What Is The Best Vinegar for Adobo with Erwan Heussaff

People constantly talk about adobo and who makes the better one and one of the most important parts of the recipe is the vinegar. Have you ever questioned which is the best vinegar for adobo? Well that's what we're going to figure out in today's Test Kitchen. I know this may seem weird to a lot of people especially people who say oh my god everyone talks so much can we just get to the cooking well this show is not about that this show is about figuring out and questioning the things that we never really questioned growing up. You have a recipe for adobo that you have in your house. You probably use brands like datupoti and marcapinia and have never questioned it because that's what your household use and that's what you use and that's why a lot of these recipes people say datupoti is the best or this one's the best but have you ever tried making it with a different vinegar right and when we talk about that we don't necessarily just talk about foreign vinegars like balsamic and red wine vinegar and all these different things that might be a bit too expensive for the dish that we're trying to create. We want local. There are tons of local vinegars available and some of them are absolutely delicious so maybe these flavors will impart flavor onto that adobo and maybe you'll end up having a better adobo. It is probably one of the oldest condiments ever because when alcohol was invented vinegar was invented. Alcohol is any type of fruit or grain juice that was basically left to ferment. If you leave it long enough and it keeps fermenting even further then live bacteria actually go into the liquid and then turn that alcohol into acid and so that's what gives vinegar kind of its sour flavor. Now the issue is is that it can take up to a year for that whole process to happen. In the Philippines since we have tons of fruit it probably means we have tons of ways to drink alcohol and it probably means we have tons of types of vinegars. Something like coconut cider vinegar. You have pineapple vinegar right here. You have vinegars such as what they call here sukang putih which is probably cane vinegar. Marcapina also has what they call here sukang putih and then they have cane vinegar. I'm pretty sure both are made from cane vinegar. Next we have sukang sasa which is nipah palm which is actually one of my favorite and one of the most flavorful or you also have well this is just another variation of sukang tubah. So you might be asking or you might not how do you actually make vinegar? There's something that's really important when you make vinegar after a while when you have your alcohol that's fermenting even further you're going to have what you consider the mother. So for example Bragg's sells a product that contains the mother. If you look closely enough you see this weird alien gelatin-y stuff floating in it and that is active and live bacteria. So if you want to make your own vinegar at home you can by helping it out and making it a bit faster by taking something that has an active mother in them. How do you do that? Simple. I'm going to use some rose wine that I had. So this is our alcohol element. Depending on the proof and how much alcohol is in your liquid you'll need to dilute it with some water. So this bottle of alcohol is at 13.5% alcohol. So I'm going to dilute that with a quick calculation I'm going to put in the description box with about 172 ml of water. That goes with the rose and then to that I'm going to add whatever vinegar I have that has the mother. So I'm just going to shake this so I can get the mother out and then same thing we're going to do 180 ml. That goes in here put that into a jar cover that with some cheesecloth or any breathable fabric and a really kind of strong elastic and you're going to keep this in a cool and dark place for at least two weeks. Try it and then you can age it further up to two six months to a year depending on the flavor that you want from it. You've just made vinegar. So I'm going to taste all the vinegars, figure out which ones I like the most and then we're going to go ahead and proceed to cook all of them in a very standard recipe. Let's start with the more common one Sukang Putih. I feel like they call this also Sukang Maasin sometimes. I would not recommend vinegar tasting. It does have some sweetness to it which is quite nice though. Next we'll try the pineapple vinegar. Not as aggressive, has a nice roundness to it. Not as sweet surprisingly. Next we have some coconut cider vinegar. This one I believe is made from coconut water. Quite similar to the pineapple one. There's a nice kind of caramelly flavor to it. The cane vinegar from Markopinia. Similar but not as dry. The sweetness is still there. I feel like this is that's still the most aggressive one. Sukang Sasa. So this is a nipah palm. That's gonna be interesting. I feel like that with unpancit and stuff, this was probably the most intense in terms of flavor. And finally Sukang Tuba. Guys if you have acidity problems, this is not for you. This is, I feel like I've drunk basi or tapoy or rice wines that taste similar to this that have probably been sitting there for a little too long and slightly turned vinegary. Okay so let's get cooking. All our ingredients are basically ready. We have some garlic, some black peppercorn, some salt, eventually some soy sauce to season things later, some bay leaves, and some beautiful pork. We have a mix of shoulder and some pork belly. I like the pork belly because it adds a little bit of fat. I like my adobo to have that separation of sauce and fat, which I think is really nice and works really well. All we're going to do is brown our pork, let the fat seep out a little bit, give it some color, add in some garlic, then we're going to boil that with some water and some vinegar for about an hour and then we're just going to wait for the results. One quick tip when you're doing adobo, once you add your vinegar, don't mix it anymore. Apparently they say that way the vinegar burns off a bit faster in terms of the acid. So we'll do the exact same thing for every pot. While waiting for everything to cook, quick little interlude. If you've seen this kitchen set, you might really admire our Smeg fridge, which looks absolutely amazing, but what you might not realize is the sixth burner I'm cooking on right now is the Smeg Sinfonia. When you think Smeg, you think retro, you think round, you think really pretty. Not necessarily something you could cook massive kind of meals and feasts on, but the Sinfonia completely changes that notion. This stainless steel series is absolutely beautiful, extremely functional, and it's been working great so far. Everything's ready, everything's cooked. A couple things actually to note. The different types of pans gave us different types of results, which is not surprising because of how different pans conduce heat. Some of them dried up faster than the others, so we had to add a little bit of water here or there. Some of them gave us a more deeper brown color. Something like the pineapple vinegar cooked down way faster than all the other ones and actually caramelized. Let's start with what you can kind of consider your classic one. Standard, pretty good. The other, marcapina. Oh, sharp. And last but not least, our kawawa sukan sasa, which is so sad. That's my pick. These are all with salt only, so obviously if you want to add a layer of complexity here, you could use 50 to 60 types of soy sauces, but we don't want to do that. Let's just stick to vinegar for now. It's hard, huh? But this one, very distinct, very classic tasting. So it does carry, I mean that, I feel like this plate is loaded with memories, just because that's what you're used to. Really? Why? Let's see if we're on board with this. So if we're judging based on familiarity, yeah definitely you'd go for that. 100%. But then if I'm looking for something that's medyo far from the taste of raw vinegar, like super not acidic, I'd really go for this. Right? This one's a bit, this one's good, pero parang iba na sya. I'd use it if I were making things asado or something. But yeah, I feel like this has a super sasa. Infanta queso. I feel like it has a depth, like almost like a developed caramel flavor, you know what I mean? It's like, it really feels umami compared to everything else. That's where I'm getting, I mean the pork rendered out the same everywhere, but this kind of just complements it. It's like, stood on its own actually. Yeah, and it's kind of like how when you add coffee to a chocolate dish, or when you add salt to a sweet dish, it gives you that counter balance that's always so satisfying. That's what I get here. Yeah, same same, but yung salt nya, usually they work together, but this time the salt really assisted the vinegar instead of balance. That's why I really like this. And this one would not eat soy sauce. All of these would do really well with soy sauce, this one would not. Yeah, the soy is so developed already there, even though there's no soy. Crazy. Okay, I'm happy that we agree on that. I'm a proud tito. Guys, do you remember Julius? He's our favorite taste tester. Let me start with this. You like adobo now? Ah yes, very much. Not sweet, so it's not good. You like sweet adobo? Yes, because my Lola used to cook sweet adobo. It's almost the same, this one, these two. Did you all cook this? I love this. You were shooting it, what are you talking about? Why are you making chika with me? You were literally looking at me the whole time. This is good. Right? No bias. No bias, no bias. The sourness of this, it's absorbing. Since I like sweet adobo, I feel like if this was added sweetness, this would be perfect. If I gave you two cups of rice right now. I just want no bias, but this has a different taste. This is unplanned. I was actually, my whole spiel to end this video was going to be something like, oh we all have different ways of making adobo, and do your thing, and peace and love guys. But clearly there's a flavor bias. So if you guys haven't tried it yet, apparently three different Filipinos grew up in three different provinces, who grew up in three different families, three different moms, prefer the sukang sasa from Infanta Kezon to make your adobo. And if you haven't, and you've been making adobo with white or distilled cane vinegar, that's completely cool. Just try this out and see if it changes your mind. I think it changed mine. If there are other things that are way too laborious for you guys to test out, and you want us to test it out for you, and break some cooking myths or cooking traditions that you've done over and over again, but never questioned, let us know. We'll question it for you. Peace out.