Fry-braise-fry: good. Marinate-braise- fry: bad. Don’t make it too wet and always serve fresh tomatoes on the side.
We speak here of pork adobo. Or rather, Maui chef Sheldon Simeon and his dad, Reinior, spoke of adobo during a cooking competition last week at Mahina & Sun’s at the Surfjack Hotel in Waikiki.
Son and father were judges, along with the hotel’s general manager, Lynette Eastman, evaluating three finalists’ dishes to select one that will join the restaurant’s menu.
They agreed that the ideal adobo is neither too soupy nor too soft, and should be simmered until all the liquid is gone. “So at the end when everything is all braised down till it’s just oil, it starts to confit — fry in its own fat,” Sheldon Simeon said.
At one point the chef fished a piece out of a contestant’s dish and called it the perfect adobo example, with a nice fat cap and a bit of skin, tender but not too soft. The skin, Simeon said, adds texture, “another sort of complexity.”
Them’s fancy words for such a humble, homespun dish, but really, everything delicious has its roots in good, solid cooking. Grandma was no fool. Maybe she didn’t know the word “confit,” but she knew that texture and taste are two parts of a whole.
The adobo competition was pegged to the screening of an episode of Ed Kenney’s PBS show “Family Ingredients.” In it, the Simeons made their first trip to the Philippines, in search of the roots of adobo.
Sheldon Simeon — a “Top Chef” finalist and owner of Maui’s Tin Roof restaurant — is among young chefs bringing Filipino food to the forefront nationally (he calls pork belly “my favorite vegetable”). But he acknowledges that his cooking is Hawaii-style Filipino and says he desires to learn the traditional ways.
This brings us back to Grandma. Simeon’s Ilocano grandmother originally taught his father to make adobo. “Dad remembers Grandma’s but then got influenced by friends and others, and he lost it. He’s been trying to figure it out.”
The current family recipe calls for marinating the pork, then simmering it and developing a sauce, then frying. It was in the Philippines that Simeon rediscovered his grandmother’s technique: Brown the meat, then add liquid, then cook down to that point where the meat fries in its own fat.
“The key is to add the soy sauce after it is done browning,” he said. “The soy sauce instantly caramelizes in the oil and gives the pork belly a rich, dark color.”
Fry-braise-fry. No marinating, which in this dish has an adverse effect on taste and texture. “It took me going back to the Philippines to bring back the idea of what Grandma made,” he said.
His dad inserted that adobo needs one more thing to be perfect: an accompaniment of tomatoes, for contrast and brightness. “Gotta have the raw tomato.”
The contest winner was Flora Bumanglag, a native of Pangasinan province in the Philippines, who said she learned her adobo basics from her husband. Her dish was also chosen Fan Favorite by the audience assembled for the screening.
Simeon said Bumanglag’s recipe presented the five critical adobo ingredients — vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, bay leaves and black peppercorns — in perfect balance.
Indeed, Bumanglag seems to have channeled Simeon’s adobo preferences. She lets her dish simmer down to that frying point. And she never marinates.
Bumanglag did not specify amounts for the ingredients in her recipe, explaining that she cooks by “feel.” She buys her pork pre-cut in packages at Don Quijote (they’re actually marked “for adobo”). The packages are of varying weight, so we did our best to estimate an average.
FLORA’S PORK ADOBO
By Flora Bumanglag
- 4 packages cubed pork (about 5 pounds)
- 2 packages pork belly (about 3 pounds), sliced 1/2-inch thick
- Freshly ground pepper, to taste (4 to 5 turns of a pepper grinder)
- 6 to 8 bay leaves
- 1/2 to 3/4 cup soy sauce (Silver Swan brand preferred), or more as needed
- 1/2 to 3/4 cup cider vinegar, or more as needed
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 2 heads garlic, cloves separated, peeled and crushed
- 1-1/2 medium onions, sliced
- 2 to 3 tablespoons oyster sauce
Wash and drain all the pork. Combine in large bowl with pepper, bay leaves, soy sauce and vinegar. Add more soy sauce and vinegar in equal amounts if mixture seems dry.
Heat oil in large wok. Saute garlic until brown. Add onions; toss. Add pork pieces with liquid. Reduce heat to simmer and cook 30 to 45 minutes until liquid cooks off and meat renders its own fat.
Drizzle with oyster sauce and toss so pieces are nicely glazed. Serves 12 to 14.
Approximate nutritional information, per serving (based on 14 servings and using 3/4 cup each soy sauce and cider vinegar): 780 calories, 63 g total fat, 21 g saturated fat, 175 mg cholesterol, 1,000 mg sodium, 4 g carbohydrate, no fiber, 1 g sugar, 46 g protein.
