20250305 ADOBO 6 WAYS FOR DELIVERY

- Adobo around the Philippines!

- We couldn't do this series
without talking about adobo.

If you read Pigafetta's journal...

Hey, guys. Who's Pigafetta? Quick.

A little check here.

- From what I know,
he's a famous songwriter.

(laughs)

Singer-songwriter.

- Pigafetta was basically someone
who documented

Magellan's voyage
in the Philippines

in the early 1500s,
so it's one of the only

written documents that we have
that has a blow-by-blow basis

of how Philippines was
pre-colonization

when the Spanish arrived.

And in there, in food,
there's really not that much,

but what we do know
from the food that is there,

a lot of the times
when the Spanish would arrive,

they'd be presented
with a couple of options.

But they also do talk
a lot about pork

or animals cooked
in their own juices.

So because of our penchant
for sour foods,

because of our penchant
for oily foods,

and because we know
we're primarily a country

that roasts and boils
and steams,

then people kind of say
that could be the original adobo.

So pork cooked in its juices.

So today, that's why
we're doing it,

'cause adobo is very central
to the Philippines,

there's probably that one,
you know, initial recipe

where everything stemmed for
but today,

we have thousands of versions.

So we're each going
to be making our own versions

as traditionally as possible
from the provinces

and regions that they are from.

I'll go first.

I'll start with the most basic
kind of closest

to pre-colonial adobo
that we have,

and everyone else is going
to follow after.

Let's get cooking.

It's always very difficult
to call something pre-colonial

or to call something
the first or the original.

Obviously, food,
just like history,

is kind of fluid,
and it's really tough

to kind of pinpoint something.

The word adobo in itself
and how we call it nowadays

is a "Spanish iteration."

It probably wasn't called that.

Obviously, we had
our own words for it.

So I can't even tell you
what this dish was

"originally called."

So if I can't do that,
I can't tell you

how it was originally cooked.

What we can do is assume.

Just like a lot when it comes
to Filipino culture,

we have to put in
a lot of assumptions

based on the culture
that we have today

to assume what our history was
because of a lack

of written materials
and history in general.

So through that process,
we can kind of say,

in very simple terms,
the original kind of recipe

for an adobo would call
for boar or pork nowadays

in its own juices.

So we have some lard
over here, some salt,

because we've been
a salt-producing nature.

Water, highly available.

Garlic and bay leaves.

Questionable, right?

So garlic, we're not exactly sure
when it came in.

Usually, you'd have
some peppercorns

in here as well.

But as we know,
pepper is not necessarily native

to the Philippines.

And then, bay leaves.

If you have spent some time
in markets in Dumaguete or Cebu,

you will see a bay leaf
that doesn't look like a bay leaf,

but it's still called barrel,

but it is believed
to be a native bay leaf

to the Philippines
and not the bay leaf

that the Spanish brought.

So that's why I'm going
to integrate it today.

But I'm going to try
to keep everything

as traditional
and as authentic as possible.

Using a palayok here,
I'm going to grab my lard

and I'm just gonna spread it
on the bottom here.

When you ask people
around the Philippines

what they know about adobo,
I'm pretty sure 70-80%

of them eat their adobo
with soy sauce,

but that is an integration
that came in only

when the Chinese started trading
with us, right?

So that's why, in general,
I have a very hard time

calling anything authentic
or anything original

because of how Filipino history
kind of unfolded.

That's just how our cuisine is.

So it's very important
that we accept

everyone's kind of point of view
when it comes to the food

and we just respect
each other's way of doing things.

So there's a lot of lard there.

It's going to render out
even more lard

because we're going
to add our pork.

Then we're going
to take our pork pieces,

layer those in kind
of really tightly.

Now up to you
if you want to keep the skin on,

keep it off.

Really your call.

I kind of like that chewy skin,
lots of garlic.

That's a personal preference
of mine.

Make sure that that's
in between the pork as well.

Bay leaves.

Generous rock salt.

Some water.

Not to cover, just halfway
because you will be generating

more liquid as the fat kind
of renders out.

Something that we've
been producing

as long as we've
been producing alcohol,

which is a long time
and definitely pre-colonial—

our vinegar.

This, I believe,
is a nipa palm vinegar.

I highly suggest
when you do make adobo

at home, try out
different vinegars

to figure out what kind
of vinegar you like

in your adobo.

Low heat for 15 minutes.

We're gonna let that vinegar
kind of cook down a little bit

without stirring it.

We're then gonna let that go
for about 10 to 15 minutes,

cover it, let that go
for a further hour, check on it,

if we're happy where it is,
you can eat it then,

or you can go ahead
and cook it down further.

Okay. So now we are
in my test kitchen at home,

and while I was kind
of cooking some recipes,

I realized, hey,
we haven't shown you

what the adobo looks like.

So I have it right here.

As you can see,
it is insane how much fat

was eventually rendered out
of all that pork,

and obviously, cooking things with lard. So previously, I guess in times before refrigeration, confiting something or keeping something in lard or fat was a way of preservation. Especially there is some vinegar in there and some salt. So you could potentially keep this outside as long as it's kind of like completely covered with fat. Ours isn't fully kind of submerged in fat, which means if you'd want to do that, you probably have to add way more lard than is warranted or maybe necessary.

Comes with flavor. But like this in the fridge will keep for a long, long time. So now we're going to go ahead and fry it up. So we went straight into putting it in the jar, and we haven't actually tasted it yet. And the reason behind that is this is the type of food that really just does so much better the longer it's kind of kept. And just keeping it overnight like that before actually eating it will probably just really give us such amazing flavor. Everything here is cooked, obviously, so all we're asking to do here is add a little bit of color and some crispiness to the overall dish. The fat you can put back into the jar if you want to, or you can serve it on rice, which is the best way of doing it. It's crunchy where it needs to be. We can taste that fat. It almost is like collageny in texture. And those burnt bits that kind of just stuck to the pan, it's like automatic adobo flakes. So you made your pre colonial adobo and adobo flakes at the same time. That is so good. And I would not be able to finish this plate. It's just. It's almost too much in terms of flavor. That is very heavy but delicious. Okay, now let's check out the next adobo recipe.