir until color is extracted. Remove from heat and add calamansi juice. Use to baste chicken.
July 22nd, 2010 at 7:33 am
Mmmmmm… The Chicken Inasal. I still really need to try this at home. I didn’t get to eat any of it when I was went home in April. It remains to be one of my “should have done that’s” from the trip.
Your pasta dish inspired me last night, so we had the some, but I kept the anchovies, olives, capers and other stuff to the side, so each person could mix them up to their own liking. Kanya-kanya, kung baga!