Table of Contents
Chicken Afritada is a tomato-based stew with an easy to prepare procedure. Its origin is in the Philippines. As a regular sauce, it’s best served with warm white rice at lunchtime. To get the best out of your Filipino chicken stew, you must put in the effort.
Other food combination suggestions with this dish include; Pear/Israeli CousCous, sweet potato or white potato mash, cauliflower rice, crusty bread/garlic bread, butter beans (or butter bean mash).
What is Chicken Afritada?
This dish is popular amongst the native of the Philippines, known as the Filipinos. The term Filipino applies to people who can trace back their ancestry to the Philippines whether home or abroad.
Chicken Afritada is made with an excellent blend of ingredients which includes; chicken, fresh tomato, soy sauce, fish sauce[patis], vegetables, chicken stock[low sodium kind].
The above ingredients are essential to the preparation of this dish and they should be well balanced to get the best out of your Chicken Afritada.
What is the origin of Chicken Afritada?
When it comes to tomato-based dishes in the Philippines, Chicken Afritada is one of the most well-known. Almost every home has its own version of the delectable Apritadang Manok. It’s served with potatoes, peas, and that distinctively flavored and rich orange stew. But do you have any idea how this cuisine came to be? This is mostly due to how Filipino cooks learned to pan-fry their cuisine, which may surprise you.
The Spaniards introduced the pan-frying culinary method, which gave birth to Afritada. Cooks in the Philippines came up with the notion for a meal that started with pan-frying potatoes, carrots, and other vegetables, as well as chicken. This is before we add a delicious blend of garlic, bay leaves, and other delightfully complimentary flavors and let it simmer.
If you’re familiar with the dish’s etymology, the dish’s origin shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, “to fry” is immediately translated into Spanish as “a fritada.” The dish has also been traced to the Spanish “chilidrón.” This entails simmering fried chicken or lamb in a mixture of garlic, tomatoes, bell peppers, and a variety of other seasonings. These related recipes demonstrate how well the two forms of cuisine can work together.
When it comes to similar recipes, you may have heard of Kaldereta and Mechado, which both feature their own orange, meaty stews.
What Makes Afritada, Kaldereta, and Mechado Different?
The key elements we employ to generate their distinct flavors are one of the main differences between the three. Only Kaldereta uses liver spread instead of tomato sauce to achieve the orange color (and peanut butter in some regions). To improve the delicious flavor, we cook it with tomato sauce.
For a delicate sourness, Mechado uses vinegar (or a pinch of calamansi or lemon). Pork or beef are the most popular meats used in this dish. The only one of the three that employs chicken as the meat ingredient in its original recipe is Afritada. Meanwhile, Kaldereta promotes beef as a meat alternative.
What Are The Health Benefits of Eating Chicken Afritada?
With just how packed it is with vegetables, you might have already guessed that this recipe contains pretty much all you’ll need in a good meal. It has a great deal of protein and carbohydrates to get you going. But it’s also filled with vitamins and minerals. The nutrition composition of chicken afritada suggests that it is a healthy dish and it has a level of balance that makes it both light and healthy.
How to Cook Chicken Afritada
Regardless of the regularity of this dish, it still needs you to be technical in preparing it. Patience is another factor that contributes to the success of this dish. The longer you let this meal to cook, the better it becomes.
Before then, set your ingredients apart and where it is handy.
- First, you need to brown your chicken on all its sides. If the pot is not big enough, do it in batches.
- Cook your onions, garlic, and tomatoes until it’s soft enough. Afterward, add your seasoning to enhance the flavor.
- Add the chicken and cook side by side at intervals while gently stirring, to allow the flavor to sip in very well.
- Cover your mixture and cook in medium heat until tender. This could take up to 30 minutes, depending on the quantity of chicken.
Note; There are several other methods in preparing chicken afritada. One of such are in the two major steps highlighted below.
- Step 1: Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook onion and ginger for 3 minutes, browning slightly. Lay chicken in the skillet, skin side down. Fry until golden, about 10 minutes, turning once with tongs.
- Step 2: In a bowl, whisk together tomato sauce, soy sauce, oyster sauce, and garlic salt, and pour evenly over chicken. Gently fold in peas, bell pepper, and potato. Simmer 20 to 30 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through and no longer pink in the center. Season with ground black pepper.
Can Chicken Afritada Be Prepared Without Tomatoes Sauce?
There are different ways to prepare and cook Chicken Afritada. Most of the time you’ll see Chicken Afritada recipes cooked with tomato sauce, but some people prefer to use fresh tomatoes instead. Fresh tomatoes make the dish lighter, healthier, and it’s less sour, too.
Chicken Afritada Cooking Tips
- Cut your potatoes and carrots in uniform sizes so they cook evenly and at the same time.
- The best chicken parts or cuts for this kind of dish are the legs and thighs or wings.
- Never use breast parts because they lack the collagen for long and slow stew and they will become dry and chewy.
- Do not skip the searing of the meat part. This adds a depth of flavor to the dish.
How Should I Store and Reheat My Chicken Afritada?
Enjoy your Chicken Afritada and share this recipe!
Chicken Afritada
Ingredients
- 1 ½ lbs Chicken cut into serving pieces
- 2 piece potato cubes
- 1 piece carrot sliced
- 8 oz. tomato sauce
- 3 pieces hotdog sliced
- ½ cup green peas
- 3 pieces bay leaves
- 1 piece red onion chopped
- 2 tsps garlic minced
- 3 cups chicken broth
- ½ tsps sugar
- 3 tbsps cooking oil
- Salt and ground black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a cooking pot. Sauté onion and garlic until the onion softens.
- Add chicken. Cook for 30 seconds. Turn it over and cook the other side for another 30 seconds.
- Pour tomato sauce and chicken broth. Cover. Let boil.
- Add dried bay leaves. Cover the cooking pot. Continue to cook in medium heat for 30 minutes.
- Add hotdogs and carrot. Cook for 3 minutes.
- Add potato. Cover the pot and cook for 8 minutes.
- Add green peas. Cook for 2 minutes.
- Season with salt and ground black pepper
