Adobo

Last night I added another notch to the culinary belt by attempting another cuisine - Filipino. I used the recipe for "Filipino-style Potatoes Adobo" from From Bangkok to Bali in Thirty Minutes. Bruce Cost's Asian Ingredients also has an adobo recipe which involves marinating, which the Laursens' recipe does not. After surfing the web and looking at various adobo recipes, I concluded that marination is not compulsory for adobo.

Adobo sauce blends vinegar, light soy sauce and garlic for a tangy flavor; it was originally a way of preserving food. I bought a bottle of Filipino palm vinegar for this dish at the Asian supermarket. It may be milder than some other vinegars, but still packs a decent bite.

This recipe calls for stir-frying garlic and a sliced onion in olive oil, then adding the sliced potatoes. After about five minutes, in go the sauce ingredients (vinegar, light soy and palm sugar). An interval of covering the pan and simmering follows. I never got all the potatoes to be equally tender; those that cooked in the sauce ended up as desired, while those piled on top were harder. The tart sauce was different from anything I've encountered before, and may be tinkered with somewhat, but I enjoyed it. I look forward to cooking other adobo meals in the future, using meat and marinating it.

An enjoyable musing on adobo can be found here.