I do not cook Filipino food often but when I do I go for the gusto!  Moreover, this is the first time I’ve ever cooked a slab of pork fat and I must say I quite enjoyed it.  Today for his lunch break, my 9-year old son had the remainder of last night’s pork belly adobo.  As he took a bite, he closed his eyes and jovially said, “I’m in pork heaven…”I am not going to dictate this recipe by measurements, because frankly, I didn’t measure anything last night during prep.  I merely gathered all the ingredients together and placed everything in my handy-dandy slow cooker! 

So for the ingredients, I purchased a nice slab of pork belly from Whole Foods.  It was about 1.67 pounds for less than $8.00.  Doesn’t seem like a whole lot, but since I didn’t really know (at the time) what I was getting myself into, I decided to go small for starters.  In addition, I also had added about a pound of pork stew meat that costs me only .89 cents.  What a bargain that was!

The remaining components, essential for a traditionally good Filipino adobo dish are Silver Swan (or similar Filipino brand) special soy sauce, Datu Puti (or similar Filipino brand) white vinegar, fresh whole black peppers (5-6), fresh bay leaves (2-3), fresh cloves of garlic (3-4).  I also tossed in some fresh, chopped shallots–but it’s optional.
Turn on the slow cooker to 6-hours on high setting.  The sauce, you will find, will obviously be very fatty, so once in a while, I added about a teaspoon of soy sauce and vinegar within the six-hours cooking period just to give the meat more flavor.  Meanwhile, I made about 5 cups of white rice in a rice cooker (I don’t quite know any Filipino household that does not own a rice cooker).

Lastly, for aesthetics, I served the whole pork belly, alongside the extra pork meat and white rice on banana leaves placed on top of a large wooden platter.  That was it!  Easy enough?  Do enjoy and let me know what you think!–gcc