Tonight’s Dinner: (Vinghra) Vinha D’alhos (Hawaiian style) chicken

This is a traditional Portuguese dish, slightly modified by the Portuguese living in Hawai’i. The original dish calls for wine but since that really wasn’t widely available in the late 1800s/early 1900s Hawai’i, they substituted vinegar instead. The pronunciation in local Portuguese dialect is vin-grah doy-sh (vinegar) instead of the Portugal Portuguese vin-ha (wine).

Vinha D’alhos

Ingredients:
3 lb boneless pork or chicken
1 1/2 cups vinegar
1 cup water
4 cloves garlic, crushed
6 Hawaiian red peppers, seeded and chopped (can substitute red chili flakes or coarse siracha peppers)
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons salt
6 whole cloves
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1/8 teaspoon sage

Cut meat into 2 inch pieces. Combine vinegar, garlic, red pepper, bay leaf, salt, cloves, thyme and sage; pour over meat and simmer in a slow cooker or in dutch oven on low for several hours until soft then serve over rice.