Philippine adobo (from : "marination", "sauce" or "seasoning" / ) is a popular Filipino dish and cooking process in Philippine cuisine. In its base form, meat, seafood, or vegetables are first browned in Cooking oil, and then marinated and simmered in vinegar, salt and/or soy sauce, and garlic. It is often considered the unofficial national dish in the Philippines.
History
The cooking method for the Philippine
adobo is indigenous to the Philippines. The various precolonial peoples of the Philippine archipelago often cooked or prepared their food with vinegar and salt in various techniques to preserve them in the
tropical. Vinegar, in particular, is one of the most important ingredients in Filipino cuisine, with the main traditional types being
coconut vinegar,
cane vinegar, nipa palm, and kaong palm. These are all linked to traditional
Alcoholic drink fermentation.
There are four main traditional cooking methods using vinegar in the Philippines:
kinilaw (raw seafood in vinegar and spices),
paksiw (a broth of meat with vinegar and spices),
sangkutsá (pre-cooked
braising of meat in vinegar and spices), and finally
adobo (a stew of vinegar, garlic, salt/soy sauce, and other spices).
It is believed that paksíw, sangkutsá, and
adobo are all derivations of
kiniláw. They are also related to cooking techniques like
sinigang and
pinangát na isdâ that also have a sour broth, albeit using fruits like
calamansi,
tamarind, unripe
,
bilimbi,
santól, and
carambola as souring agents instead of vinegar.
When the Spanish Empire colonized the Philippines in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, they encountered the adobo cooking process. It was first recorded in the 1613 dictionary Vocabulario de la lengua tagala compiled by the Spanish Franciscan missionary, Pedro de San Buenaventura. He referred to it as adobo de los naturales (" adobo of the native peoples").
The Spanish also applied the term adobo to any native dish that was marinated before consumption. However, the concept of cooking adobo already existed long before the arrival of the Spanish in 1521.
In the 1794 edition of the Vocabulario, it was applied to quilauìn ( kinilaw) a related but different dish which also primarily uses vinegar.
Description
While the
adobo dish and cooking process in Filipino cuisine and the general description of
adobo in
Spanish cuisine share similar characteristics, they refer to different things with different cultural roots.
Unlike the Spanish and Latin American
adobo, the main ingredients of Philippine
adobo are ingredients native to
Southeast Asia, which include vinegar (made from palm sap or sugarcane),
soy sauce (typically substituting salt),
, and
bay leaves (traditionally
Cinnamomum spp. leaves; but in modern times, usually
Laurus nobilis). Unlike Spanish and Latin American adobo, Philippine
adobo does not traditionally use
chili pepper,
paprika,
oregano, or
. Instead, they only share similarities in their primary use of vinegar and garlic. Philippine
adobo has a characteristically salty and sour, and often sweet taste, in contrast to Spanish and Mexican
adobos, which are spicier or infused with oregano.
While the Philippine
adobo can be considered
adobo in the Spanish sense—a marinated dish—the Philippine usage is much more specific to a cooking process (rather than a specific recipe) and is not restricted to meat.
Typically,
pork or chicken, or a combination of both, is slowly cooked in
vinegar, crushed
garlic,
bay leaf,
, and
soy sauce. It is served with white
rice.
It was traditionally cooked in small clay pots (
palayok or
kulon); but today, metal pots or
(
kawali) are largely used instead.
There are numerous variants of the adobo recipes in the Philippines.
A rarer version without soy sauce is known as adobong puti ("white adobo"), which uses salt instead, to contrast it with adobong itim ("black adobo"), the more prevalent versions with soy sauce.
The proportion of ingredients like soy sauce, bay leaves, garlic, or black pepper can vary. The amount and thickness of the sauce also varies as some like their adobo dry while some like it saucy. Other ingredients can sometimes be used; like siling labuyo, bird's eye chili, jalapeño pepper, Bell pepper, olive oil, , brown sugar, , pineapple, or lemon-lime sodas like Sprite. It may also be further browned in the oven, pan-fried, deep-fried, or even grilled to get crisped edges.
Adobo has been called the quintessential Philippine stew, served with rice both at daily meals and at feasts.
Variations
Based on the main ingredients, the most common
adobo types are
adobong manok, in which chicken is used, and
adobong baboy, in which pork is used.
Adobong baka (
beef), along with
adobong manok (chicken), is more popular among
Muslim Filipinos in accordance with
halal dietary laws.
Other meats may also be used, such as
pugò (quail),
itik (duck), and
kambíng (goat).
Seafood variants include fish (
isdâ),
catfish (
hitò), shrimp (
hipon), and squid or
cuttlefish (
pusít). Vegan options utilize
and
,
like
Ipomoea aquatica (
kangkóng),
(
labóng),
eggplant (
talóng),
(
pusô ng saging), and
okra (
okra).
Offal and giblets can also be cooked as adobo, like liver, gizzard, heart, and neck.
More exotic versions include adobong sawâ (Snake meat),
There are also regional variations. In Bicol Region, Quezon, and south in Zamboanga City, it is common for adobo to have coconut milk (known as adobo Ginataan). In Cavite province, mashed pork liver is added. In Batangas and Laguna, turmeric is added, giving the dish a distinct, yellowish color (known as adobong dilaw, "yellow adobo"), as well as a red variant using Annatto seeds in the former.
Adobo has also become a favorite of Filipino-based fusion cuisine, with avant-garde cooks coming up with variants such as "Japanese-style" pork adobo.
File:Filipino Chicken Adobo.JPG| Adobong manok (chicken) over rice
File:Chicken Adobo with Coconut Milk.jpg| Adobo sa gatâ (with coconut milk)
File:Pork adobo.jpg| Adobong baboy (pork) with pineapple
File:Adobong talong or Eggplant adobo (Philippines).jpg| Adobong talóng
(eggplant)
File:Fely J's Fried Crickets (Adobong Kamaru).jpg| Adobong kamaru
()
File:Adobong kangkong (Philippines).jpg| Adobong kangkóng
(water spinach)
File:Adobong hipon (Shrimp adobo, Philippines).jpg| Adobong hipon (shrimp)
File:Adobong pusit (squid adobo) - Philippines.jpg| Adobong pusit (squid)
File:Vegetarian Filipino Adobo.jpg|Vegetarian adobo
File:Philippine_chicken_neck_adobo1.jpg| Adobo made with chicken necks
Other uses
Outside of the dish itself, the flavor of
adobo has been developed commercially and adapted to other foods. A number of local Philippine snack products such as cornicks, nuts, chips, noodle soups, and corn crackers, market their items as "
adobo flavored".
Standardization
In 2021, the Bureau of Philippine Standards of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI-BPS) of the Philippines unveiled plans to standardize the most popular
Filipino cuisine to make it easier to promote them internationally as well as keep their cultural identity. Philippine
adobo will be the first of such dishes to be standardized. The definition will be set by a technical committee headed by Glenda Rosales Barreto, and includes representatives from the academia, government departments, the food industry, chefs, and food writers. The main reference will be
Kulinarya: A Guidebook to Philippine Cuisine (2008), authored by Barreto and the committee vice-chairperson Myrna Segismundo, both notable chefs of Filipino cuisine in their own right.
The announcement has received some criticism from the public, but the DTI-BPS clarified that it's not mandatory and will only aim to define a basic traditional recipe that can serve as a benchmark for determining the authenticity of Filipino dishes in the international setting.
In popular culture
On March 15, 2023,
released a Philippine Adobo doodle.
See also
- Related Philippine dishes and cooking techniques:
- * Humba
- * Pata tim
- * Paksiw
- * Kinilaw
- * Dinuguan
- * Estofadong baboy
-
Ayam kecap - similarly styled dish from Indonesia and Malaysia
-
Semur (Indonesian stew) - similarly styled dish from Indonesia
-
Tsukudani - similar cooking technique from Japan
External links
