The Best Beef Kare-Kare Ever!

Well, that I cooked anyway. I suck at cooking Filipino dishes. When I cook, I go freestyle. Hehe… and I think Filipino dishes require a lot of patience and precise steps. I don’t do precise. I’m bad at following directions.

There are only a few Filipino dishes that I can claim that I cook well – adobo, afritada and sometimes sinigang. I say sometimes because it’s hit and miss. I want to cook sinigang the proper way, using boiled tamarind. But that’s for some other time. Let’s focus on this wonderful dish, shall we?

 

I don’t eat innards that’s why when I cook kare-kare, I use beef or seafood. MB and I both loved this dish. He also agrees that this was the best kare-kare I ever cooked.

I got the recipe from the Nestle Club.

I boiled the beef in water with quartered onions and beef cubes for 1.5 hours. Ask your butcher what the best cut of beef is for kare-kare. I was in a hurry that day when I did the groceries and didn’t go to my usual butcher as he was busy with a gazillion other customers. It was a bad decision. I ended up with tough beef. Nevertheless, the very long boiling time made it edible.

You will need annato oil for this to give the kare-kare an orange color. Fry the vegetables in this oil. Fry the eggplants, banana heart, string beans and pechay in batches then set aside. You should use the white puso. I didn’t find any so I went with the red.

When the beef is tender, drain the liquid and set aside. We will use this liquid later.

Chop some garlic and onions. Saute these in annato oil. Add the beef and cook for just 30 seconds. Pour the broth over the beef. I used all the excess broth because MB likes a lot of sauce. Add peanut butter and mix well. Pour one pack of Nestle Cream. Mix well and cook for around 2-5 more minutes.

To serve, pour the beef mixture in a bowl and top with the fried vegetables. Serve with lots of rice and bagoong. I will try this method with seafood next time. 

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