Adobo is a popular Filipino dish found easily throughout the archipelago. Its cooking method involves marinating meat, seafood, or vegetables in vinegar, soy sauce, and garlic, then frying them until golden in oil.
Adobo comes from the Spanish adobar, meaning marinade, sauce or seasoning. It is so widespread that it is sometimes considered the unofficial national dish of the Philippines. This method was probably adopted by the Filipinos after the arrival of the Spanish, in order to preserve their food.
It should be noted that adobo refers more to a cooking method than to a recipe in the strict sense of the term, since chicken, pork or fish adobo can be found… slow-cooked in vinegar, crushed garlic, bay leaves, black peppercorns and soy sauce, all served with white rice. It’s also interesting to note that there are variations of adobo depending on the type of vinegar used: coconut, rice, sugar cane, white or even cider, although the latter is less traditional.
There are also rarer versions of white or blond adobo (adobong puti) when prepared without soy sauce. In addition to pork, chicken and fish, many other ingredients lend themselves well to adobo recipes, such as shrimps, cuttlefish, and even fruits and vegetables such as water bindweed (kangkong), bamboo shoots, eggplant, banana flowers, etc….
There’s also L’adobong dilaw (“yellow adobo”), which uses kalawag (turmeric) to give the yellow color and add a different flavor, most often found in Batangas, the Visayas and Mindanao regions.