Asian Chicken Rice Bowl

Valentine's Day. The second with Jason. Last year he gave me a cast-iron skillet. This year he gave me a wooden cutting board — handmade, local Alaskan birch, the grain tight and pale, the surface sanded smooth. A man who gives kitchen tools instead of jewelry is a man who understands what matters to me, and what matters to me is the kitchen, and the kitchen needs good surfaces, and this surface is beautiful in the utilitarian way that all necessary things are beautiful when they're made with care.

I gave him a recipe box. Wooden, with dividers, pre-filled with cards on which I'd written — by hand, in my nurse's precise print — every Filipino recipe he's learned and the ones he's about to learn. Sinigang. Adobo. Pancit. Lumpia. Plus the ones on deck: caldereta, mechado, tinola. Each card has the recipe on one side and, on the back, a note. The sinigang card: "For the bad nights. One more squeeze." The adobo card: "The foundation. More garlic than you think. Then more." The lumpia card: "Ask your ate Lourdes. She'll show you. Bring garlic."

He read every card. He read the backs. He was quiet for a while, the kind of quiet that happens when someone has given you something that is both practical and weighted with meaning, and the weight is the love, and the practical is the vessel. Then he said, "This is better than my cutting board." I said, "Nothing is better than a birch cutting board." We're two people who argue about kitchen gifts the way other couples argue about real things. The kitchen is our real thing.

I made pork belly adobo for Valentine's dinner — the slow version, braised for two hours, the belly falling apart in the dark, glossy sauce. We ate it at the table with candles — two this year, an escalation from last year's one candle — and the rice was in the new rice cooker (his) and the adobo was in the cast-iron skillet (his, from last year) and the cutting board held the calamansi (his, from this year) and the apartment was a museum of gifts we've given each other, all kitchen-related, all functional, all love expressed in the language we speak best: tools and food and the things you make with both.

The candles flickered. The adobo was dark. The pork belly was tender. Valentine's Day in a Filipino-American kitchen is not roses and champagne. It's vinegar and garlic and two candles and a recipe box and a cutting board and the particular romance of two people who fell in love in a kitchen and intend to stay there.

The pork belly adobo I made that night was the slow version — the one that asks you to be patient, to trust the vinegar and the garlic and the low heat — and it’s a recipe I’ve made so many times it lives in my hands more than my head. But on the nights when I want that same bold, saucy, deeply savory feeling without the two-hour braise, this Asian Chicken Rice Bowl is what I reach for: it’s fast enough for a Tuesday and good enough for a Valentine’s Day, and it goes into the same rice cooker Jason gave me, over the same bowl of white rice that anchors every Filipino meal I’ve ever loved.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1-inch pieces
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon honey
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 cup shredded carrots
1 cup thinly sliced red cabbage
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
4 cups cooked white rice

Instructions

Make the sauce. In a small bowl, whisk together soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, honey, garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes. Set aside.
Cook the chicken. Heat vegetable oil in a large skillet or wok over medium-high heat. Add chicken pieces in a single layer and cook undisturbed for 3–4 minutes until golden on the bottom. Stir and continue cooking for another 3–4 minutes until cooked through.
Add the sauce. Pour the sauce over the chicken and stir to coat. Cook for 2–3 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens and clings to the chicken.
Assemble the bowls. Divide cooked white rice among four bowls. Top each with the saucy chicken, shredded carrots, and sliced red cabbage.
Finish and serve. Garnish with sliced green onions and toasted sesame seeds. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Asian Chicken Rice Bowl — The Language We Speak Best Is Food