Found Simple Solution to the Pork Adobo Problem
After marinating some pork ribs in a bag for several hours, cooking them in a pot for another few hours, crisping them in the oven for a little while, and topping them with some cooked marinade, you will have some delicious pork ribs adobo!
Below are some links to more details, including photos:
My Story
I wanted to make pork adobo, but all the recipes I found required me to cut up a piece of pork into smaller pieces, which I preferred not to do. Also, I’m partial to cooking with bone-in meat for the extra flavor. So, what did I do?
Inspiring Recipe
I kept searching the internet and came across Pork Ribs Adobo on a website, Simple Comfort Food. This recipe looked like it would result in a flavorful dish, yet was easy to work with.
First Try
With most of the ingredients at home, I only had to purchase ribs and an onion. When I went to the supermarket, I was happy to see that it had a special price on spare ribs, so I bought those.
Ingredients to Use
Using 4 pounds of ribs as the starting point, I decreased the rest of the ingredients on the recipe to the following amounts:
- 1/3 cup of soy sauce
- 2/3 cup of vinegar
- 2 teaspoons of peppercorns
- 2 whole bay leaves
- 1/16 teaspoon of salt
- 1/3 of an onion
- 13 cloves of garlic (See the end of this post for the source that helped me estimate how many garlic cloves are in a head of garlic.)
Steps to Prepare
I followed most of the instructions on the recipe, but did make some minor adjustments along the way. In addition, I broke the recipe down to five basic parts as follows:
- Preparing ingredients
- Marinating ribs
- Cooking ribs
- Crisping ribs
- Creating sauce
For the first part, since I bought chain-shaped spare ribs, I didn’t have to remove the silver skin. In addition, I imagined that the meat would break into bite-size pieces during the cooking process, so I didn’t think cutting them in smaller pieces would be necessary.
In the second part, I made the marinade per the directions, but put all the ingredients, except for the ribs, in a cup first. In addition, I used rainbow peppercorns instead of black peppercorns and automatically ground them. Afterwards, I put everything in a resealable bag, massaged the marinade into the ribs, and placed the whole thing into the refrigerator. About half way through the marinating time of 4 hours and 15 minutes, I gave the ribs another massage.
When it was time to cook the ribs, I poured everything in the bag into a saucepan and brought it to a boil at high. When the marinade was boiling, I lowered the heat on the electric stove over 25 minutes, from medium to medium low, and finally to low. Two hours into the cooking time, I flipped the ribs, so they would cook more evenly.
Since it was getting late and we needed dinner, I just put the ribs in the oven for 10 minutes even though they could’ve used some more time to get crispier.
Lastly, because there wasn’t much liquid in the saucepan after I took out the ribs, I didn’t boil or strain it before pouring it on the oven-finished ribs.
Time to Eat
After the ribs were plated, I was ready to taste the flavors!
Recipe Rating
Below were the results of the recipe after the first try:
| Number of Ingredients | Effort (Low🤏, Medium🤏🤏, High🤏🤏🤏) | Cost per Serving (<$2💰, $2-5💰💰, >$5💰💰💰) | Taste (Not for me🤔, Trying Again🙂, Eating Regularly😋) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8️⃣ | 🤏 | 💰💰 | 🙂 |
The meat was soft and well-seasoned, but a little dry. Also, the bones would break easily, so I had to be careful not to swallow the pieces.
Second Try
For the second attempt, my goal was to get the meat crispier, without the bones crumbling.
Ingredients to Use
With a little over 4 pounds of spare ribs, I used the same measurement for all the remaining ingredients as before with the exception of adding an extra garlic clove.
In addition, I followed the recipe by using black peppercorns.
Steps to Prepare
During the second attempt, I kept some of the steps the same, but changed others, as compared to the first time.
For the marinade, I kept the peppercorns whole and automatically crushed the garlic cloves instead of mincing them.
In regards to the cooking time, I lowered it from 4 to 3 hours.
When it came to crisping the ribs, I did it for 20 minutes before it looked good.
Lastly, there was enough marinade for the sauce this time, so I skimmed the oil before boiling it again.
Time to Eat
After decreasing the cooking time and increasing the crisping time, I was curious to see if the texture of the rib meat and bones improved.
Recipe Rating
Below are the results of the recipe from the second attempt:
| Number of Ingredients | Effort (Low🤏, Medium🤏🤏, High🤏🤏🤏) | Cost per Serving (<$2💰, $2-5💰💰, >$5💰💰💰) | Taste (Not for me🤔, Trying Again🙂, Eating Regularly😋) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8️⃣ | 🤏 | 💰💰 | 😋 |
The first thing that stood out this time was that I had to pick out the whole peppercorns before eating the meat. However, the bones were less crumbly, so that was a big plus!
As for the meat, though it was not crispy, it was certainly tastier and more moist this time around.
Just for the taste alone, I would eat this dish regularly, and now, I can enjoy the flavors of pork adobo without having to cut up a large piece of meat, yet still savor the flavors from the bones!
Since there were some minor downsides in the last batch, I think the results would be better next time if I implemented a few fixes as follows:
Continuous Improvement
- Use baby back ribs, instead of spare ribs, so the bones would stay intact.
- Grind the peppercorns for the marinade, so I wouldn’t accidentally break them in my mouth.
- Increase the oven time to make the rib meat crispier.
By using this rib recipe, I learned that spare rib bones can’t withstand long cooking time, so the following lesson is one that I would share with my previous self:
Lesson for Dumber Self
- Learn more about the ingredients that I use, so I can select the best ones for a particular recipe.
What will you do now?
Next Step for You
- Try the Pork Ribs Adobo recipe from the website, Simple Comfort Food?
- Learn how many cloves are in a head of garlic? (For a helpful reference, check out the blog post, How Many Cloves in a Garlic Head? How to measure garlic?, from Grow Veggy.)
- Read another post on this site? (Go to the menu at the top of the page.)