Dinner Ten

Filipino Beef Kare Kare

When it's a pandemic, and you live in the Near North, you have to make your own ethnic dishes!

I used this recipe, with the following variations.

Ingredients:

• ​one package of beef stewing cubes from Dalew Farms [I am told this recipe is really meant to be made with Oxtail, which tastes much better]
• one cup of Soda Water from my Soda Stream
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• one eggplant, cut into elongated slices
• one package of fresh okra from Freshco, tops and bottoms sliced off
• one medium bag of baby bok choy, ripped apart and rinsed
• three tablespoons peanut butter 
• five teaspoons of minced garlic
• one medium yellow onion, chopped 
• two tablespoons gluten free Tamari sauce (I intend to use fish sauce next time, but this was the best alternative to the traditional shrimp paste used in this recipe)
• a mix of one half tablespoon ground turmeric to 1.5 tablespoons ground paprika [This is to replace the colour from the Annatto seeds, which I don't have access to]
• two teaspoons of Sambal Oelek
• salt to taste
• olive oil

Directions:

• Rinse the beef, and then soak in the soda water until it is time to cook it
• Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil on Sauté function in your Instant Pot.  Add the black pepper and two teaspoons of the garlic. 
• Once the garlic is sautéed, drain and add the beef and fry for a couple of minutes, until the beef has changed colour.
• Add two cups of water and cook on 'Manual' for 50 minutes (on my Intant Pot this is the basic pressure cooker setting.  If you don't have an Instant Pot, you can pressure cook or slow cook the beef to make it soft.)
• Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a wok.   Add one teaspoon of the garlic.  Add the eggplant and okra and stir fry on high heat until about halfway done.   Then add the bok choy and finish frying until just tender.   Remove the veggies from the pan.
• Add another tablespoon of oil to the wok.  Add the onion, two teaspoons of the garlic, and the ground spice mixture.   Sauté a few minutes, until garlic is no longer raw. 
• Add the peanut butter, the tamari sauce, the Sambal Oelek, and the beef broth (I used all the broth, but you can use less if you want the sauce to be thicker).    Cook until sauce bubbles. 
• Then, add the meat and vegetables and cook until warmed through. 
• Crushed peanuts would have been nice on top of this dish, but I didn't have any.  

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When you make a special Filipino dish you HAVE to eat it with freshly made white rice.  It's a rule.   Ask a Filipino person, they'll tell you ;)   

I cannot sing the praises of Dalew Farms enough.  They're local, they're nice, they're humane, and the meat is delicious!    The also put a lot of work into Click Fork, which is a local online farmers' market worth taking a look at.