Adobo Cook-off

Filipino-style adobo

In Filipino cuisine, adobo refers to a common and very popular cooking process indigenous to the Philippines.[1]

When Spanish colonizers first took administration over the Philippines in the late 1500s and early 1600s, they encountered an indigenous cooking process which involved stewing with vinegar, which they then referred to as “adobo,” which is the Spanish word for seasoning or marinade. Dishes prepared in this manner eventually came to be known by this name, with the original term for the dish now lost to history.[1]

Thus, the adobo dish and cooking process in Filipino cuisine and the general description “adobo” in Spanish cuisine share similar characteristics, but in fact refer to different things with different cultural roots. While Philippine adobo can be considered adobo – a marinated dish – in the Spanish sense, the Philippine usage is much more specific.

Typically, pork or chicken, or a combination of both, is slowly cooked in soy sauce, vinegar, crushed garlic, bay leaf, and black peppercorns, and often browned in the oven or pan-fried afterward to get the desirable crisped edges. This dish originates from the northern region of the Philippines. It is commonly packed for Filipino mountaineers and travelers. Its relatively long shelf-life is due to one of its primary ingredients, vinegar, which inhibits the growth of bacteria.

The standard accompaniment to adobo is white rice.

Outside the home-cooked dish, the essence of adobo has been developed commercially 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.

In the Philippines and Latin America, preparing adobo is simple and requires but a handful of ingredients. In good-tasting adobo, none of the spice flavors dominate 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 which is generally considered somewhat healthier.

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, with appropriate changes in the basic recipe. Squid adobo (adobong pusit), for instance, is quite different. While most adobo preparations have a brownish sauce, squid adobo has a deep, purplish-black sauce not unlike the Spanish dish calamares en su tinta due to the inclusion of squid ink.In the Philippines and Latin America, preparing adobo is simple and requires but a handful of ingredients. In good-tasting adobo, none of the spice flavors dominate 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 which is generally considered somewhat healthier.