While I was prepping pork-scotch for the barbecue (on Tuesday) and chicken for a chicken piccata (today), I had some leftovers from both. I sliced the pork and chicken in small slices; threw in garlic, diced white onions; whole peppercorns and bay-leaves. Normally as I’ve seen it done growing up, you only put in vinegar (no water) and would add the soy-sauce when the meat has braised and you can see it frying in its own fat.

And this is why the adobe is such a great dish because the way it’s cooked is not bound by a single set of rules. It’s totally up to you and how you want to make it. I’ve seen versions where the meat are seared first; or the meat taken out, sauce reduced and then broiled under a hot grill. People have used apple cider vinegar, white white vinegar, apple juice and citrus juice. You can do adobong puti (one of my favourites best eaten cold with cold rice or adobong dilaw- brightly yellow with turmeric and tempered with coconut milk (which I don’t like because it sort of tastes ‘malansa’). You can just use chicken, or just pork or both.

You can change your mind midway and make it into laing (which I’ve done with silverbeet which I’ll be doing again) or you can throw in several tablespoonfuls of fish paste to make into binagoongan for which I only use pork-belly. And it lasts forever- the small pot I made today is good for two servings which will be lunch tomorrow.

Once we finally find a goddamned freezer, I’m going to cook a big batch and freeze it.