The Ultimate Filipino Adobo (2nd Edition) by Claude Tayag

Adobo is perhaps the default dish every Filipino would cook in times of emergency because the ingredients are always available, not just in the market but also the pantry of home kitchens. How can one make a mistake, in terms of blind measurement and approximation of ratio concerning soy sauce and vinegar? Is it always about intuition, muscle memory, and the memory of taste? Yes, it is embedded in our DNA.

Looking at some of the cooking techniques of our food, it all boils down to adobo, where protein is braised in a mixture of a salty-savory medium and an acid or souring agent, flavored by strong aromatics, and finally arrives at different states from flaky dry to oily, saucy and soupy.

In this book, Claude Tayag lays down the foundations of what the Filipino adobo is. It tells the many untold stories, and some recipes, of what the adobo means to different Filipinos from all over the world.

The Filipino adobo is a cooking method using vinegar as its primary source of liquid, with variable animal or plant-based main ingredient, aromatics and seasonings. Disparate as the adobo dishes presented in this book may be in appearance, it's the feel-good memory of home that is forever etched in their hearts that they share in common.

This book also settles the issue that the Filipino adobo's recipe cannot be standardized. There are as many variants of adobos as there are households, and no two are alike.