Pimped-up adobo

“Bayaan mo na,” my best friend calmly tells me whenever I complain a little too long and loudly about a restaurant dish. I like to think it’s because he doesn’t cook, but if I have to be honest, I must sound like that old auntie who makes it her life’s business to be nettlesome (I’m sure your family has one, too). Hence I assuage myself by noting that I’m just as hard on my own cooking.

Take goat adobo. It was the only dish that impressed me among the five or six we had at Islands Seafood in Butuan. Despite sensible advice never to attempt a new recipe to serve at a party, I figured it couldn’t be that hard. Also, I was rather tired of serving kaldereta (stew), our default party recipe for goat meat. In any case, I’m no stranger to adobo; it’s even the first step to great kaldereta, IMHO.

Well, I don’t mind telling you I failed miserably. My adobo was tough and under-seasoned, but mostly tough. I blamed myself, because even though Eva had said the meat was tender enough, how hard was it really to have tried it myself? If you want something done right and all that, right?

My friends are so polite. Everyone said the cut they got wasn’t as tough as mine. They meant to make me feel better, but the effect was the opposite — I hate it when people feel sorry for me; the only truth I can not handle is that some folks still believe Kris Aquino can actually cook (or act).

And so the adobo went on to become kaldereta, after all. Trying to salvage bruised ego in the guise of introducing some variation to leftovers served the next day, I braised the meat in a puree of caramelized onions, sautéed garlic/celery, and red wine, then threw in chunks of potato, carrot, pickled cucumber, and pineapple. I also added some Parmesan rinds to thicken the stew, plus fish sauce, sweet soy sauce, tomato sauce, and a small can each of chickpeas and pork and beans. Finally, a bit of pineapple stock, because it was too good to waste (actually, the sauce was way too thick).

Not quite traditional kaldereta, but the resulting dish was excellent — and the meat was properly tender this time. I would give you a recipe if I could trust myself to guess how much of each ingredient I had put in. I’ll just have to be more methodical next year. Or perfect that adobong kanding recipe in between. If you don’t know already, this old auntie just can’t leave well enough alone.