Why I love adobo
Adobo will always be a favorite. I’m partial to Nanay’s recipe. It was neither dry nor masabaw, just right. She served her adobo like rice toppings. Part of the meat was crispy, yet you could cut the softened bones of her chicken adobo. It was always a treat everytime Nanay cooked her chicken adobo and her to die-for
humba with black beans. Nanay wasn’t so much into cooking but her adobo was consistently sybaritic.
Adobo is considered by many as the unofficial national dish of the Philippines. It comes from the Spanish word adobar which means marinade, sauce or seasoning. When the Spaniards came to the Philippines in the late 16th century, they discovered a cooking process that involved stewing with vinegar. Early Filipinos cooked their food by roasting, steaming or boiling. To keep it fresh longer, food was often cooked by immersing it in vinegar and salt.
For Filipinos, adobo is omnipresent in picnics, reunions and long trips because it has a long shelf-life. The pork and/or chicken is immersed in vinegar, soy sauce and other seasonings to keep it fresh longer even without refrigeration. Due to its acidity, vinegar is used as a preservative.
Every Filipino family has its own way of cooking adobo. Some recipes are handed down like priceless heirlooms by their great, great grandmothers. It has also regional variations. Aside from pork and chicken,
adobo can be cooked with seafoods and vegetables like adobong kangkong and adobong sitaw. Its versatility is wide-range that you can adjust and fine tune the recipes according to personal taste and availability of ingredients.
Now, it is time for us, Filipinos, to take pride in what is uniquely our own. This is not the first effort to make adobo the national dish of the Philippines. In 2014, House Bill 3926 (led by Hon. Rene Relampagos from the First District of Bohol) was filed in Congress to declare adobo as our National Dish but the bill is still up for final deliberation until now.
Thus, the Adobo Movement was born. The goal is to hit at least 500,000 signatures to support House Bill 3926 to officially instate adobo as the National Dish of the Philippines.
Everyone is invited to be part
of this culinary cause. Just log on to www.change.org/organizations/adobomovement and click on the sign petition button. You can also help spread the word to your family and friends by sharing your vote over Facebook or by sending the link to them so they can also join the movement. Datu Puti recently launched the Adobo Movement Food Fair at the Eastwood City Plaza Tent (tiangge area) to celebrate adobo as proudly Pinoy cuisine.
Here’s a simple but delicious recipe of Pininyahang Adobo that you can try at home:
Ingredients:
½ kg. pork ¼ cup Datu Puti Vinegar ¼ cup Datu Puti Soy Sauce ½ cup water ½ cup pineapple tidbits 1 tbsp. garlic, minced 1 tbsp. onions, sliced 2 tbsp. sugar 1 tsp. ground black pepper Cooking directions: 1. Mix all ingredients together in a pot, except for the pineapple tidbits. 2. Simmer until sauce thickens. Then, place the pineapple tidbits. 3. Simmer for another three minutes. Stir, then, serve immediately. Makes three to four servings. Neither am I a cook nor a chef. I simply didn’t have the culinary talent. But I love food. I love paksiw na
isda, I love a slice of angus beef and I love adobo. Before the end of 2015, I’m hoping to be able to do my own version of chicken-pork adobo.