Adobong puti is probably one of those dishes that is closest to my definition of “comfort food.” Cliché as it is, I always mimic the infamous Anton Ego spoon-drop whenever I eat this dish.
Preparing adobong puti is the easiest way to cook meat. You can screw up frying meat, but there is no way you can mess up adobong puti. All you have to do is put the meat in a pot or pan. It can be any meat, but I personally prefer liempo, or any pork cut with a good balance of meat and fat, together with the spices, vinegar, and salt.
You don’t have to do anything complex. Just crush the garlic with the flat side of the knife. You can even leave the skin on, slice the onion roughly, add the whole peppercorns to the mixture, then drop in a dried bay leaf. Pour in the vinegar, sugar, and salt. Not soy sauce. Just salt. Let it simmer for thirty minutes, depending on how saucy, oily, or dry you want it to be. I prefer it saucy, so I can mix the sabaw or the adobo-infused oil with warm rice.
You might think of adobong puti as the most boring food. It looks bland. But if you’ve tasted it, you can tell it’s adobo. Familiar, yet somehow different from the usual recipes you’ve eaten. Adobong puti has a lighter taste. You taste the vinegar, the mild sweetness, and the subtle kick when you bite into a peppercorn, and if you do it right, the flavors penetrate the meat.
Adobong puti is one of Filipino cuisine’s primordial ways of cooking, alongside pag-iihaw and pagkikilaw. There were no refrigerators back then, so meat was preserved with salt, vinegar, and spices, then left to simmer. Soy sauce came later. Adobo can last for days.
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I remember my first taste of adobong puti from a long, long time ago, when I was still a child. We had gone on a family trip to the beach. My mother, a practical cook, never fussed over presentation. Her food was straightforward and always delicious. She brought the rice cooker pot with us to the resort, and that’s where we ate lunch.
My senses were overwhelmed by the taste of adobong puti. The meat looked so plain it might as well have been sinigang na baboy, except there was no soup and no kangkong. I remember my father eating heartily, a trait I (un)fortunately inherited. That afternoon, we spent hours walking, swimming, and doing nothing at the beach.
To be honest, I remember very little about that trip except for those vague details. But adobong puti remains the most vivid memory of my childhood.
Now, my father is dead, my mother is in Saudi Arabia, my elder brother is married, my younger brother is becoming independent, and I am a writer in my late twenties, writing about a simple Filipino dish.
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I’ve tried cooking adobong puti multiple times over the years. I never seem to get it right, even though I think I know the ingredients well.
Garlic. Onions. Whole black pepper. Vinegar. Salt. Pork liempo. Mix. Simmer.
Still not quite there. Where did I go wrong? How did my mother cook it? Adobong tuyo? Adobong masabaw?
I don’t like dry adobo. I want the kind with sauce I can slather all over a bowl of reheated bahaw. But did my mother cook it dry or with sauce? She usually made adobo dry and oily, yet I remember her adobong puti differently. Or am I mistaken? Did she even cook adobong puti during that beach trip, or is this one of those Mandela effects?
*
When my mother was still in the country, she tasted one of my adobo experiments.
“Unsa ni?” she asked.
“Adobong puti,” I replied.
“Adobo? Ano ba ’yan, parang paksiw!”
I wanted to tell her she had cooked adobong puti for us years ago, but she probably didn’t remember. Maybe I’m the only one who does.
And yes, in principle, adobong puti is basically the same as paksiw.
*
Last week, I decided to cook adobong puti again. I tried not to overcomplicate it. I crushed the garlic, chopped the onions the way I do for soups, added several peppercorns, a dried bay leaf, vinegar, sugar, and salt. I let it simmer until only the oil remained and the meat was almost melting.
I still don’t know if it tastes like the adobong puti I had decades ago, but I’m past the point of caring. This one is delicious.
How can something so simple be so complex? I don’t even know.
Whenever I relive the taste of that adobong puti I ate on the beach years ago, I remember one thing clearly: we were complete as a family, and we enjoyed being together.
I don’t remember that happening very often in my life.
*
While cleaning the house, I found a picture of myself as a child. I was kneeling on the black sand of a beach with a goofy smile on my face. It was the purest smile I’d had in my twenty-eight years of existence.
I tried to shake my memory, to see if it was from that same day when we had lunch with my mother’s delicious adobong puti.
I remember nothing.
Carlou Barroca Espedillon is an author based in Alabel, Sarangani Province. He has published two books and three zines focused on nostalgia and “telling the story of the ordinary.” When he’s not writing, he’s expanding his culinary skills and taking care of his cats.