Grilled Hawaiian Filipino Adobo Pork

Last Year's Post: Baked Italian Sandwiches
Two Years Ago:  Watermelon Gazpacho

How can a recipe be Hawaiian and Filipino, you ask?  I adapted this recipe from Steve Raichlen's BBQ USA and he explains it like this:

"Filipino cuisine is one of the world's best-kept food secrets.  Even if you live in a city with a large Asian community, like San Francisco or Seattle, I bet you'd be hard pressed to name a single Filipino dish.  This is a shame, because Filipino cooks draw on two rich culinary traditions - the Iberian cuisine of its Spanish colonizers and the vibrant flavors of the Far East.

Consider the following pork tenderloin adobo.  As the adobo moved from Spain to the Philippines, it picked up some Asian seasonings, such as ginger and soy sauce, a combination that's hard to resist.  This recipe comes not from the Philippines, but from Hawaii - home to a large Filipino community and one of the few places in the United States where Filipino cuisine is accorded the respect it deserves." 

Compared to other Hawaiian adobos I've had, the sauce is less assertively vinegary and the fact that it's made with pork (instead of chicken) and grilled (instead of stewed) is unusual.  But it's still just as delicious and a great change of pace from your regular barbecue stand-bys.  And healthy!  Adobo is traditionally served with white rice to balance the big flavors and absorb the sauce, but brown rice or another grain would be just as good.  Be sure to throw some fresh pineapple rings on the grill at the same time for a perfect sweet accompaniment. Note that the pork needs to marinate for 2-8 hours so plan ahead.

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Grilled Hawaiian Filipino Adobo Pork

Serves 4

½ medium onion, thinly sliced

3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1 piece (1 inch) fresh ginger, peeled and cut into matchsticks

2 green onions, minced (and additional sliced for garnish, optional)

1 cup low-sodium soy sauce

2/3 cup rice vinegar or white wine vinegar, or more to taste

1 tablespoon sweet paprika

3 bay leaves

2 tablespoons Asian (dark) sesame oil

1 pork tenderloin (about 1 lb)

Kosher salt and black pepper

 2 tablespoons butter

½ onion, cut into chunks and layers peeled apart

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Combine the sliced onion, garlic, ginger, green onions, soy sauce, vinegar, paprika, bay leaves and sesame oil in a large zip-top bag; seal the bag and shake to combine the ingredients.

Trim the tenderloin of any extra fat or silver skin.  Cut into 1-inch cubes, season with salt and pepper and place in the zip-top bag.  Seal and shake to coat all the pork cubes evenly.  Place in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours and up to 8 hours, shaking and turning the bag occasionally.

Remove the pork from the marinade, brushing off any onion pieces.  Strain the marinade through a strainer into a saucepan to remove solids.  Bring to a brisk simmer for 5 minutes to reduce and thicken the sauce, stirring as it cooks.  After 3 minutes add the butter.  Taste for seasoning, adding salt and pepper plus a splash of vinegar if necessary; the sauce should be piquant and highly seasoned.  Keep warm.

Meanwhile, heat the grill to high.  Thread the pork cubes onto skewers, alternating with pieces of onion.  Clean and oil the grill grate, then grill the pork skewers for about 8 minutes total, turning to brown each side.  Baste with vegetable oil as they cook.  During the last two minutes of grilling, brush the kebabs with a little of the sauce.

Serve the kebabs with additional sauce on the side and optional green onions for garnish.

Filipino Chicken Adobo

Last Year's Post: Egg Gratin
Two years Ago:  Swordfish en Papillote

If you ever find yourself in a state of peace and clarity with the world such that it makes you nervous, as in things are going too well so something bad must be about to happen, I can fix that for you.  Just start pondering the word "adobo" and your mind will get so twisted up, it will forget how much fun it was having.  Really, what is adobo?  Isn't it some sort of Mexican spice mix?  But apparently the same word is used for Hawaiian and Filipino meat-based dishes with vinegar that have absolutely nothing to do with the Mexican spice mix, or do they? And what about canned chipotles in adobo? See, you just forgot about peace and clarity, didn't you?

As with all conundrums, a little Google search reveals the answers to the universe.  In this case, blame it all on the Spanish.  The word adobo means "marinade, sauce or seasoning" and originally was a Spanish food preservation method that involved submerging raw meat into a vinegar-based sauce.  As the Spanish traveled around the world, so did the term. In Mexico and Puerto Rico it came to mean a salt-based seasoning mix in addition to the tomato-based sauce used to stew jalapenos (chipotles).  In Hawaii and the Philippines  the Spaniards encountered an indigenous cooking process that involved stewing with vinegar that reminded them of their own process so they called it adobo too, even though it's really not the same.

Confused yet?

Let's just say I've tried Hawaiian Chicken Adobo and love the taste although I can see how it might be a bit too vinegary for some people, so I was very interested to try this variation from Luzon (the largest island in the Philippines) where pretty much everything contains coconut in some form.  Adobo is so popular that it's the national dish of the Philippines, and chicken is one of the most popular versions. This recipe is adapted from America's Test Kitchen where the liner notes state that the coconut milk tempers the acidity of the vinegar and the saltiness of the soy sauce, bringing the dish into balance.

A note about boneless skinless chicken thighs - I've noticed considerable size differences from one brand to another.  If your chicken thighs are large, cut them in half to make them easier to work with (and serve), and cut down the number of thighs in the recipe to 6 rather than 8.

Some adobo recipes call for adding the garlic cloves whole, which doesn't make sense to me.  Who wants to eat a whole garlic clove?  Others call for crushing but not mincing or grating the garlic, so I made sure I really crushed the dickens out of it before adding it to the sauce.  By the way, don't worry about the amount of garlic (6 cloves) - the flavor is very subtle in the finished dish.

When I previously tried Hawaiian Chicken Adobo, it was very salty due to the soy sauce and a long marinating time.  For this recipe I used low-sodium soy sauce, and found it actually needed a touch of salt at the table to bring out the coconut, vinegar and garlic flavors a bit.  That's a good thing because you can add it to your taste.  I thought this was an excellent, easy, and unusual chicken dish and was happy to have tried the national dish of the Philippines.  Cooking is an adventure.

p.s. Next time I think I'll add some toasted unsweetened coconut as a garnish in addition to the green onions to heighten the coconut taste and for some toasty crunch.

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Filipino Chicken Adobo

Serves 4

8 boneless skinless chicken thighs, trimmed of excess fat

1/3 cup soy sauce

1 (13.5 ounce) can coconut milk (unsweetened)

¾ cup cider vinegar

6 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

4 bay leaves

2 teaspoons black pepper

2 green onions, sliced thin

Hot cooked rice

Combine chicken thighs and soy sauce in a bowl, then cover and refrigerate for 30-60 minutes.  Remove the chicken from the marinade and place in a large saucepan.  Add the remaining ingredients to the bowl with the soy sauce (except the green onions and rice) and stir to combine, then add the sauce to the pan with the chicken.  Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for 20 minutes uncovered.  Flip the chicken pieces and simmer for an addition 15 minutes, then remove the chicken from the pan.  Thicken the sauce over medium-high heat for approximately five minutes.

Serve the chicken and sauce over hot cooked rice and garnish with green onions.

Pan Bagnat

Sandwiches have always been one of my favorite foods.  They've become even more popular recently with the proliferation of food trucks serving a wide variety of hand-held foods from around the globe.   I've tried to broaden my horizons by trying  some of the great and famous sandwiches of the world.  As my first choice in a new occasional series of famous sandwiches, I chose the Pan Bagnat which is the specialty of Nice, France.  It incorporates many of the flavors of a Nicoise Salad (also a specialty of Nice) into a tuna sandwich that's completely different from your normal tuna/mayo mixture.  The Pan Bagnat has no mayo - it has an olive oil vinaigrette instead - and has lots of vegetables in addition to tuna and hard boiled eggs.  Everything is placed in crusty french rolls or baguettes and allowed sit for several hours before eating so the juices soak into and soften the bread, the onions can mellow and the flavors meld together.

I chose the Pan Bagnat for several reasons.  First, I love tuna sandwiches.  Second, this sandwich is actually pretty healthy with Omega 3's in the olive oil plus all the veggies.  Finally, it's picnic season and this sandwich is just perfect for picnics since it has no mayo and should be made well in advance of eating. (I just love a picnic dinner at a concert in the park.  If you're quiet about it you can even sneak in a bottle of wine to go with the sandwiches.) If you have a picnic for two, use individual french rolls or mini-baguettes as I did.  If you have more people, use a full-size baguette and cut into pieces prior to serving.

The only drawback to this sandwich is the name.  I took French in high school with limited results, but one thing I noticed was that French words sometimes have letters that are completely absent in the pronunciation.  For example, you pronounce Pan Bagnat as pahn bahn-yah.  So what happend to the "g" and the "t"?  French is sneaky that way.  If nothing else, you can impress people with your pronunciation the next time you order one in a bistro.

A note about the tuna - water pack or oil pack?  Yes, water pack tuna is lower in calories.  It also has less taste.  My personal preference is to use oil pack tuna for special recipes where tuna is a star and use water pack for everything else.  I used oil pack tuna here but the choice is up to you.

* * click here for a printable recipe version * *

Pan Bagnat
Makes 4 servings


Note: you may find it easier to place the ingredients in the top half of the bread rather than the bottom half because the top is typically deeper and will cradle them better.


1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
½ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon ground pepper
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 baguette or 4 french rolls
½ English cucumber, sliced
1 tomato, thinly sliced
½ small red onion, thinly sliced
12 ounces canned tuna packed in oil or water, drained and crumbled
8 basil leaves
4 hard-boiled eggs, sliced
½ cup pitted kalamata olives, sliced


Whisk together the red wine vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper. Gradually add the olive oil while whisking to form an emulsion. Add the cucumbers to the vinaigrette and toss to coat. Set aside.

Slice the baguette (or rolls) horizontally into 2 pieces. Tear out some of the soft bread in the center of each side, being careful not to tear the crust. Place the ingredients on one half of the bread in the following order: half the cucumbers, tomato, onion, tuna, basil, eggs, olives, then the other half of the cucumber slices. Drizzle the remaining vinaigrette over the vegetables, top with the second piece of bread, and wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Let stand at room temperature for 2 hours or refrigerate for up to 6 hours.

Cut the baguette into four pieces and serve.