Our First Homecooked Meal

For our first homecooked meal, I decided to make the most Pinoy dish of all -- ADOBO! I thought about this when we were at the supermarket so I bought pork belly (liempo), garlic, pepper, vinegar and soy sauce. The last two ingredients were a bit of a challenge because they were all local brands. They don't have Datu Puti, Silver Swan or Lauriat here! No familiar labels whatsoever. So I had to make do with the ones with english translation (written in teeny tiny letters) and the ones that I thought I saw in supermarkets back in Manila.
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Feeling Iron Chef ako with the ingredients that I will be using. For example, I saw two kinds of vinegar on the shelves - artificial vinegar and distilled vinegar. Anything with the word "artificial" attached to it scares me especially with food so I went for the distilled vinegar. As for the soy sauce, I saw different kinds - there's formula 1, formula 4, aromatic. I thought formula 1 was only for race cars! Pati pala toyo dito meron nun. They also have Kikkoman but I only use it as dipping sauce and not for cooking adobo so my only option was to choose the one that looked familiar.

The ingredients - vinegar, soy sauce and garlic.

A closer look at the vinegar and soy sauce.

The finished product.

Pinoy talaga! Adobo + steamed rice = panalo!

The table is set! Let's call the guinea pigs -- este, judges pala.

Here are the judges. Kain na!

I'm sure my mom will react when she sees the picture with a bottle of coke on the table but before mom can react, let me explain...buffer lang yung coke just in case hindi sila masarapan sa luto ko. Hehe! Obviously, I'm guilty because I'm defensive. Haha!

So what's the verdict? Richard and Yan loved it! My iron chef challenge was a success!