Do you read Oyster Food & Culture? Well I do. It is a “great place to exchange ideas and learn about culture through food”. Well recently, via an excellent post, OF&C made me realize that I know very little about Filipino food – how can that be? So I decided that not only was it time to remedy that, it was time to learn by doing!

I’ll start with this caveat. I am not Filipino. I may stick my foot in it once or twice here as I attempt to acquaint you (and myself) with a Filipino dish known as Adobo. I don’t know if the Philippines have an official national dish, but I can say Adobo must come close.

Adobo is not a recipe per se; it is a method by which anything– fish, fowl, vegetables or meat is marinated in vinegar, and spices. It is often braised and then browned in hot oil. Though some versions are finished under the broiler. Soy sauce may or may not be used. My version is made with boneless chicken thighs, but bone-in seems to be the norm. The dish is often garnished with an egg, but I did not know that when I prepared the version you see here. But I did serve it with rice, which is also very typical.

This is number 5 in my week of international pancakes, and we are off (once again) to the largest continent on the planet. This pancake is probably the least known of all the pancakes I have presented this week, at least to my western readers. In fact compared to the similarly prepared Indian cousin Dosa, this southern Indian pancake is hardly a household staple even in India.

But I may be getting ahead of myself here. In case you don’t know Dosa are an Indian rice and dal pancake. It seems that a Dosa is often fine textured and thin like a crêpe. At least the Dosa I have eaten in restaurants.

This version is called Adai and as I said is a specialty of the southern regions of India. Just like a Dosa, Adai is made with rice and urad dal (which is nothing like the mash of spiced orange lentils you may be used to when thinking of dal, but more on that later). One difference is that the cooks in the south of India include another type of dal also called tuvar dal– which according to my research is a southern staple. As typical of southern Indian cooking, Adai is spicier and more strongly flavored with the addition of hot red chili peppers, kadi patta, and ginger.