Adobo Meatballs!
Traditionally Adobo is made with equal parts of soy sauce, and vinegar, peppercorn, bayleaf, fish sauce, water, and seared chicken, pork and or beef. Which is usually complimentary paired with rice, eggs, and fresh diced tomatoes.
But I wanted to do something totally out of the box. I'm sure people have already made up this idea. But hell, forget about them. I've made it my own style. (Actually inspired by my mom's adobo recipe). With my mom's critque and the help of learning how to make a sauce at school, it's become an art form.
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| First Attempt of Adobo Meatballs |
Couple of weeks ago, I got off school, went into Whole Foods, which is right next door to Le Cordon Bleu, San Francisco and I bought about 2-3 lbs worth of ground beef, carton of beef stock, and one garlic head. I already knew I had soy sauce, vinegar, etc. waiting for me at home.
On the way home on BART; my mind was creating this timeline on how I should prepare this dish. By the time I got home it was 8pm, and I did not start making this dish till 11pm because I was distracted by catching up with all the recorded shows I had missed.
I was so happy my mom woke up around 12am. Usually she should be at work at that time, however it was her night off work. She advised me how I should make it, and wondered why I needed beef stock. The reason why I got beef stock is because I figured that I wouldn't get enough meat flavor to make my sauce. I wanted to reduce as much of the stock I got and and throw in the soy sauce and vinegar to make that adobo taste.
Anyways, the first attempt of making this dish was not so great. I mean it was but... if you like salt then you might like it. I realized that I had put too much soy sauce and and vinegar into the ground beef. Then coating the meatballs, made it even more salty....
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| Second Attempt of Adobo Meatballs |
The second time I made it was when I was making dinner for my boyfriend. I realized that I was over thinking about the preparation the first time when I had cooked it.
What made this dish different was that I cooked four pieces of bacon to get that delicious fat for oil and eating bacon for munchies. (but I ended up using some bacon into the egg omelette) Plus everything taste great with bacon!
Instead of wasting about four dollars worth of beef stock. Decided to cook it the way it should be. After you sear the meat, you use the juices that come out from it, and create that sauce for it. Before I seared the meatball, what I also did different. I didn't place vinegar into it, and just out dash of soy sauce instead of what I guessed I put last time was 1/4 cup of soy sauce.
The end result turned out fantastic.
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| Third Attempt of Adobo Meatballs |
Last night when I had made this for the family, knowing my mom was home. Wanted to see if it was to their satisfaction. It was, however I decided to add turmeric to the ground beef... which kinda made it salty. My mom knew that I went off recipe.... she said something like, "It's not traditional adobo if I add stuff like turmeric, and etc.."
Meatball Adobo
Servings: 6 people
Meatball
2-3 lbs. Ground Beef
TT Garlic Salt, Lemon Pepper (3-1 Ratio)
1/2 cup Panko
2 ea. Whole Egg
Dash Soy Sauce
Sauce
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup vinegar
1 head garlic
2 ea. bayleaf
1 ea. yellow onion
