Frog Legs and Quail Eggs Adobo

Posted on by

We haven’t shopped at the Shangri-La Plaza in years and, my, how it has changed. We were there last Sunday and some of the shops and food stalls I frequented were no longer there. The Vietnamese restaurant at the food gallery has been replaced by something else. The Portuguese Egg Tart Factory stall had disappeared too. Anyhow, the trip wasn’t a total waste. We bought lots of books from Powerbooks and I was able to buy half a kilo of frozen frog legs from Rustan’s Supermarket. I’ve always wanted to try them having been told that the meat is very similar to chicken.

For my first frog legs adventure, I decided to be a little conservative. Nothing fancy since I didn’t want to get traumatized. To be more precise, I didn’t want to waste the frog legs–too expensive to experiment with. PHP 237.00 for a little over 500 grams isn’t exactly cheap. So, I decided to make an adobo dish out of them. To make the dish more colorful, I decided to throw in two dozen quail eggs.

Boil the quail eggs in water. Lower the heat and simmer for 2 minutes. Rinse under the tap and cool. Shell the eggs then set aside.
The frozen frog legs I bought were joined together on top. I thought they were rather large and I cut them into two. You can choose to leave them the way they are.

Wash the frog legs and place them in a wide cooking pan. Pour in about 1/3 c. of cane vinegar. Add the crushed garlic, peppercorns, and bay leaf and bring to a boil. When the vinegar has been absorbed, add the cooking oil and about half a cup of soy sauce. Note that you don’t have to add cooking oil. I only did it because I was worried that the cooked adobo would be rather dry seeing that the frog legs were quite fatless. Stir the frog legs carefully and simmer for about 10 minutes. That’s all the time they need to cook completely. I was amazed at how fast they cooked. I was preparing to braise them for at least half an hour when I saw the meat falling off the bones after only 10 minutes.

When the mixture is almost dry, add the quail eggs. Stir. Cook over very low heat for a minute longer to let the eggs absorb some of the sauce. Transfer the cooked frog legs and quail eggs adobo on a serving platter and sprinkle with chopped cilantro.