Carlo Lamagna Reformulates Traditional Filipino Cuisine

Filipino Adobo recipe from Chef Carlo Lamagna

I think a lot of people should really truly explore what Adobo is. When I cook Adobo at home, I use a combination of both pork belly and pork neck bone. There's good meat on the neck bone. It adds a lot of great flavor to the broth when it's brought down and the pork belly itself is a tougher and richer cut. I cook it the way that my dad cooks it. Add water, vinegar, Bay leaves, garlic, peppercorns inside the pot with your neck bones and pork belly, just to cover. The pork belly can be diced up. You start slowly cooking that down. Most Adobo a lot of people do is very saucy. I like mine a little on the drier side. It's a little bit more on the oily side. That fat is such great flavor when you put it on rice. So I actually cook it util the liquid is almost all gone. And then I season it with soy sauce. I don't add the soy sauce at the beginning, because if you add the soy sauce in the beginning, as it cooks out, it actually the bitter notes of the soy sauce will come out more and you don't want that. Always season it at the very end and I never eat it right away. I always eat it the day after. It's a labor of patients because again, just like any braise, it'll be so much better the next day, because all of those flavors are allowed to sit in there and re-soaked back into the meats. Yes, you can eat it right away. It's fine. But it's going to be significantly better the next day. That's one thing that I would encourage you to try . Serve it with a nice bowl of white rice using Jasmine rice as it is the most common rice in the Philippines.