Garlic, spices and Philippine Independence
To commemorate the 110th anniversary of Philippine Independence, I am sharing with you one of my comfort foods - adobo.
Adobo is considered a national dish of the Philippines. The basic ingredient is vinegar and garlic and meat can be chicken or pork. I prefer to use pork belly. I like to add lots of garlic to my adobo. Some version would add bay leaves. For this version, I combined garlic and bay leaves to add some zest to adobo.
The basic adobo uses meat, vinegar and garlic. The Chinese influence in Filipino cuisine brought soy sauce to the dish and probably made it even better. The kind of vinegar will also impart a different flavor. It is common for us to use coconut or cane vinegar. It is a popular dish even before the prevalence of refrigerators as this can be stored for several days at room temperature. They say adobo tastes better a day after cooking. I don’t know, though, it doesn’t seem to last at home longer than a day.
Pork adobo
1 kilo pork belly, cut into serving pieces
1/2 cup cane vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
3-4 dried bay leaves
1 tbsp whole peppercorns
6-10 cloves garlic, chopped
Mix all the ingredients in a pot. Add enough water to cover the pork belly. Cover the pot and bring to a boil. Don’t mix the adobo while cooking. Simmer until pork is tender. Add more water if necessary. Once pork is tender, keep on simmering until sauce has thickened. Best eaten with garlic fried rice.
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Submitted to Weekend Herb Blogging hosted by Astrid of Paulchen’s Food Blog.
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June 12th, 2008 at 10:12 am
I’ve heard of this dish, and even tried making it once, but I bet yours is really delicious.
June 12th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Yummy! Pork adobo is my all time favorite and will never get tired of this Filipino food - winter, spring, summer or fall.
Thanks for visiting my site, kabayan.
Manuel
http://www.AdoboRepublic.net
June 13th, 2008 at 3:44 am
I’ve not heard of this dish but I’m going to surprise a Fillipino friend for dinner. Thanks for this national dish - it does look good and I love that it only has a few ingredients - pretty easy to do.
June 19th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
this looks really yum.. i agree with you, this is definitely a filipino comfort food.
nice blog..
June 23rd, 2008 at 7:19 pm
[...] Gay from A Scientist in the Kitchen made Pork adabo [...]
June 26th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Always great to find other Filipino bloggers. Can’t og wrong with pork belly adobo
July 1st, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Pork belly adobo. No matter how often I see it, it always looks good.
July 30th, 2008 at 8:50 am
[...] got a whole yellow fina tuna and sliced into serving pieces then cooked them adobo style minus the soy sauce. Half is cooked with coconut milk and the other half with curry sauce. [...]
August 13th, 2008 at 6:16 am
[...] This is yet another version of adobo. [...]