Interesting and Quick Facts about Philippine Adobo, a popular Filipino dish and cooking style used in Filipino cuisine

Search engine giant Google released an animated Doodle on March 15, 2023, to celebrate Philippine adobo, a popular Filipino dish and method of cooking used in Philippine cuisine. Here are some interesting and fun facts about Filipino adobo.

When you hear the word “adobo,” you probably immediately picture one of two kinds of food. Spanish adobo is one way to preserve meat by soaking it in a marinade; Filipino adobo is a similar cooking method that also uses vinegar. The Filipino style of adobo got its name from Spaniards in the Philippines, despite the similarities and common name. Both styles were developed independently.

Quick Facts about Filipino adobo

• Course: Main course
• Place of origin: Philippines
• Associated cuisine: Filipino cuisine
• Serving temperature: Hot
• Main ingredients: Meat (beef, chicken, pork), seafood, or vegetables; soy sauce, vinegar, cooking oil, garlic, black peppercorn, bay leaf
• Variations: Some sugar for a sweet-salty taste. Adobo with no broth, only coating on the chicken.
• Food energy (per serving):
  • Chicken: 107 kcal
  • Pork: 342 kcal
  • Beef: 349 kcal
• Similar dishes: Paksiw, kinilaw, estufao.

30 Interesting Facts about Philippine adobo

1. Philippine adobo is made with meat, seafood, or vegetables that have been marinated in vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, bay leaves, black peppercorns, and oil before being browned and simmered in the marinade.
2. It has been regarded as the Philippines’ unofficial national dish on occasion.
3. The Philippines are the originator of the adobo cooking method. Vinegar and salt were frequently used in the cooking and preparation of the country’s various precolonial peoples’ food to preserve it in the tropical climate.
4. One of the most important ingredients of Filipino cuisine is vinegar, which is typically made from coconut, cane, nipa palm, or kaong palm. All of these are linked to traditional alcohol fermentation.
5. Vinegar is used in four primary traditional cooking methods in the Philippines: kiniláw, which is raw seafood cooked in vinegar and spices, paksíw, which is a broth made of meat cooked in vinegar and spices, sangkutsá, which is pre-cooked meat braising in vinegar and spices, and adobo, which is a stew made of vinegar, garlic, salt/soy sauce, and other spices.
6. The adobo cooking method came into use when the Spanish Empire colonized the Philippines in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
7. It was first mentioned in the Spanish Franciscan missionary Pedro de San Buenaventura’s 1613 dictionary, Vocabulario de la lengua tagala. Adobo de los naturales, or “adobo of the native [peoples],” was the name he gave it.
8. Adobo was also used by the Spanish to describe any native dish that was marinated before being eaten. It was used to refer to quilauìn (kinilaw), a related but different dish that primarily uses vinegar in the 1794 edition of the Vocabulario.
9. The Visayan dictionary Vocabulario de la lengua Bisaya, published in 1711, used the term “guinamus” to describe any kind of marinade (adobo), from fish to pork. Dayok and danglusi are two other Visayan terms for dishes that were similar to adobo before colonialism.
10. Dayok and guinamós are distinct dishes in modern Visayan. Adobo became the sole name for dishes made with vinegar, garlic, salt (later known as soy sauce), and other spices. The original name of the dish is now lost to history.
11. Although the general description of adobo in Spanish cuisine and the Filipino adobo dish and cooking process are similar, they refer to distinct things with distinct cultural roots.
12. In contrast to adobo from Spain and Latin America, the main ingredients of Philippine adobo are from Southeast Asia: black peppercorns, soy sauce (originally salt), vinegar (made from palm sap or sugarcane), and bay leaves (traditionally Cinnamomum tamala and related species; but in modern times, typically Laurus nobilis).
13. Traditionally, chilies, paprika, oregano, and tomatoes are not used. The primary use of vinegar and garlic is the only thing that distinguishes it from Spanish and Latin American adobo.
14. In contrast to Spanish and Mexican adobos, which are spicier or infused with oregano, Philippine adobo has a flavor that is typically sweet, salty, and sour.
15. In the Philippines, there are numerous adobo recipe variations. Adobo’s most basic ingredient is vinegar, which can come in the form of rice vinegar, cane vinegar, coconut vinegar, or even white wine or cider vinegar at times.
16. It is like one more dish known as pinatisan, where patis (fish sauce) is used rather than vinegar.
17. Adobo, which is typically served with rice at feasts as well as daily meals, has been referred to as the quintessential Philippine stew.
18. Because it keeps well without refrigeration, Filipino mountaineers and travelers frequently pack it. Vinegar, one of its primary ingredients, is responsible for its relatively long shelf life because it prevents the growth of bacteria.
19. Adobong manók, in which chicken is used, and adobong baboy, in which pork is used, are the most common types of adobo.
20. In accordance with halal dietary laws, adobong baka (beef) and adobong manók (chicken) is more popular among Muslim Filipinos.
21. Regional variations also exist. Adobo with coconut milk (also known as adobo sa gatâ) is common in Bicol, Quezon, and the south of Zamboanga City.
22. Mashed pork liver is added to Cavite. The dish is known as adobong diláw, or “yellow adobo,” in Batangas and Laguna, where turmeric is used to give it a distinct yellowish color. In Laguna, achuete seeds are used to make a red version of the dish.
23. The Ivatan make a type of adobo called luñiz, which is made by preserving pork in salt-filled jars in the northernmost province of Batanes.
24. Avant-garde chefs have created variations like “Japanese-style” pork adobo, making adobo a staple of Filipino-based fusion cuisine.
25. The flavor of adobo has been commercially developed and adapted to other foods outside of the dish itself. Various neighborhood Philippine nibble items, for example, cornicks, nuts, chips, noodle soups, and corn saltines, market their things as “adobo flavored”.
26. Plans to standardize the most popular Filipino dishes were announced in 2021 by the Bureau of Philippine Standards of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI-BPS) of the Philippines. This would make it simpler to promote them internationally and preserve the country’s cultural identity.
27. The first of these dishes, Philippine adobo, will be standardized. A technical committee, led by Glenda Rosales Barreto and consisting of members from academia, government agencies, the food industry, chefs, and food writers, will establish the definition.
28. The main reference will be Kulinarya: A Guidebook to Philippine Cuisine (2008), authored by Barreto and the committee vice-chairperson Myrna Segismundo, both notable chefs of Filipino cuisine in their own right.
29. The public has voiced some disapproval of the announcement; however, the DTI-BPS clarified that it is not required and will only aim to define a basic traditional recipe that can be used as a benchmark for determining the authenticity of Filipino dishes when served abroad.
30. On March 15, 2023, Google featured an animated Doodle on its homepage for Celebrating Filipino Adobo.

Google Doodle for Celebrating Filipino Adobo

Every bite is soulful, soft, and juicy. Adobo, a favorite Filipino dish and a way of cooking, is celebrated in today’s animated Doodle! Adobo can be found everywhere, whether in a five-star Manila restaurant or in Filipino families’ homes around the world. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) added the word “adobo” for the first time in December 2006, and the word was included on the word list of the next OED quarterly update, which was released on this day in 2007.

The adobo is typically served over a bed of rice once it is fully cooked, as the current Google Doodle illustrates. Two children are seen leaning in to take a big whiff of a huge plate of Filipino adobo in the Google Doodle. The word “Google” is written across eating utensils and common adobo ingredients along the bottom edge.

The fact that the word “adobo” made its first appearance in the Oxford English Dictionary on March 15, 2007, provides an explanation for Google’s decision to commemorate the storied Filipino cuisine on this day.