A Boy and His Adobo

Among the many, many terrible versions of Christmas carols playing on satellite radio at work, somehow a rendition of "A Few of my Favourite Things" seems to have slipped in. I've never really considered the song a carol (correct me if I'm wrong), but regardless, it served as something of an inspiration. No, not for cream-coloured ponies or schnitzel with noodles - but Pork Adobo, one of Matt's favourite dishes.

Matt had been asking for this one for a long time, and I'm honestly not quite sure why I've been putting it off. I'm not generally a lazy cook, and this was far less time consuming than I remembered it being. That said, the last time I made it, it did fall a little flat. My dad usually does a version with beef short ribs, which I prefer, but Matt wanted pork, and I figured if I was going to try it again, I might as well do it more or less right.

The original recipe is from The New York Times, and is presented with very limited tweaking. I used boneless pork ribs, mostly because they were cheaper than the whole rack of baby back, but also because I'm a recovering vegetarian, and bones in my food weird me out. So does lard, as you may remember from my last post.

Pork Ribs Adobo

adaptedish from The New York Times

1 cup apple cider vinegar, preferably organic and unfiltered

1 tablespoon soy sauce

3 small bay leaves

1 large jalapeno chile, stemmed and roughly chopped

2 lbs baby-back pork ribs, (1 side, cut into individual ribs, or boneless ribs)

2 teaspoons sea salt

6 garlic cloves, peeled

2 teaspoons black peppercorns

In a bowl, combine vinegar, soy sauce, bay leaves and chile and set aside.

Season the ribs with 1 teaspoon salt. With a mortar and pestle or a small food processor, grind the remaining teaspoon salt with the garlic and peppercorns until it forms a rough paste. Rub past into ribs and transfer to a large ziploc bag. Pour in the vinegar mixtures, seal and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight, turning occasionally.

Transfer ribs and marinade to a pot, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 1 hour, until the meat is tender. (I let mine cook for more like an hour and a half, but I like the meat all shreddy, so take your pick). Remove ribs to a baking sheet and simmer sauce until thick.

Preheat the broiler, pour 1/4 cup of the thickened sauce over the ribs, turn to coat, and broil until nicely browned, about 7 minutes, turning once.

Serve over rice with the remaining sauce. Provide coarsely chopped tomato and onion to go along, if you like (it's tasty!)

And smile when you eat it - it makes the cook happy.