Filipino Adobo
April 22, 2006 by Stef
Filed under Food & Nutrition
As a Filipino mom, Adobo is one of the things that top my list when preparing food for kids recovering from the colds or flu. The strong flavors that are the hallmarks of this dish are suited perfectly to taste buds dulled by medication. Plus the vinegar and loads of garlic that I put in have their own medicinal properties that hasten my kids’ journey back to health.
Adobo is often called the Filipino national dish. I won’t argue that because it probably should be, being as it is *the* one dish people would probably recommend you try if you could eat only one. A whole book can be, and has been, written about adobo, and it arouses such a passion in every Filipino with whom you discuss it. I won’t write the recipe because there’s already a ton of it online that you can try, as you can see from the list following this. All I can tell you is that whenever you make adobo you should make it *your own*.
On this particular night I made ours with chicken thighs and drumsticks, all de-skinned except for one (just to provide a bit of fat to carry the flavors through). The thing with adobo is that it is really adaptable to your tastes or whatever you have in the kitchen. My ultimate adobo would be one made with pork, chicken, and beef. No coconut milk, though I love my dad’s coconut milk adobo (adobo sa gata) which he has been making since I was a child. I prefer my adobo marinated so that the soy sauce and the vinegar seep in through the fibers of the meat, but skipping that step won’t hurt your results too much. What I *do* like is to take some of the fatty pieces of pork, or the chicken if it has not been de-skinned, and dry-fry that in a cast-iron griddle. What that does is caramelize the surface at the same time that it renders the fat, so you get this delicious combination of crisp and concentrated sour-salty-garlicky taste when you bite into it.
Though it is definitely not traditional, I also sometimes add greens to the cooking liquid after the adobo has been cooked, as you can see in the picture. It saves me time not to have to prepare another dish, it takes advantage of the rich flavors already there from cooking the adobo, and I’ve added more nutrition onto my kids’ plates.
And here you go, a sampling of adobo recipes around the ‘net:
Iska’s recipe for Chicken and Pork Adobo
Mike’s recipe, from his friend Alfredo
Arroz a la Adobo
Celia’s Blonde Adobo
Chicken Adobo from Binary Soup
Ed Tep’s Adobo-Style Pork Chops
The Computer Curmudgeon’s Chicken Adobo
Cendrillon’s Romy Dorotan’s Adobo, courtesy of Martha Stewart
Random Soul’s Chicken Adobo
Several Adobo Recipes from FilipinoFoods.Info
as well as some Random Thoughts on Adobo, from The Wily Filipino.
Adobo is really a versatile dish what with all the versions every Filipino makes… I have actually quite a few other versions I would like to post. Like my mom has this soupy version and another one I got from a colleague with radish and tomatoes.
adobo would always be on the top of my “must-always-eat” list . . . your chicken adobo version here is quite similar to one of my earlier posts which i have adapted since . . .
http://www.mikemina.com/index.php/2005/09/08/ambas-diplomatic-adobo/
lovely adobo…….delish
hi stef! just wanna update you on that link to my CPA….
http://www.iskandals.com/edx/?p=144
Today I decided to learn how to cook adobong. After reading a TON a recipes, I decided that instead of trying to find the perfect version, it’s easier to just figure out the general rules of the game. Here’s what I ended up thinking. Any comments? Thanks!
Essential characteristics of adobong:
1. about 1/4 to 1 cup of both vinegar and soy sauce.
2. 1 to 2 kilo of meat: pork, squid, chicken, or octopus, in order of prevalence. Cut into cubes.
3.black pepper
4.meat is simmered in the soy-vinegar mixture at low heat for 1/2 to 1 hour, or more.
variables:
1.amount of vinegar and soy sauce, and relative proportions. In most versions vinegar predominates, but some cooks use more soy sauce than vinegar.
2.Most (but not all) cooks brown the meat by frying in oil. Some do this before the simmering stage, and some after. A minority of cooks simmer only, and do not fry.
3.use soy sauce vs. salt: soy sauce is a recent trend (from the second half of the 20th century), under the influence of Chinese immigrants
4.Amount of liquid remaining at the end: although the cooking process is mainly one of simmering the meat in liquid, at serving time the eater of adobong usually seems to expect chunks of meat with very little liquid. This is achieved by cooking until most of the water has evaporated. Some cooks simply simmer the meat slowly for several hours until the soupiness is gone; I suspect that this is the more traditional version. A quicker method (perhaps the most widely advocated on the internet) is to remove the meat once it it considered done, reduce the remaining liquid at high heat until it becomes a thick sauce, finally recombining it with the meat. “Soupy” adobong does have its adherents, but they appear to be a minority.
5.Optional ingredients, in order of popularity: garlic (1/2 to 1 head), bay leaves (2 to 4), sugar (brown or white, 2 teaspoons), onions (green or white), coconut milk. Sugar is mentioned rarely in internet recipes but from what I’ve heard it’s very commonly included by Filipino cooks.
6.Some cooks use the sauce to marinate the meat before cooking, but this seems to be uncommon. Given the length of the simmering time, marination is probably overkill.
Am I on the right track?
ciao!
i am an italian with a filipino boyfriend,and this is one of my favorite filipino dish.we usually eat it with “al dente” cooked rice.but my bf modified it a bit,making it “italianized”…i’ll ask him to post his recipe here,coz it’s really very,very good.by the way,he works as a chef here in italy…
cheers,
tatti
A child eats in his cultural way,,VERY BAD ?..Do the people who think he eats like a pig ,drink their soft drinks straight from the bottle or can , NO DRINKING STRAW ?..This is something that I find is more piggish.A fork and spoon are more than likely very clean,,can we say the same about bottles and cans ????..
do you have shirmp adobo??????