I Have a Go at Adobo

I Have a Go at Adobo

Filipino cuisine is having a moment, with some calling it the new “hot” style of cooking, which is kind of funny as the basics, like adobo, have been around for centuries. Filipino is just being discovered by many of us, and some of us are surprised by what we’re finding.

Everyone, however, knows adobo or thinks they know adobo.

Adobo is called the Filipino national dish. It’s also regularly said to be one of the first recipes that a Filipino boy or girl learns from his or her family. I can understand why it might be both. It’s an extraordinarily easy dish to make, and the first time I made it, I used a recipe that was actually a hybrid version of recipes I’d received from Chrissy Camba (Maddy’s Dumpling House) and Sarahlynn Pablo (filipinokitchen.com).



My recipe for adobo was stunningly simple:

• Whole chicken, about four pounds, cut up
• 2 cups soy
• 1 cup white vinegar
• 2 bay leaves
• 10 cloves garlic
• Two teaspoons black pepper

Despite the fact that “adobo” is derived from the Spanish “adobar,” which means “to marinate,” it does not seem that marinating is either suggested or required by most recipes I’ve come across. Some people marinate the meat; I never do. I just put everything – including the raw meat – into the crock pot, cook on low it for several hours and then serve it over white rice. It’s so very, very good, so stunningly simple, so easy and delicious. The vinegar in particular perks up the dish and, like the salt, it brings out the best in whatever protein you choose to cook in it.

Now, anyone who has made adobo will likely take exception to the above recipe. For instance, some, like Pablo, prefer to use just chicken thighs, and I get that, but I was curious to see how the breasts would come out in an adobo preparation (answer: fine…though I’d probably, like Pablo, all prefer thighs). I used Camba’s ratio of soy to vinegar, but as with any of the other ingredients, you can pretty much modify this recipe to your taste.

There are over 7,000 islands in the Philippines, so as you might expect, there are lots of variations on the basic theme. The cool thing about adobo is that it’s an extraordinarily open structure, allowing one to use any number of proteins (though chicken seems most popular) and many different ingredients. The absolute must-haves are salt (soy, fish sauce or, I guess, just salt) and acid (usually vinegar, but sometimes calamansi or other citrus juice). The bay leaves, garlic and black pepper are also de rigueur, though they seem somehow less essential.

For my second pass at adobo, I got cocky and started modifying the recipe:

• 4 pounds pork shoulder, cut up into irregular chucks
• 1.5 cup soy
• 1.5 cup coconut vinegar
• bay leaves
• 10 cloves garlic
• I teaspoon black pepper
• Small jalapeno, cut up
• I large radish, cut into half coins
• 1 medium-size rutabaga, cut into chunks

I used a 1:1 soy to vinegar mix because Carolyn thought my first adobo was a little too salty. I used cocoanut vinegar just to see how that would work out (and I was thinking there might be some sweetness in there that would work well with the pork). For variety, I added a small chopped jalapeno pepper; chilies are not uncommon in adobo, though one usually sees bird’s eye chilies (the Spanish galleon trade brought many Mexican ingredients to the Philippines, including chilies and annatto, which I’ve also seen in some adobo recipes, though it is not common). The radish and rutabaga were probably the most random ingredients; I used these root veg to test my theory that you could put almost anything into adobo (except maybe marshmallows or canned sardines) and it would turn out okay. I actually forgot about rutabaga and put it in about three hours into the cook; it cooked on low for another three hours or so, and it turned out crisp and fine: adobo gives you license to get away with many cooking mistakes.



How’d it turn out? Excellent. My daughter, Lydia, had two big servings, complaining that she wanted more of that taste in her mouth though she had no more room in her belly. Carolyn still thought it was too salty, but there’s no satisfying some people (smile).

Adobo is one of those dishes you can cook for a long time without fear of over-cooking, and you can add stuff to it – like radishes and rutabagas – without fear of messing it up. Like a good friend, adobo is very forgiving and very accepting.

Overall, I think I may have preferred the chicken adobo; the “looser” chicken muscles seemed to absorb the sauce more readily. Chicken is perhaps the most common protein used in the Philippines, probably because it’s less expensive than other meats (beef adobo is not common, though I’ve see it here and there). I made a huge pot of the stuff using a huge five-buck pork shoulder from Pete’s Market. Like American BBQ, adobo is humble food, making use of less expensive ingredients to yield a wonderful taste; pork shoulder is not expensive, but you have to cook it for a long time to soften up the meat…and that’s what crock pots are for.

I’m in research mode now, so any adobo insights/recipes/lore you might be able to share here would be much appreciated.

Ooh, thanks for this write-up, and what an inspiration to have a go at Chrissy's recipe. I will try your chicken version pronto!
But thought I'd add, especially for those without a crockpot, that we have consistently found this Sam Sifton version super delicious as well:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/magaz ... t-001.html

1 cup coconut milk

¼ cup soy sauce

1½ cup rice vinegar

12 garlic cloves, peeled

3 whole bird’s-eye chilies or other fiery chili

3 bay leaves

1½ teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

3 to 4 pounds chicken thighs.

1. Combine all of the marinade ingredients in a large, nonreactive bowl or resealable plastic freezer bag. Add the chicken and turn to coat. Refrigerate overnight or for at least 2 hours.

2. Place chicken and marinade in a large lidded pot or Dutch oven over high heat and bring to a boil. Immediately reduce heat to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is cooked through and tender, around 30 minutes.

3. Heat broiler. Transfer chicken pieces to a large bowl, raise heat under the pot to medium-high, and reduce the sauce until it achieves almost the consistency of cream, about 10 minutes. Remove bay leaves and chilies.

4. Place chicken pieces on a roasting pan and place under broiler for 5 to 7 minutes, until they begin to caramelize. Remove, turn chicken, baste with sauce and repeat, 3 to 5 minutes more. Return chicken to sauce and cook for a few minutes more, then place on a platter and drizzle heavily with sauce. Serves four. Adapted from Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan, Purple Yam restaurant, Brooklyn.

Looks fantastic David - thanks for sharing. Though I realize this is a food created and eaten in a warm climate, I'd say we're just entering the season where this dish makes perfect sense for Chicago. But what about Adobo chicken bread???

David Hammond wrote:[b][color=green]
Despite the fact that “adobo” is derived from the Spanish “adobar,” which means “to marinate,” it does not seem that marinating is either suggested or required by most recipes I’ve come across. S

Mexican adobo, which has very little in common with this recipe, also does not marinate the meat.

Fun. I'd like to try the Sifton recipe ingredients in a crock pot to see what happens.

The sense in which adobar is used in Mexican and Filipino recipe naming is not one of marinated (in the contemporary culinary sense), but of "fixed up," as in fortified, slathered, prepared, patched or pasted. Compare adobe (convergent etymology, al-tob, Arabic brick), dab, daub, tap. Worked through with spice, tested, made strong through reinforcing flavors.

lougord99 wrote:

David Hammond wrote:[b][color=green]
Despite the fact that “adobo” is derived from the Spanish “adobar,” which means “to marinate,” it does not seem that marinating is either suggested or required by most recipes I’ve come across. S

Mexican adobo, which has very little in common with this recipe, also does not marinate the meat.

I know less about Mexican adobo than I do Filipino adobo, but I googled Mexican Adobo and Mexican Chicken Adobo and there are many recipes that suggest marinating for sometimes 4 or more hours. I am not saying this is "authentic" [perish the thought!: http://resto.newcity.com/2015/11/20/a-genuine-myth-if-they-call-it-authentic-its-probably-baloney/], but it is apparently not uncommon to marinate the meat with a Mexican adobo whereas it does seem very uncommon with a Filipino adobo.

Santander wrote:The sense in which adobar is used in Mexican and Filipino recipe naming is not one of marinated (in the contemporary culinary sense), but of "fixed up," as in fortified, slathered, prepared, patched or pasted. Compare adobe (convergent etymology, al-tob, Arabic brick), dab, daub, tap. Worked through with spice, tested, made strong through reinforcing flavors.

That is fascinating, Matt. If adobo in Mexican (and perhaps originally Spanish) culinary tradition did not, as you say, mean you should let the protein sit in a spicy liquid before cooking, is it possible that the name itself convinced latter day cooks and others to conclude that, well, "adobar" may mean marinating so we better darn well let the protein sit in spicy liquid before we cook it? In other words, could the name have mislead cooks to put the protein through a step that is, ultimately, quite unnecessary (a slow cook in salt-vinegar solution is going to soften up almost any cut of meat, and sheesh, chicken hardly needs any softening up at all). I guess the point could be made that a marinade step helps push the flavor into the protein, but in both the chicken and pork adobos I made, the meat was shot through with flavor.

I had wondered how "adobo" and "adobe" were related, and your etymology suggests that the way they slap the spicy paste on the goat at Zaragoza (like mud on the wall of a Mexican casa) could properly called "adobo" or "adobe."

As with all food etymologies there is healthy debate. Wikipedia (with some pretty casual sources) contests simply that Spanish colonials saw vinegar being used in the Philippines and called the dish adobo there in a vacuum, using their contemporaneous word for vinegar, but of course there had been Iberian Spanish dishes called adobo before that, and there are a whole spectrum of adobo dishes across the Spanish-speaking world. Adobo = vinegar is not necessarily false, but there is a nuance.

What I was told while studying Spanish architecture is that the sense of seasoning (something prepared, something spice-infused, something fixed with care) follows from the sense of fortifying, and that the reason the verb "adobar" existed was as a back-formation from 1) Arabic al-tob, mud-brick, from mud reinforced by 2) Frankish daub, a similar construction method, see (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cob_%28material%29). [While daub itself has a de-albus / unwhiten Latin backstory, one finds it even in Renaissance sources close to and used interchangeably with tap, tamp, tape, tap, and dab]. The posit here is that by the time adobar meant "to marinate," it had already meant "to fortify," and that it wasn't necessarily the liquid that was important, but the fact that something was fixed up / restored / treated right with seasoning.

Here is incidentally a pointed comment from a century ago on whether the (construction) noun comes from the verb, or the verb from the noun, and on the reliability of dictionaries:

http://bit.ly/21hdA1q