Philippine adobo (from Spanish adobar: “marinade”, sauce” or “seasoning”) is a popular Filipino dish and cooking process in Philippine cuisine that involves meat, seafood or vegetables marinated in vinegar, soy sauce, garlic and black peppercorns which is browned in oil and simmered in the marinade. It has occasionally been considered the unofficial national dish in the Philippines (Wikipedia)
I so love this dish. It gets better as it ages so you can prepare it ahead. Think emergency extra ulam for those days you have unexpected visitors. Just warm or heat up and voila, dinner is served.
Liempo is the family’s favorite and is always available on my fridge. Garlic, soy and vinegar are basic essentials that are always present in my pantry. Plus Adobo is so flexible you can do it in several ways: 1. Sans toyo or soy sauce – You create White adobo 2. With Bagoong in lieu of Soy Sauce – Binagoongan 3. Onion in lieu of garlic – Pork steak 4. Add sugar , potato and Lea & Perrins Sauce and you create Asado 5. Add coconut cream and ginger in lieu of garlic- Ginataang Adobo 6. Fry ’til dry and chop into little pieces and you create Adobo Hash 7. Add banana blossoms and you have Humba 8. With star anise and you create Patatim 9. Create Chinese Adobo by adding boiled egg or quail’s eggs. The list goes on and on. So when pressed for time, I do adobo. Today, I am sharing the family’s “Lazy Adobo” recipe. In the Philippines, there are many versions of it depending on the region or the beloved grandma’s secret formula
Ingredients:
Garlic
Vinegar
Soy Sauce
Bay Leaf
Liempo
Chicken Liver
1. Just dump all ingredients together in the pan and simmer until liempo or pork belly is melt in your mouth and sauce is reduced and oil from the pork is discernible – about 2 hours.
Easy peasy. Serve with steaming hot rice. A little caveat – you may want to cook extra rice just in case.
Indeed a quintessential and much loved Pinoy food that can be eaten all year round. Some may think its as ubiquitous as your ordinary everyday food. But there lies its charm. Each serving of that humble adobo conjures memories of happy days of love and bonding with relatives especially grandmothers who have long gone but not before they handed over their precious adobo recipe.