Variations on Filipino Adobo: Mushrooms

This is a recipe that I will have to develop further. I sort of knew that mushrooms won't really work as the main ingredient of adobo, but I went ahead and tried anyway. Firstly, I am not a fan of the texture of stewed mushrooms, but this could be from the types of mushrooms I used - king trumpet, maitake, and buna-shimeji mushrooms. Secondly, since this is a vegan recipe and is a relatively quick cook, it lacks the flavor development that happens when something is stewed for a long time. Thirdly, I only used about a tablespoon of brown sugar for sweetness, but I think it needs another form of sweetness - perhaps from oyster sauce (but it wouln't make the dish vegan anymore). I personally cannot eat a lot of it, but the dish is good with jasmine rice. I can see the recipe being modified further for steamed buns if I add crumbled tofu, scallions, honey, and sesame oil. Or maybe even as empanada filling. For now, I'm gonna have to mix these mushrooms with other quick stir fry dishes. Here's the recipe if you want to try it: (Feel free to cut the recipe in half.)

• maitake mushrooms, broken into large segments, 2 packages
• buna-shimeji mushrooms, broken into large segments, 2 packages
• king trumpet mushrooms, cut into thirds and torn into large chunks, 1 package
• shallots, large, minced, 2 each
• ginger, 1-inch knob, minced
• garlic cloves, minced, 6 each
• soy sauce, 1/4 cup
• water, 1/4 cup
• unseasoned rice vinegar, 1/4 cup
• white miso, 1 tablespoon
• bay leaves, 2 each
• whole black peppercorns, cracked, 1 tablespoon
• grapeseed oil, as needed
• chives, minced, to taste
• parsley, minced, to taste

In a small bowl, whisk soy sauce, rice vinegar and white miso until cohesive. Set aside.

In a wok or a sautoir, heat oil over high heat. Saute maitake mushrooms until at least one side has browned. Remove from the pan and set aside. Do the same for the rest of the mushrooms in batches. King trumpet mushroom will take the longest to brown as they release a lot of water.

Add a little more oil in the pan and saute shallots, ginger, and garlic until fragrant and shallots are translucent.

Pour in the sauce mixture and add bay leaves and peppercorns. Simmer for a minute and then add the mushrooms back in along with the 1/4 cup water. Simmer until the sauce reduces into gravy consistency, around 10 minutes. Lower the heat and mix in brown sugar. Taste and add more sugar if you like. Turn off heat and mix in parsley and chives.

Variations on Filipino Adobo: Tomato

This week was tough. I watched so many YouTube videos and read so many recipes about adobo. I also read through Reynaldo Alejandro's The Philippine Cookbook from 1983. It was probably one of the first Filipino cookbooks catered to the American kitchen, and it was disappointing. It isn't surprising though, since it was published in 1983. While reading, I started to become aware of this large hole in Philippine history. When I was a young student in Manila, Philippine history was taught starting from Spanish colonization. There was maybe a day dedicated to prehistory, but nothing in between that time and the Spanish era was taught. On top of that we were taught to be grateful for all the "innovations" that the Spaniards brought, mainly Catholicism. The Philippine Cookbook has the same underlying tone. 

Adobo was named by the Spaniards even though the dish existed even before the Spaniards came. They just didn't know what to call it. That is what exactly got me deeply emotional. The Spaniards changed our lingua franca, changed our names, and erased our history.

I was uprooted from my home country at a very young age, but being in a different country made me feel a lot more Filipino. I was craving my history. I have no knowledge of what the Philippines was before the Spaniards came, but there is so much power in being able to define and decide what it means to be a part of the Filipino diaspora in the now and in the future. I choose to define it through food.

Many might say that this recipe is not adobo. But I will argue that it is cooked in the style of adobo: meat stewed in soy sauce and vinegar with bay leaves, garlic, and peppercorn. I changed the ratio of vinegar and soy sauce to equal parts and used fresh tomatoes and tomato paste to compensate for acidity. This would be really good with buttery mashed potatoes. It's also important to know that this was a stove-top braise but it can definitely be done in the oven. However, the sauce will still need reducing on the stove-top.

Ingredients:

• beef short ribs, bone in, 3 lbs.
• soy sauce, 1/2 cup
• balsamic vinegar, 1/2 cup
• water, 1 cup + 1/4 cup
• garlic cloves, crushed, 6 each
• large shallots, sliced, 4 each
• whole black peppercorn, 2 tablespoons
• bay leaves, 5 each
• large vine-ripened tomatoes, chopped, 2 each
• double concentrated tomato paste, 2 tablespoons
• chives, minced, to taste
• sea salt, to taste
• grapeseed oil, 2 tablespoons
• (optional) calamansi citrus or lemon juice, to taste

Season ribs with salt. Over high flame, heat oil in a large heavy bottomed pot. Sear ribs, fat side down until rendered and golden brown. Lower heat, remove ribs from pot and set aside.

Turn heat to medium and add in shallots and garlic. Saute until shallots are translucent. and in tomato paste and cook until the paste darkens in color and oil begins to separate. Add in fresh tomatoes and let its juices deglaze the bottom of the pot.

Add the ribs back into the pot along with bay leaves and black peppercorn. Pour in soy sauce, balsamic vinegar and water. Bring to a boil.

Once it boils, bring back down to simmer and cover. Simmer for 2 hours or until ribs are tender. Check after 1 hour to see if water needs to be added.

After 2 hours, uncover and turn heat to medium and reduce the sauce by half. Season with salt to taste.

Squeeze calamansi citrus over the dish. Sprinkle with chives.

Processing

If you're wondering what my process is like, I, first, conceptualize, cook and taste the recipes in my head. I write the ingredients down and then decide on the ratios and quantities. This takes about a day or two for each recipe. Then I shop for the ingredients, and then off to the kitchen and actually cook. I've written four recipes so far, and two of the most recent ones are still untested. Cooking the recipe once has been working for me so far. I haven't had to tweak and retest the same recipe twice. But I know I'll eventually get to a point where I would need to test multiple times. I also have been looking up other people's recipes for adobo, and taking note of the interesting techniques and ingredients that they used. This can get overwhelming as it is impossible to keep track of the regional differences, let alone individual recipes. What I'm learning off the bat is, adobo in its most pared down, most essential and authentic form is meat stewed in vinegar with a little bit of water. Anything else that's added becomes a window to geography and terroir, and a mirror to culture and creativity. The entire Philippines itself struggle to define what adobo is. I realized it's not so important to ask the question, "at what point does it become something else?" I think the more important questions to ask are: WHO is turning this dish into a trend? WHO is "innovating" this dish? WHO is becoming the main voice on Filipino cuisine?

This is an excavation.

Variations on Filipino Adobo: Thyme and Grapes

The classic adobo is perfect in its simplicity. It gets its depth of flavor from braising bone-in chicken thighs and legs, highlighted by the savory aromas of bay leaves and black peppercorns. The sauce is perfectly loose, designed to be soaked up by jasmine rice. It is sour-forward with the saltiness of soy sauce coming in close second.

I don't like the idea that the variations of this dish are improvements. I don't think this dish needs to be elevated, although some may think of it as such. In this variation I was thinking about sweetness, aroma, and body. Some adobo recipes call for sugar to blunt the sharpness of vinegar. But I like the idea of fruit as a sweetener. In a previous post, I made an adobo with eggplant sweetened by an Asian pear, inspired by Korean cuisine. Since it's in season, I decided to use grapes and grape jelly. And keeping in line with fruitiness, I used apple cider vinegar instead of cane vinegar. The jelly gives body to the sauce while the fruit provides freshness to an otherwise heavy sauce. The butter lightens the sauce but it also softens the vinegar. I also thought that thyme is the perfect herb to compliment the savory soy sauce. The shallots are milder in flavor but it has a sweeter onion smell. The result is a type of adobo that can go well with buttered egg noodles or pasta, or even with a baguette.

Anyway, here's how to fuck it up:

• chicken legs, thighs or both, bone-in, skin on 4-6 pieces depending on size
• soy sauce, 1/2 cup
• apple cider vinegar, 3/4 cup
• water, 1/2 cup
• garlic cloves, crushed, 6 each
• shallots, slices, 4 large
• thyme, 1 sprig
• grapes, halved, 10-15 each
• black peppercorn, 2 tablespoons
• bay leaves, 5 pieces
• grape jelly, 2 tablespoons
• unsalted butter, 1 tablespoon
• olive oil, 1 tablespoon
• sea salt, to taste

In a bowl, combine chicken, soy sauce, vinegar, and garlic. Marinate for 30 minutes.

Once chicken is done marinating, take the chicken out of the liquid and pat dry. Reserve marinating liquid.

Heat oil in sautoir over high heat. Sear chicken skin side down. Remove from pan once browned.

Drain some fat from the pan, leaving about a tablespoon. Turn heat down to medium and add shallots. Saute shallots until translucent.

Add chicken back in the pan and pour in the marinating liquid and water. Make sure to scrape the bottom of the pan. Add thyme, black peppercorn, and bay leaves and bring to a boil.

Turn heat down to medium low, cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

Uncover and reduce liquid by half. Turn heat to low and melt grape jelly into the sauce, Season with sea salt to taste (it might not need it). Turn off heat and swirl in butter.

On a separate saute pan, fry grapes in olive oil until heated through. Garnish on top of the dish.

A Return to the Food World with Adobo

Art making is over for me. It's been over since I started working in museums, to be quite honest. I decided I'm going to pivot back into studying cuisine, and divert a huge portion of my energy back into recipe developing. When Bon Appetit Magazine's Adam Rapoport resigned from his position as editor-in-chief, I was given hope again. White Supremacy tells Black and Brown people that they are inadequate in ways that are both subtle and overt. I have internalized this for such a long time. I lost courage when I was working two full-time restaurant jobs a decade ago, one in  a Michelin-starred restaurant and another in a restaurant in Culver City that doesn't exist anymore. It was wild to think that I was simultaneously working for the best kitchen in town and the worst kitchen in town. I was buried in student loan debt (I still am), and so many of my White counterparts were being offered sous chef and chef de cuisine positions while I worked for a shitty line cook from Robuchon who somehow ended up being the chef of Fraiche in Culver city. As you can see in the previous posts, I tried my hands at food blogging three years ago and hit a lot of walls. Simmering deep within me is the frustration from the fact that White men have such a monopoly on cuisine and food writing. When so many BIPOC food writers and chefs made their voices heard about Rapoport's unacceptable actions, my flame was reignited. It's terrible that it took this long and within the protests about police brutality. Yet, it was so inspiring to see everyone speak up. I'm going to add my voice back into the pot, this time with a lot more confidence and conviction.

I was all fired up. I felt so restless last night that I cooked. I began with what I know really well, and it is something that I've eaten my entire life: the Adobo. I won't be going into its history that much as there are probably a lot of articles about it. What I do want to emphasize is that there is no standard recipe for this dish. Each Filipino household have their own way of preparing it. There are plenty of regional variations. And the dish evolves in whichever country it was taken to via immigration.

I made the "classic" adobo. Classic because it's the variation I grew up eating, and it is the variation that most Filipinos are familiar with: soy sauce- and vinegar-based. The project that I've given myself is to cook as many variations using the "classic" recipe as the starting point -- tapping a little bit into regionality, but more focused on new combinations of ingredients based on season and availability.

Really, I think this is a meditation on the adaptive qualities of a culture's recipes, which in turn reflects the resilience of its people. I haven't been this excited about a project in a while. I can't wait to share what I discover with everyone.

Anyway, here's how to fuck it up:

• bone-in, skin on chicken thighs, 4-6 pieces depending on size
• Filipino soy sauce (Silver Swan or Datu Puti), 1/2 cup
• cane vinegar, 3/4 cup
• water, 1/2 cup
• garlic cloves, crushed, 6 each
• yellow onion, sliced, 1/2 of large or 1 medium
• whole black peppercorns, 2 tablespoons
• bay leaves, 5 leaves
• neutral cooking oil, 1 tablespoon
• sea salt, to taste

In a large bowl, combine soy sauce, vinegar and garlic together. Add the chicken to the mixture and marinade for 30 minutes.

Once chicken is marinated, remove from the liquid and pat skin dry. Set marinating liquid aside.

Heat oil in a sautoir pan over high heat. Sear the chicken, skin side down, taking care to not overcrowd the pan. Do not move or rotate chicken until the skin is browned.

Once skin is brown, lower the heat and remove the chicken from the pan. Set aside. Drain excess fat from the pan leaving about a couple of tablespoons behind. Add onions and turn heat back up to medium. Saute onions until they are translucent. Make sure to scrape the brown bits that are stuck at the bottom of the pan.

Pour in the marinating liquid and water. Add back the chicken, and then add the black peppercorns and bay leaves. Turn heat to high and bring to a boil then cover and lower heat to medium low. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Uncover then reduce liquid by half, about 30 minutes. Season with salt.

Tanu's Masala Chicken

I'm back. It's been ten months since my last post. A lot has happened. Last time I talked about maybe going back to eating meat so that I can learn how to properly make food from cuisines I am really interested in. Well I started eating meat again, and then I got really busy...so busy that at one point I was working three part-time jobs.

In February I landed a part-time job at the Hammer Museum as visitor experience lead while also working at Blick. In February, I also found out that my dad has glioblastoma (stage 4 brain cancer), and then finding out that his life expectancy is cut to maybe three years...ten years at most.

In July I started working at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and left Blick in the same month. And this week, I will be leaving the Hammer for a mixture of reasons and my dad will be going through his second brain surgery. For now I will be just focusing on family and working at LACMA. And now that I have a bit of time, I will be cooking some more.

A lot has happened within those months--it's hard to talk about all of them in one blog post. My relationship with food changed within those months too. I was so busy, I ate mostly take-outs from restaurants and packaged foods from groceries. Not at all ideal. And because of my dad's condition, I became paranoid about my environment: cancer-causing elements that even some plastic food containers have. I may be drinking healthy smoothies, but is the plastic cup that the food is in releasing cancer-causing toxins? And I ate a lot of food in plastic containers...

I know that after my dad's surgery (if it's successful), I will be using most of my free time at the hospital with him, taking over for my mom so she can make a living. But my plan with my left over free time is to cook, and have my mom teach me if she's willing.

Today's recipe is not Filipino food though. Hammer is a great place to meet amazing people, and that's where I met Tanu. She was my underling, but she's older and has more wisdom than I do. She's filled with love, and she's one of those people who makes me feel light and worry-free. She made dinner for me and a few other friends one night and this is one of the dishes she served. She was very humble about it, but I thought the dish was amazing so I asked for the recipe.

Here's how to fuck it up:

1 medium onion

3 cinnamon sticks

3 cardamom pods

turmeric powder

red chilli powder (mirchi powder)

1 spoonful garam masala

1 spoonful garlic ginger paste

1 spoonful plain yogurt

half cup water or chicken stock

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs (Tanu used breasts)

cilantro

vegetable oil

butter

Put the chicken in a bowl. For the marinade, puree half of the onion and add into the bowl along with the garlic ginger paste and yogurt. Cover, refrigerate, and let sit for at least two hours (I left mine overnight). Mince the other half of the onion. Pour in oil in a sautoir or a braiser. Fry the cinnamon sticks and the cardamom pods until fragrant, set heat to low and add in the minced onions. It's important that you caramelize the onions slowly to develop proper sweetness. It also serves as the gravy thickener. Once onions are caramelize, add in the chicken along with the marinade, turn the heat to medium, sprinkle in turmeric and red chilli powder (for color), cover and cook until it releases liquid--about 10-15 minutes. Afterwards, add in the water or stock and a spoonful of garam masala, cover and simmer for 10 minutes more. Uncover, then reduce liquid until gravy is thick. Add cilantro leaves. Swirl in butter and a dollop of yogurt if desired. Eat with hot rice! 

  

Black Bean Soup with Sotanghon

I constantly think about my relationship with food - what it does to my body, how it makes me feel about my body, how it makes me think about other (usually fit) bodies and how I long to have one, how it makes me feel about people who don't really care about food beyond nourishment and trend, what it does to me emotionally, how my choices affect my body and the environment, how it shapes my identity, and the karmic repercussions that come with consuming especially when killing is involved. Initially, I wanted this blog as a casual go-to for Southeast Asian recipes for vegetarians and pescatarians, but the more I cook, and the more I write about what I cooked and food in general, the more I go into a deep excavation of the self. Memories spill out, both good and bad, and with them the foods that I ate, or foods that other people ate. I realized that I am incapable of making this blog casual and that it is always going to be deeply personal. And as I try to learn Philippine cuisine through my family as a producer (not as someone who just eats it), there's going to be a lot of fucking up - just read my Jackfruit Mechado post. Learning from family members is tricky at the same time, because to be honest, I found out that they were lured by the convenience of packaged soup bases, and powdered stocks, and bouillon cubes. Nothing at home is ever really completely made from scratch, and I wanted to learn from scratch...

Recently, a powerful memory has surfaced that made me question everything again. I had a really good friend in high school. She was a year older than me so by the time I was a senior she was already a college freshman. I hadn't been in touch with her for a couple of months for whatever reasons. So I called her up one afternoon to see how she's doing and found out that her mother had just passed away. I went and visited her and while I was in her apartment kitchen, she pulled out a tin foil plate tightly wrapped by Saran plastic from the freezer, and in it was a thick slice of cake. She opened it, took a small bite, re-wrapped it and put it back in the freezer. I asked why she only took a small bite and she said that it was the last thing that her mother made and she was trying to preserve it for as long as possible...After thinking about that memory, a few days later I watched a documentary series called Cooked which is based on Michael Pollan's book, which is an anthropological take on why we cook our food (or rather what made us human).

As I was trying to learn recipes from my mom, the question of cooking with and eating red meat keeps surfacing up and this memory gave me the answer. I haven't fully made a decision but what I do know is that I should really enjoy my mom's cooking whether or not it has meat, and to try to learn from her as much as possible before she leaves this planet.

Today I made black bean soup with sotanghon noodles (bean thread noodles). My memories associated with this dish doesn't involve my mom, but my grandmother. It was one of my favorites growing up. My grandmother was the one who always cooked, from sunrise to sundown every single day. The recipe for this dish was the only recipe that I asked from her. And I asked her during one of my last nights in Manila, before flying to California for good. I lost the recipe and eventually forgotten it. She passed away Christmas Eve in 2012. I remember that night vividly. I was at a Christmas dinner party, then went to a friends house for another get-together, and received a text message from my mom saying that she's gone. Drove home and had a panic attack. And I just remember walking in the house, everyone had just finished crying except for my mom who was in her bedroom, gave her a hug that she rejected because she needed to be alone and then I sat down in front of a laptop monitor, watching my grandma's dead body over Skype, took a photo of her and saved it for quite some time and eventually deleted it... She was 80

I'm pretty sure I fucked this recipe up. I asked my mom and my aunt what the ingredients are and they very quickly just went over how to cook it. I made it today without their supervision. My grandma made this with beef and I'm pretty sure she made it with dried black beans that she soaked and then simmered for long hours. I, however, chose to use canned beans, no beef involved. I also am sure that I put too much bagoong terong/bagoong isda which is salted and fermented fish sauce unique to the Philippines. I also used spinach instead of sweet potato leaves or cassava leaves. I'm going to make this again the proper way. But for now it's the pescatarian version.

Here's how to fuck it up.

half of a large onion, half-inch dice
one tomato, half-inch dice
five cloves of garlic, minced
two cans black beans, drained (I used Trader Joe's)
two small bundles of sotanghon or bean thread noodles
1/4 cup of bagoong terong
2 cups of spinach
pint of hot water, plus more if needed
fish sauce to taste
sea salt
black pepper
jasmine rice
vegetable oil

In a small pot, heat the oil over medium high heat and saute the onions and garlic until fragrant and onion is translucent. Add the tomatoes and saute until mushy. Add in the beans and stir for about a minute then add in bagoong terong. Saute for about a minute more then pour in hot water. Lower the heat to medium and simmer the beans for about 15-20 minutes. Add in the sotanghon noodles and a couple of cups more of hot water. Simmer until the noodles become transparent. Season with fish sauce, salt and pepper. Turn off heat, and throw in the spinach leaves. Serve with jasmine rice.