Adobo

Adobo is a popularly common dish found in the Philippines, thus a national dish among the Filipinos. Typically made from pork or chicken or a combination of both, it is slowly cooked in soy sauce, vinegar, crushed garlic, bay leaf, and black peppercorns, and often browned in the oven or pan-fried afterwards to get the desirable crisped edges. This dish originates from the northern region of the Philippines. Commonly packed for Filipino mountaineers and travelers, the relatively long shelf-life of this food is well known due to one of its primary ingredient’s, particularly vinegar, that inhibits the growth of bacteria.
The standard accompaniments to adobo — and ultimate comfort meal for many Filipinos — are mung bean stew (monggo guisado) and lots of white rice. Unless adobo is eaten for breakfast, in which case fried or scrambled eggs, garlic-fried rice, chopped tomato & onion salad, and atchara (green papaya pickle) are the tradition.
Outside the dish, the essential flavoring of the food has been acquired and adapted to other foods. A number of successful local Philippine snack products usually mark their items “Adobo-flavored.” This assortment includes, but is not limited to nuts, chips, noodle soups, and corn crackers.
As being one of the first dishes Filipinos learn to cook, it is simple and requires just a handful of ingredients. In good-tasting adobo, none of the spice flavors dominates but rather the taste is a delicate balance of all the ingredients. The most widely preferred type has been traditionally pork adobo, followed by chicken adobo — although chicken adobo is very popular these days for health reasons.
Other ingredients such as squid, beef, lamb, game fowl like quail and snipe, catfish, okra, eggplant, string beans, and water spinach (kangkong) are also made into adobo, using a variety of recipes. Squid adobo (adobong pusit), for instance, is quite different. While most adobos have a brownish sauce, squid adobo, due to its ink, has a deep, purplish-black sauce, not unlike the Spanish dish calamares en su tinta.
Yet there are more varieties of adobo that use either: coconut milk giving the sauce a creamy pastel color and a milky thickness; distinct Chinese ingredients such as star anise, rock sugar, and rice wine typically found in the Chinese-Filipino community; a Mexican ingredient particularly the earthy red-coloured spice achiote (atchuete in the Philippines), also known as annatto, found in a beef variety from Batangas province in the Philippines; sugar, or sweet orange juice or pineapple juice yielding a sweet variety. Yet another variant uses the addition of hot chili peppers.

Adobo Recipes

PorkAdobo
Ingredients
1 lb Pork Loin – cut into chunks
1 Head Garlic
1/4 c Soy Sauce
1 ts Black Pepper(freshly ground)
1/2 c White Vinegar
1 tb Vegetable Oil
Instructions
Place the pork in a medium-size pot together with the garlic soy sauce pepper and vinegar and let stand for 2 hours.Cook slowly in the same pot until the pork is tender (about 30 minutes). Transfer pieces of garlic to a seperate pan and fry in hot oil until brown. Add the pork pieces to the garlic and the fry until brown then Drain. Add the broth to the fried pork and garlic and simmer for 10 minutes.Brown the pork before adding it to the soy sauce mixture in order to render more of the fat out.

Chicken Adobo
Ingredients
8 chicken thighs
1 quart water
2 cups water
3/4 cup vinegar
1/4-1/2 cup soy sauce
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon fresh coarse ground black pepper
8 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced thin
1/4 cup vegetable oil
Instructions
In a large mixing bowl combine thawed chicken, water and salt. Allow chicken to soak several minutes while preparing the other ingredients. Just before adding to frying pan, drain on paper towels. In a medium saucepan combine water, vinegar, soy sauce, bay leaves and pepper. Heat on medium low setting, covered, about 15 minutes. In a 12″ skillet or chicken fryer combine oil and sliced garlic over medium low heat. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Drain chicken pieces and add, skin side down, to garlic oil, increasing heat to medium high. Cook 5 minutes per side. Reduce heat to simmer and pour vinegar-soy mixture over chicken. If finishing adobo in skillet, partially cover pan and continue cooking, turning occasionally for 30-40 minutes, or until sauce is reduced by half.
Alternate Slow Cooking Method: After browning chicken, place in 3 or 4 quart slow cooker, on low setting.
Pour vinegar-soy mixture over top, and cook 2 hours, covered.
Remove cover, increase setting to high and finish cooking an additional 1 hour.

Adobong Pusit
Ingredients
1/2 kg Small fresh squids
1 md Onion, sliced
1/2 c Native vinegar
2 md Tomatoes, chopped
10 Cloves garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
1 ts Vet-sin (monosodium glutamate)
Instructions
Wash the squids very well. Remove the long thin membrane in the head and slit the eyes to bring out the ink. Place the squids in a saucepan with vinegar, 6 cloves garlic crushed, salt and pepper. Cover and cook slowly until the squids are tender. Cut cooked squids into 1/2 inch slices crosswise. Crush remaining garlic and saute in a little lard in another pan. Add the onion and tomatoes and cook until tomatoes are very soft. Add the squids and the liquid in which they were boiled. Simmer for 7 minutes. Season with salt, pepper and vet-sin.

Adobong Kangkong
Ingredients
1 big bowl of kangkong (river spinach)
1/4 kilo of pork, cut into small pieces
1/4 cup of vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 onion, diced
2 laurel leaves (bay leaves)
1/2 teaspoon of monosodium glutamate (MSG)
1 cup pork stock (broth) or bouillon pork cube dissolved in water
Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Sauté garlic and onions in a big pan then add the pork. Allow the pork to brown and oil for a few minutes.Add a cup of pork stock (or bouillon cube dissolved in water or plain water), laurel
leaves, soy sauce, some salt and bring to a boil.Let simmer then add the vinegar. Do not stir for 5 minutes.Add the kangkong stalks first and cook for 1 minute then add the kangkong leaves. Continue cooking until the vegetable is done.Serve hot with rice.
Note:This recipe can be used to cook other vegetables like eggplant, spinach,cabbage, string beans or any other vegetable.

Fish Adobo
Ingredients
3 lbs skinless trout fillets, cubed (or similar fish)
1 tablespoon garlic, finely minced
1/3 cup vinegar
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon salt (original calls for 1 tablespoon!)
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1 small bay leaf (optional)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
Instructions
Combine all ingredients in a saucepan, except oil.
Marinate for one hour.
On stovetop, bring to a boil.
Cover and simmer for 5 minutes.
Remove fish and set aside.
Boil sauce until reduced to half and set aside.
Heat oil in frying pan and fry fish until browned.
Pour sauce in with fish and simmer for 3 minutes.