Adobo

Method

1. marinate30 min
   meat, soy sauce, garlic and pepper only — no vinegar yet
   pork + chicken + soy sauce + smashed garlic + cracked peppercorns, left thirty minutes. Soy alone at this stage: it is salty enough to season into the meat, while vinegar this early would start denaturing the surface and turn it chalky before any cooking happened
2. boil8 min
   vinegar, water and bay added, brought to a hard boil, LID OFF, NOT stirred
   + vinegar + water + bay leaves, brought to a full boil and left completely alone for several minutes. This is the rule every source repeats: do not stir until the vinegar has boiled. Raw acetic acid is volatile and harsh, and boiling drives off the sharp edge — stirring it in early distributes that harshness through the meat and it stays. Uncovered, so the vapour actually leaves
3. braise45 min
   reduced to a low simmer, partly covered, until the pork yields to a fork
   simmered gently until the pork is tender, about forty-five minutes (+ coconut milk, + annatto, added in the last fifteen). Pull the chicken out after about twenty-five minutes and set it aside — it is done long before the pork, and leaving both in for the full time gives you tender pork and stringy chicken
4. reduce10 min
   meat lifted out, sauce boiled hard uncovered until syrupy
   the sauce reduced with the meat out (+ brown sugar) until it thickens and darkens to a glaze. The sugar is not for sweetness so much as balance — it rounds the vinegar's edge and helps the glaze catch on the meat in the next step
5. fry8 min
   meat returned to the wide pan, medium-high, turned until the edges caramelise
   + meat returned and fried in the reduced sauce and its own rendered fat until the surfaces darken and crisp at the corners (+ oil if the pork was lean). Browning at the end rather than the beginning is the better order: browning first puts a crust on the meat that forty-five minutes of braising then softens away, while browning last means it is still there when it reaches the plate
6. rest4 min
   off the heat, a few minutes before serving
   briefly and taste (+ scallions, over rice). Adobo is famously better the next day — the vinegar continues to work into the meat and the flavours settle — so it is one of the few dishes here genuinely worth making in advance