Chicken Afritada

Chicken afritada is Filipino, chicken braised in a tomato sauce with potato, carrot and bell pepper, seasoned with soy sauce and patis, the Filipino fish sauce. The name gives away the history. Afritada comes from the Spanish fritada, meaning fried, and the dish belongs to the group of Filipino tomato-braised dishes that arrived through more than three centuries of Spanish colonial rule. Afritada, menudo and kaldereta are all close cousins from that lineage, distinguished mostly by cut, additions and the presence or absence of liver paste. What makes it Filipino rather than Spanish is the seasoning. Soy sauce and patis are doing the work that salt would do in a Spanish stew, and together they give the sauce a savoury depth that a tomato base alone would not have. That combination is characteristic of Filipino cooking generally. It is everyday food, a weeknight dish served with white rice, straightforward to make and forgiving. It is also common at gatherings, where it scales easily. **This is not an African dish.** It is on the African Food Network in the Worldwide collection because the page already exists and receives visitors, and removing it would break a working link.