アドボ

adobo for hafus

Serves: 3–4
Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 1 hour (slow simmer)

Ingredients

• 500g pork belly or chicken thighs, cut into chunks
• 4 tbsp shōyu
• 4 tbsp Japanese rice vinegar
• 1 small strip kombu
• 5 thin slices of ginger
• 6 garlic cloves, gently crushed with skin on
• 1 tbsp sake
• 1 tsp mirin
• 1 dried bay leaf
• Freshly cracked black pepper
• 1–2 tbsp lard or neutral oil (for searing)
• Optional: small square of dried dashi pack (to replace kombu + mirin)
• Optional: 1 tsp coconut sugar or muscovado

Equipment

• Palayok, or a heavy-bottomed pot with lid
• Wooden spoon or ladle
• Charcoal fire or low stovetop flame

Instructions

1. Sear the meat: Heat the pot over medium-low. Add oil or lard. Sear the meat until lightly browned on most sides.
2. Add aromatics: Add garlic, ginger, and kombu. Stir gently until fragrant.
3. Deglaze with vinegar: Add rice vinegar first. Let it simmer without stirring for a minute.
4. Add soy sauce, sake, mirin, bay leaf, and pepper: Stir gently. Add water to barely cover the meat. Add sugar if using.
5. Simmer slowly: Cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer 40–60 minutes, letting it reduce naturally.
6. Let it rest: When sauce is thick and glossy, turn off the heat. Rest at least 20 minutes before serving.

Serving Suggestions

Say I understand nothing. About being Asian. There's a kitchen out there somewhere where I can eat with prosthetic hands and replace my fingers with chopsticks. On a platter. Of big, glossy banana leaves. Say you brought me here to globalize me and escape the insularity of Japan. Because you know what it's like. Say baba would have lived to see me born, at least. Say here is a place where I'm forced to confront history I had nothing to do with. The construction of nation-states. I'm really more of somebody who stays inside. Where I can surf the web. That's a form of travel, right? Does anybody say that anymore? I think what's interesting about surfing is that it's one of the sports, compared to other sports, that surrenders the human body to a tremendous natural force. Say I could've been born in Hawai'i. There's a lot of surfing there. Maybe I could've had a different life, like my half-brother. Either way, anywhere we are in and along the Pacific, we always feel the earth being reborn. A plate smashes into another. That was expensive. Say you can replace it. That's what you used to do in the 80's. Say it's like the Asian Financial Crisis all over again. You're flying back and forth between here and there. I'm thinking about the afternoon you were teaching me calligraphy. You said, one day, when you're older, you'll understand. Say what you mean or say what you say. But you can never really say anything. My languaging not like yours.