My Nanay's Adobo recipe

My Nanay is the best cook in the whole wide world!

Of course you can refute that, saying that your mother is the best cook in the whole wide world. But I kid you not. Even my friends can attest to how much they love my mother's cooking. From the simple suman (rice cake wrapped in banana leaves) and that impeccably sweet sauce, to simple dinengdeng and bopis, to the more elaborate kare-kare with that heavenly peanut sauce, my mother tops it all. There she is at the photo at the left, with my Tatay and son Jo-Lo.

Now that I live and work far away from my parents, her cooking ha become even more endearing to me. When I advise her that we will be visiting them, she would likely ask what I would like to have for lunch.

I would like to dedicate the first post to my Nanay, and share with you her recipe for adobo.


Ingredients:
1 kilo pork, chopped
Water
Soy sauce
Paminta (peppercorn), around 1 teaspoon
Salt
Suka (Vinegar)
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 onion, sliced
Cooking oil
laurel leal (optional)

I asked my Nanay the quantities for each of the ingredients above. She said, “tantyahin mo nalang (guesstimate)”. The above quantities, save for the pork, are my guesstimates.

Place pork in a pan.
Pour in water til the meat is just about submerged.
Add in the soy sauce. Don’t let the mixture get too dark.
Add crushed garlic and whole peppercorn.

Bring mixture to a boil then simmer til sauce thickens.
Segregate the sauce into a bowl.
Add cooking oil with the pork and stir-fry.
Put back the sauce, mix, and remove from heat.


If you want potatoes with your adobo, peel and dice these and add it into the pan at the same time as the pork. Then remove the potatoes with the sauce when the pork is stir-fried to avoid crushing these into goo. My Nanay does not really put laurel leaf into her adobo, but I like the aroma so if you want some, add it in step 4 with the garlic and peppercorn.

Technorati tags: recipe, Filipino food, adobo