Chicken Pochero with Grilled Eggplant Salsa

Description:
This is my healthier take on the traditional Pochero which uses beef, and I like to make it into a one-dish soup. This is very easy to cook, but it entails patience and planning because of preparing all the ingredients and pre-cooking the vegetables before the final process. The grilled eggplant salad is a great accompaniment to pochero, so don't take this out even though it lengthens the cooking process even more. It is really worth it.

Ingredients:
There are no exact quantities indicated in the ingredients because it really depends on what you have on hand and what you want in your pochero. :)

For the Pochero:
1 whole chicken, chopped into pieces
Onion and garlic, minced
Cabbage, chopped into quarters (discard the hard middle portion)
Carrot, cut into large chunks
Potatoes or Camote, cut into large chunks
Baguio Beans, strings removed
Saba, pre-cooked skins on by boiling or steaming, then cut the flesh in half
Chorizo Bilbao, sliced into rounds
Tomato Sauce
Water
Salt and Pepper
White Sugar

For the Grilled Eggplant Salsa:
Garlic Cloves
Eggplants
Extra-virgin Olive Oil
Cane Vinegar
Red Wine Vinegar or Balsamic Vinegar
Salt and Pepper
Sugar

Directions:
For the Pochero:
Pre-cook the carrots, potatoes or camote and cabbage in water. I do this in batches, being careful not to overcook. (I prefer them half-cooked to retain the nutrients and the texture.) Set aside the vegetable broth from this process.
In another stock pot, saute the minced onions and garlic. Add the chicken pieces then cook until brown. Add water just to cover the chicken pieces. (Be careful not to add too much water; too much liquid will diminish the delicate flavor of the chicken.) Let boil then add the tomato sauce and chorizo bilbao, then simmer.
Add all the pre-cooked vegetables including the broth, baguio beans and saba, then let boil and simmer. Season with salt, pepper and sugar.
Serve with Grilled Eggplant Salsa.

For the Grilled Eggplant Salsa:
Using a saute pan or small wok, toast the garlic cloves with skins on by continuously turning the garlic. Oil is not added anymore. Toast until garlic becomes pungent and the skin turns light brown. Skins will be easy to remove at this point. (I learned this tip from America's Test Kitchen. This mellows down the overpowering flavor of the garlic.) Let cool then chop finely. Set aside.
Grill the eggplants over the stove (Griller is the best but this will do). Remove the charred skins then cut as finely as possible.
Combine the grilled eggplant and garlic.
Add extra-virgin olive oil just to moisten, then add the vinegars to taste. Season with salt, pepper and sugar. I like the salsa with just a hint of sourness so be careful when adding the vinegar. Do so by teaspoonfuls.