Name: Kare-Kare
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 3 h 5 min
Total time: 3 h 35 min
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: Filipino
Ingredients: 1.4 kg oxtail, in thick pieces; 2 ½ litres water; 1 onion, halved; 6 garlic cloves; 2 tsp fine sea salt, for the stock; 4 tbsp uncooked rice; 3 tbsp annatto seeds; 4 tbsp vegetable oil; 1 onion, chopped; 6 garlic cloves, crushed; 200 g smooth peanut butter; 2 aubergines, in thick rounds; 250 g green beans, in 5 cm lengths; 1 head pak choi, quartered; 1 banana blossom, sliced, optional; 6 tbsp bagoong alamang (shrimp paste)

Kare-Kare

Oxtail simmered three hours and finished in a thick peanut sauce, eaten with salted shrimp paste on the side.

3 hr 35 min total Serves 6 servings Hard

The sauce is unsalted, and that is deliberate rather than an oversight — the bagoong on the side is the seasoning, and each mouthful gets as much as the person wants. Salt the sauce as well and the dish becomes overwhelming. Toasted ground rice thickens it without flour and gives the faint grittiness that tells you it is kare-kare and not a satay sauce.

The Method for Kare-Kare

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Simmer the oxtail with the water, halved onion, whole garlic and stock salt for 2 hours 30 minutes, skimming, until tender. Keep 1.2 litres of the broth.
While the oxtail simmers, toast the rice in a dry pan for 5 minutes, until deep gold, then grind to a powder.
Fry the annatto seeds in 2 tbsp of the oil for 1 minute, until the oil turns orange, then strain the seeds out.
Heat the annatto oil with the remaining oil and fry the chopped onion for 6 minutes.
Add the crushed garlic and cook 1 minute.
Whisk in the peanut butter and the reserved broth and bring to a simmer.
Stir in the ground toasted rice and simmer 8 minutes, until thick enough to coat a spoon.
Add the oxtail and simmer 10 minutes.
Add the aubergine and beans and cook 8 minutes, then the pak choi and banana blossom for 3 minutes.
Serve with the bagoong in a separate bowl, and do not salt the sauce.

Related guide: Choosing rice.

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Tips That Matter

Do not salt the sauce. The bagoong is the seasoning.
Toast the rice properly — deep gold, not pale.
Strain the annatto seeds out after a minute.

Changing the Recipe

An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.

What to Serve With It

Steamed rice · Bagoong alamang · Calamansi

Sides from the same cuisine on this site: Ginisang Munggo.

Leftovers and Storage

Better the next day. Keeps 3 days refrigerated, freezes 3 months.

The Numbers per Serving

No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (most of the energy comes from foods with no recorded source). Why some recipes have none.

Gluten-Free Dairy-Free No Added Sugar