cook: kare kare

I grew up eating rice with every dinner and would get tired of the starch and of my mom's rotation of sinigang, adobo, beef stew and other Filipino dishes. And then sometime in my teens, my mom started cooking Kare Kare. I bought oxtails months ago, nostalgic for that Filipino stew thickened by peanut butter and rice flour, redolent of shrimp paste, full of Asian vegetables like bok choi, eggplant, and long beans. I went to Ranch 99, hoping to buy the seasoning packet for kare kare, but nope--they were out, that and a can of banana blossoms though I did come away with beef neck bones, Japanese eggplant and green beans to supplement my Napa cabbage from the garden. Maybe a trip to Seafood City in South San Francisco would not be necessary the next day. After my workout that Sunday, I decided to resort to what ingredients were on hand and cook it like my mother would have had to back in the day. Dayum it was a lot of meat that brimmed to the top of my stock pot. I boiled it for 2 hours, and then threw in a whole onion into the pot along with a few small cloves of garlic. Note to self. Add lots more garlic next time.

 

I prepped the vegetables for the stew, and Cecilia brought over her larger stock pot. I removed the meat and its bones and kept them in my stockpot and put the stock from all the boiling meat into Cecilia's larger pot. 

 

I boiled the Napa cabbage, green beans and eggplant for 5 minutes in the hot broth and then moved them into my stock pot. 

Gravy next. I made a slurry with rice flour, shrimp paste, peanut butter, and annatto powder. At the last minute, I remembered the fish sauce.

 

Into the stewing broth went the slurry. 

 

And then I divided the stew between two pots.

I served it with steamed brown jasmine and long grain white rice. I should’ve have cooked the liquid down more because it was a bit too soupy.

But I found the supper comforting though the hubs put Louisiana hot sauce on his. Hmmph.