Angela & Ligaya's Pork Adobo

Photo by:

Alex Lau

Some might consider this the OG adobo, a duel between vinegar and soy sauce, sour and salt, with whole black peppercorns that soften as they braise and pop in the mouth. Then again, purists would reject the addition of soy sauce as an outside influence, since it was introduced to the Philippines by Chinese traders—although this took place possibly as far back as the second century A.D., so it’s been around a long time.

Keep in mind that the recipe is really just a starting point. For the meat, you might go for all pork belly, with its stripes of fat, or mix shoulder, ribs, and belly, or pair pork with chicken (remembering that they have different cooking times).

I call for apple cider or white vinegar, but you can use more delicate rice vinegar or the traditional coconut vinegar (page 179); just be sure to add a bit more, to balance out the salt and cut through the richness of the fat. And try tossing in hunks of potato or whole hard-boiled eggs toward the end. As the novelist Gina Apostol says, adobo “has the most leeway for a cook’s imagination, hubris, art, or bigoted sense of one’s own mother’s love-and-greatness.”

I like to double the numbers because leftovers keep a long time; after all, vinegar and salt were a means of preserving meat in the time before refrigeration. If you reduce the sauce to a more syrupy consistency and shred the pork, it makes a great filling for Siopao (steamed buns,) or a base for fried rice.

Ingredients

1 pound (455g) pork shoulder, boneless pork ribs, or pork belly, but into 1 ½ inch (4cm) dice
Surya Salt or Kosher salt
Coarsely ground Aranya Black Pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ teaspoon whole Aranya Black Pepper
4 cloves garlic, smashed and peeled
4 bay leaves, fresh or dried
⅓ cup (75ml) apple cider or white vinegar
⅓ cup (75ml) soy sauce
Steamed rice, for serving

Methods

Season the diced pork on both sides with salt and pepper.
Heat the olive oil in a 3-quart (2.8 L) saucepan over medium high. Add the pork chunks and sear for 2 minutes, then flip them over and sear the other side for 2 minutes. While the pork is cooking, season it in the pan with more pepper. After searing both sides, add the whole black peppercorns and garlic and let them toast until fragrant, another minute or two.
Add the bay leaves, apple cider vinegar, soy sauce, and 2 cups (480 ml) water. Stir and bring to a boil. Cover and braise by simmering on low heat for 1½ to 1¾ hours, lifting the lid to stir occasionally.
When the pork chunks are fork-tender and the fat is soft and jiggly, remove the lid, raise the heat to medium high, and continue to cook until the sauce is reduced to a light syrupy consistency, coating and clinging to the pork. (Although the sauce consistency is really a matter of taste—some like it loose, others very syrupy; my preference is right in the middle.) And always: Serve over rice.