Philippine Adobo

   

   Adobo is a Spanish word that literally means "marinade". When you say adobo here in New York, they will think it is the paste or marinade made from chillies, vinegar, herbs, and spices, used in Mexican cookery to flavor meat or fish or the Adobo seasoning made by Goya, one of the growing food company here in America. But for Filipinos like me it is one of our staple dishes. The famous version consist of pork or chicken stewed in a mix of vinegar, soy sauce, pepper, bay leaves and garlic. Aside from using chicken and pork, varieties includes squid, kangkong (water spinach) and various shellfish.

   I remember cooking chicken adobo under my father's instruction for our dinner that night. I, obediently following his instruction though in reality, I already know how to do so except that I want to find out his very own technique. He was impressed to say the least with the exception of the chicken almost burning because I wasn't really keeping an eye on the dish, it's a good thing that it just made the chicken's skin crispy. Through the years, I managed to adjust the flavors according to my taste, and that means putting a lot of garlic and a bit of minced onion to compliment the vinegar. Still, with or without onion, it's one of my son's favorite dish which is good enough for me.

Adobo

     *I prefer dark meat when I use chicken as it retains the juices more than the white. add 1/2 a cup of water since it takes more longer to stew than the pork.
     **For pork adobo, I use the pork belly, and cut it into cubes. The combination of lean meat and fat makes for a juicier adobo. The bone attached adds flavor as well.
     ***If you are not very fond of garlic, you can lessen to the amount you prefer but you can never take it out from this dish.

Ingredients:


equal parts vinegar and soy sauce
1 tbsp pepper (crushed); if you'll be using whole peppercorns double the amount
1 piece of small bay leaf
half of a garlic's bulb (roughly chopped)
1 tbsp minced onion (optional)
1 lb of meat


  In a bowl, mix the first four ingredient then add the preferred meat. Make sure that the meat gets completely coated by the mixture. Transfer to a pan, covering and placing over medium-high heat. Lower heat to medium-low when liquid starts to boil. This is better cook slow to make sure that the flavors seep in and the meat gets thoroughly cooked.

  I used two different techniques with the adobo I made for this dinner; one I learned from my dad, the other I learned from experimenting. My experiment was rubbing 2-3 cloves of oven-roasted garlic on the meat before adding it to the marinade then cook as instructed.

 

   My dad's will be to cook adobo twice, yep, you read it right. This means chopping the other half of the garlic's bulb and reserving it. When the meat gets tender (pierced it with a fork to test doneness), remove it from the pan by transferring it in a bowl. Return pan to the stove, add a tablespoon of oil then sauté the reserved chopped garlic till it tends to stick on the pan. Then take the meat out of the bowl (retain the reduced liquid) and sauté with the garlic for 3-5 minutes. Add half of the remaining liquid from the bowl and cooked by sautéing for another two minutes. Serve over hot white rice or fried rice and enjoy!