Pork And Chicken Adobo

I have been blogging for almost two years now and just realized I have written about adobo only two times, both with Cornish game hens. Considering adobo is our (unofficial) national dish, I should probably feature it more often. I make this dish once a month, a different version (and meat) each time. In the Philippines, the different regions have their own versions, some have onions and chicken livers, others add coconut milk with pieces of green papaya, and some in the Northern provinces don't use soy sauce and the result is a white sauce-less adobo which is really yummy. Another way to prepare adobo is marinating the meat and then browned in oil before stewing in the marinade. I also remember my mother used to cook frog legs adobo with annatto seed oil.

I don't have a recipe that I follow and I don't measure the ingredients. And just like my mother, I taste it after stewing for 15 minutes and adjust the seasonings right then, taste and adjust some more if necessary after the dish is done.

Chicken And Pork Adobo
2 pounds chicken, cut into pieces
1 pound pork shoulder, cut into 2 inch cubes
½ cup cider vinegar (I use the Filipino cane vinegar called sukang Iloko)
½ cup dry sherry
1 tablespoon whole black peppercorn
1 head garlic, peeled and pounded
2 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste
2 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 bay leaf
½ cup water
pitted Spanish olives, optional

• Place the meats in a saucepan and add vinegar, sherry, black pepper, salt, garlic, soy sauce, bay leaf, and 2 T olive oil. Let stand for 1 hour.
• Turn the heat on high and let come to a boil. Turn heat to low and simmer, covered, for 25 minutes or until the sauce is almost dry. Add the water and simmer, covered, for 25 minutes until the meats are tender and sauce has thickened. There should be plenty of sauce but not too soupy.
• Add the olives, if using, and simmer for 5 minutes more. Remove the bay leaf and discard, drizzle the remaining olive oil and transfer into a serving dish. Serve with steamed rice.

I also love this Portuguese Turkey Adobado which is from my cookbook THE FOOD OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL by Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz.

Pavo Adobado (marinated Turkey)
one 5 - 9 pound turkey, cut into serving pieces
For the marinade
4 bay leaves
4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1 teaspoon black peppercorns, chopped
1 medium onion, sliced
1 teaspoon salt
3 - 6 cups dry white wine, or enough to cover

• In a bowl large enough to hold the turkey pieces, combine the turkey with all the marinade ingredients. Refrigerate overnight, turning the pieces once or twice. Lift out and pat dry the turkey pieces with paper towels, set aside. Strain and reserve marinade, discarding the solids.

For the turkey
4 - 6 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped
1-inch piece cinnamon stick
2 whole cloves
salt and freshly ground pepper

• Heat oil in a large, heavy skillet and saute turkey until lightly browned. Do this in batches, if necessary, adding oil as needed. Lift out the turkey into a casserole. In the oil remaining in the pan saute the the onion and garlic until the onion is soft. Add the tomatoes and cook until the mixture is thick and well blended. Add to the casserole together with the cinnamon stick and cloves, and salt and pepper to taste. Pour in the reserved marinade, cover and cook in a preheated 350 degree oven for 2 - 3 hours. Serve with rice and a light dry red wine.

I have come across numerous adobo recipes using various meats and seafood and I'm thinking of putting together an 'adobo cookbook' and will print it in my home. If you want to contribute your family's recipe please post it in the comments section or email it to me at oggi.icandothat(AT)gmail(DOT)com. I will try to cook the different recipes as much as I can and hope to hear from you soon. ^_^

My Books Of The Month

These are 2 of the books I have read this month that are worth recommending



BELONG TO ME Marisa de los Santos A++

A follow-up to her best-selling novel LOVE WALKED IN. It's the story of newly married city couple, Cornelia and her handsome half-Filipino oncologist husband Teo, who moved to the suburbs with perfectly manicured lawns, beautiful people, and their equally beautiful children. It sounds like a shallow chick lit but the novel has so much more depth and meaning. All the characters are very well presented and developed, the wit and talent of the author are very evident. She deftly wrote about friendships, families, relationships, love, and death with her funny beautiful warmhearted dialog. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

SHARP TEETH Toby Barlow A++



A fast-paced and bloody thriller about werewolves disguised as ordinary dogs living among the unsuspecting citizens of Los Angeles. Not for the squeamish, this novel has everything: action, rival gangs, murder, revenge, drugs, and romance written entirely in free verse. I am already imagining it being made into a 'biting' but cool film noir. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

lines from page 43

Lycanthropes first came out of the native tribes in the Northwest,
born, legends say,
from a native thirst for a superior warrior.
But when the weather turned,
their packs were wiped out knifed and skinned in fear
as native American witch hunts
took on their destruction
as a sacred, healing mission.
On a hundred nights,
surrounded and fighting mad,
pack after pack were driven into drought-dry woods
where they were all burned down
to smoldering stumps.
The howling shook leaves in distant trees
and rolled through the valleys

like the screams of lost birds

echoing the thunder.

Layer Cakes - Sapin Sapin And Kueh Lapis

I have never made sapin sapin nor was I enthusiastic about it before. To me it is just a three-color layered bibingka. The sapan sapin that I remember had only 4 ingredients: sweet rice, coconut milk, sugar, and food coloring, which probably is the Laguna style. The recipe in my Little Kakanin book uses three kinds of milk: coconut, sweetened condensed, and evaporated, and has ube and langka (jack fruit). Well, I made my sapin sapin with more flavoring, the ever present buco pandan and anise extract for a 4-layer sapin sapin. It was not easy to remove from the pan because it sticks everywhere but I love it!
While browsing the internet for the recipe I found several Malaysian layer cakes called Kueh Lapis and I was attracted by the thin beautiful layers. Looking at the ingredients and procedure, it's very similar to the sapin sapin. The finished cake has a firmer texture, more like a softer Chinese tikoy and not as sticky as sapin sapin, and therefore easier to slice and makes a lovely but yummy snack. I also love it.

Sapin Sapin

2¼ cups sweet rice flour
1¼ cup rice flour
1 cup sugar
2 cups coconut milk
red, yellow, and purple food coloring
optional ingredients:
1 cup finely minced buco
pandan extract
4 tablespoons ube powder
½ cup finely minced langka
½ teaspoon anise extract
banana leaf

• Line a 9-inch round pan with banana leaf, set aside. Mix flours, sugar, and coconut milk until smooth. Divide into four portions. Color one portion with red and add anise extract, add buco and pandan extract into the second, add yellow coloring and langka into the third, and add the ube powder and purple coloring, if a deeper purple is desired, to the remaining portion.
• Preheat the pan in the steamer for 5 minutes. Pour one color of your choice and steam for 15 minutes. Pour the next 3 portions, one at a time, steaming for 15 minutes each time.
• Cool completely before removing from pan. Serve with cooked until brown thick coconut milk (latik or budbod).

Malaysian Kueh Lapis

>

950 ml coconut milk
400 gm rice flour
280 gm tapioca flour
½ teaspoon salt
550 gm sugar
10 pandan leaves
350 ml water
food coloring and flavoring

• Mix coconut milk, flours, and salt. Boil pandan, water, and sugar until sugar has dissolved. Remove pandan and stir into the flour mixture and mix well until smooth. Divide into 3 portions. Add green pandan paste to one portion and pink color to another portion, leave the third plain.
• Lightly oil a square baking pan. Steam pan for 5 minutes in boiling water. Pour 1 cup of white mixture and steam for 10 minutes. Pour 1 cup of green mixture on top of white mixture and steam for 5 minutes. Pour 1 cup of pink mixture and steam for 5 minutes. Repeat with white and green mixtures steaming 5 minutes each. Add more pink or a drop of red coloring to the pink mixture and pour on top of green. Steam for 10 minutes. Cool completely before cutting into shapes.

pretty yummy

Pulled-Pork Barbecue Sandwich

Throughout the southeastern states up to the Washington D.C area the air is filled with barbecue smoke and aroma. It is Memorial Day weekend and it seems everybody is firing up the grills, which is a good thing because I love the smell of charring meat and fat. Although Virginia has its own barbecue recipe which I favor because it resembles the Filipino barbecue in preparation and taste, I made North Carolina style pulled-pork barbecue just to compare and I can say I also like it. The basting sauce is very simple, does not have garlic, onions, and ketchup and is not very sweet, a little bit vinegary but still okay. I served the pulled-pork barbecue with a layer of creamy coleslaw and had the sandwich with a large glass of minty melonade, yumm, yumm.

North Carolina Pulled-Pork Barbecue
(recipe adapted from Gourmet magazine, June 2008 issue)
3½ cups cider vinegar
1½ tablespoons sugar
1½ tablespoons hot red pepper flakes
salt and black pepper
8 - 10 pounds bone-in pork shoulder roast with skin
10 pound hardwood coal for grilling
hamburger buns
coleslaw

• Bring vinegar to a boil with pepper flakes, sugar, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1 tablespoon ground black pepper in a stainless steel pan until sugar has dissolved, cool. Set aside 2 C to serve with sandwiches.
• While sauce cools, score pork skin in a crosshatch pattern, cutting through skin and fat but not into meat. Pat meat dry and rub all over with 1 tablespoon each salt and ground black pepper. Let stand at room temperature for 1 hour before grilling.
• Prepare grill for indirect heat cooking over low heat, leaving space in middle for disposable roasting pan.
• When coal has cooled to 300°F, put disposable roasting pan on bottom between the mounds of coal, then fill pan halfway with water. Add a couple of handfuls of unlit coal to each mound of coal. Put grill rack on.
• Oil grill rack, then put pork, skin side up, on rack above roasting pan. Grill pork, with lid ajar, basting meat with sauce and turning every 30 minutes. To maintain a temperature of 275 degrees, add a couple of handfuls of unlit coal to each side every 30 minutes until meat is fork-tender, about 7 - 8 hours, and internal temperature is 190 degrees.
• Cut large pieces of meat into bite-size pieces. When meat is cool enough to handle, shred using 2 forks. Transfer into a bowl.
• Layer shredded meat on toasted bun, add a layer of coleslaw. Serve with reserved vinegar sauce on the side.

Gourmet's note: Pork can be roasted in a large roasting pan, covered with parchment then foil, in middle of a 350 degree oven. Roast 1 hour, then pour 1 cup vinegar sauce over meat. Roast 1 hour more, then baste with 1 cup more sauce. Continue to roast, covered, adding water (½ cup at a time) to the pan if needed, until fork-tender, about 2 hours more. Remove parchment and foil and roast another 45 minutes to 1 hour until skin is crisp.