Pinoy Pork Adobo with Potatoes

10 Mar 2021

Traditional Filipino adobo has no potatoes, but its addition replaces steamed rice that we normally serve with adobo, and just as scrumptious!

Summary

Yield	Servings
Prep time	10 minutes
Cooking time	1 hour, 10 minutes
Total time	1 hour, 20 minutes

Description

This recipe is influenced both by Spanish and Chinese culinary. Originally from the word Adovada, meaning marinated, Pinoy adobo uses marinade sauce made with vinegar, salt or soy sauce, sugar, and spices. You can choose to marinade the meat first then cook it with the marinade sauce, or skip the hours in marinating process and just cook it in the marinade sauce, which is what I am doing in this recipe.

The recipe varies from region to region. Luzon adobo uses soy sauce, whilst Cebuano adobo in the Visayas region does not use soy sauce (they use salt instead). Cebuano adobo is also drier. What we have here has sauce left in the end of cooking.

Although this recipe adds potatoes, I still serve this adobo over steamed rice, or my day is incomplete!

Ingredients

main ingredients:

1⁄2 lb

potato (bite size, peeled or unpeeled)

1 lb

pork adobo cuts (choice of pork belly or pork shoulder cut about 2” cubes)

seasoned salt to taste (Check out my homemade seasoned salt here: homemade https://www.thequietmom.com/blog/recipe/homemade-seasoned-salt-part-ii)

4 T

cooking oil, divided to 3 and 1 tablespoons

6 clv

cloves garlic, smashed and roughly chopped

1⁄4 c

shallots, thinly sliced

3⁄4 c

white onions, divided (1/4c sliced about 1cm thick; 1/2 c diced in bigger pieces)

1⁄4 c

alcoholic drink ((choice of white wine, brandy, whisky, rhum, vodka, or if you can find Mallorca cooking liquor from the Philippines that may be found in in Asian stores – this I what I used))

3 1⁄2 c

tap water

marinade (mix together in a bowl and set aside):

1⁄2 c

coconut vinegar or apple cider vinegar ((if using sugar cane vinegar, use only ¼ - 1/3 cup as it has a stronger taste))

1⁄4 c

dark soy sauce

2 T

honey or 3 tablespoons of muscovado sugar, or brown granulated sugar (Change the 3T value for muscovado or brown sugar if converting the measurement.)

pieces bay leaves

1 t

black pepper corns

Instructions

Drizzle 3 tablespoons of oil on the meat and rub allover to distribute evenly. Sprinkle with seasoned salt to taste lightly (be careful, we are using soy sauce as salt as well), and rub again to distribute evenly on all sides of the meat.
Heat a pan or a wok over medium heat. When hot but not smoking, add pork in one layer. With regular wok size used in household kitchens, I divided the prepared pork in 2 batches. Sear all sides of the pork until lightly browned, and set aside. Repeat for the next batch. With the meats set aside out of the pan or wok, keep the wok uncleaned.
Add the remaining 1-tablespoon of oil to the wok along with the garlic, shallots, 1/4 c sliced white onions, prepared meats and alcoholic drink. Stir to mix, scraping off the bits from the bottom to mix with the rest of the ingredients. When most watery liquid evaporates and oil begins to sizzle with the ingredients, continue sautéing for 30 seconds or until the onions are shiny and mixture is strongly aromatic but not browned. At this stage, pour in the prepared marinade. Stir just to mix all the ingredients, and simmer for 6 minutes or until the sauce starts to thicken, occasionally stirring.
Add water. Cover and simmer for 45 minutes, or until the sauce is reduced to half.
Meanwhile, prepare the potatoes and cook in a separate pot for about 12 minutes over medium heat. The texture should be al dente. Remove from heat and drain the water off the pot. Return the prepared potatoes in the pot, and cover.
After 45 minutes or so of simmering the pork, add the potatoes and gently stir to mix with the meat and other ingredients and cook for 10 more minutes, uncovered. Add a little water at a time (about ¼ cup if the sauce is too low, depending on if you want more sauce or less.) If you want the potatoes softer, just cook for additional 5 more minutes. Stir occasionally to keep the sauce from scorching in the bottom. Five minutes before you are done cooking, add 1/2 c white onions diced in bigger pieces.

Serve warm, with more steamed rice if desired.

Pork Recipes