Mom’s Recipe: Kare-Kare (Beef in peanut sauce)

Kare-Kare is our family’s specialty dish. If I’m not mistaken, this dish originated from my grandmother’s mother. The techniques, methods and secrets of this dish were passed to my mom and hopefully to us as well. There are different ways on how to cook this dish but I love the way my mom do it. Here’s the copy of her recipe.

Get you pan and stove ready cause we’re about to start cookin’..

We will need the following:

•1 Kilo Ox Tail or Beef Chunks
•Atsuete or annatto oil
•1 onion bulb
•1 glove of garlic
•1 pc knorr beef cube (use beef stock as alternative)
•Ground rice
•½ Kilo of ground peanut (don’t use peanut butter, it will change the taste and flavor of the dish)
•String beans
•Egg plant
•Banana blossom (puso ng saging)
•Salt and pepper to taste

For the shrimp paste (bagoong):
•Shrimp paste
•Onion and garlic

Here’s how it’s done:

•Stew the ox tail for 45 minutes (30 minutes if you’re using beef chunks) using a pressure cocker. Keep the stock since you’re still use that later on for the sauce.
•Dissolve the ground peanut in about 2 cups of water then set aside.
•In a separate pan or soup pan, pour in the stock and peanut mixture the let it simmer.
•Put in the onion, beef cube, atsuete oil and let it simmer for another 10 minutes.
•For the veggies: boil it on a separate pan until cooked.
•Mix the all the ingredients together to blend all the flavors (meat and veggies)

•For the shrimp paste: sauté garlic and onion until the onion caramelizes the put in the shrimp paste and sauté for another 5 minutes