My Most Requested Dish - Kare-Kare

I consider Kare-kare as my Obra Maestra - a fusion of flavors, mouth-watering, explosive.  Seldom have I met a Filipino who doesn't eat Kare-kare (Luis, my previous manager at Intel). After a few years of practice, I have learned to master this dish and am proud to say that this version of mine will leave you falling for more...and more. Enjoy! 

Kare-kare is a Philippine stew made from peanut sauce with a variety of vegetables, tender oxtail, beef cheeks, and occasionally tripe or honeycomb. It is often eaten with bagoong (shrimp paste), sometimes spiced with chili, and sprinkled with calamansi juice. Traditionally, any Filipino fiesta is not complete without kare-kare. In some Filipino-American versions of the dish, oxtail is exclusively used as the meat.

Ingredients:

- 4 lbs Beef cheeks or oxtail, simmer in water w/ a dash of salt and crumpled laurel leaves, sliced into 1 inch cube

- 3 tbsps Cooking oil

- 3 tbsps minced garlic

- 1 large onion, sliced

- 3 tbsps garlic powder

- 3 tbsps Barrio Fiesta shrimp paste

- 4 cups beef broth

- 2 cubes, beef bouillon

- 5 heads of small Korean bokchoy, hard bottom removed

- 1 lb string bean, cut into 1 1/2 in length

- 3 large eggplant, sliced diagonally in 1/2 in thickness

- 2 Mama Sita kare-kare mix

- 1 pouch achiote

- 1 cup peanut butter, creamy style

Procedure:

1) Simmer beef cheeks or oxtail with enough water to cover it, 3 laurel leaves, and a dash of salt, until tender. Slice into bite size. Reserve the liquid.

2) In a pot, heat oil and saute garlic and onion until onion is translucent. Do not burn the garlic.

3) Add meat, shrimp paste, garlic powder. Stir to make sure that shrimp paste mixes well with the meat.

4) Mix together the following - beef broth (or water), beef bouillon, kare-kare mix and peanut butter. Add to pot. Let simmer.

5) Dilute achiote in 1/2 cup of water and add to the mixture. Simmer for another 5 minutes.

6) Boil the veggies in the reserved liquid. Add to the beef mixture when ready to serve.

Enjoy!

Morcon

Morcon is a Filipino meat roll stuffed with twelve different fillings - egg, pork strips, pork fat, liver strips, sausage or hotdog, chorizo, carrots, pickles, bell pepper, celery and cheese sticks and raisins. This is considered as a holiday dish and is usually served during Christmas (Noche Buena) and New Year’s eve (Media Noche). This is my Nanay's specialty and I love watching her prepare it with all of its complexities and hard work. The sauce is the Pièce de résistance - even without the meat roll, the sauce on top of the rice feels like heaven!

You need a cut of beef that is lean and that which you can slice thinly, fill and roll without tearing. Though your best bet is a flank steak, it is quite an expensive cut. Other options are top round or bottom round. You can ask your butcher to prepare the beef, tapa-style.

Ingredients:
1) beef marinated in Kikkoman soy sauce, calamansi juice, black pepper and Ajiginisa mix
2) Margarine
3) Scrambled eggs cooked into thin crepe
4) Beef liver strips
5) Pork fats strips
6) Hotdog strips
7) Celery sticks
8) Carrot sticks
9) Chorizo de Bilbao strips
10) Pickle sticks
11) Cheddar strips
12) Raisins
13) Liver spread
14) Tomato sauce
15) Pickle relish
16) Bay leaves (Laurel)
17) Grated cheese
18) string
19) Beef broth

Cooking Instructions:
1) Spread and stretch the sliced beef on your working table
2) Apply a thin spread of margarine
3) Spread the scrambled egg on top
4) Arrange the fillings on top: beef liver, pork fats, celery, carrot, cheese, chorizo, pickles, raisins
5) Roll the sliced beef with all the fillings and secure w/ a thread or string
6) Fry the rolled beef in butter until brown but not well done
7) Arrange all the beef rolls in a pot; add the marinade, all left-over ingredients (finely chopped), tomato sauce, pickle relish, bay leaves, beef broth. Season with salt and pepper. Add liver spread or breadcrumbs to thicken the sauce.
8) Let simmer until the beef roll is tender
9) Add grated cheese and simmer until melted
10) Remove from the pot and separate the beef roll from the sauce. You can continue to simmer the sauce until you have reached the desired consistency.
11) In order to slice the morcon without it crumbling, you can freeze it for an hour, then remove the string and use a very sharp knife.
12) To serve, arrange on a baking dish and heat in an over for a few minutes. Top with sauce.

Enjoy!

Easy A-dobo!

There's nothing more Filipino than Adobo. Considered as our national dish, its a style of cooking that combines soy sauce, vinegar and lots of garlic. You can cook adobo-style any meat (chicken, pork, beef), seafood (pusit, clams, mussels, galunggong) and even veggies (kangkong). My Nanay and my nephew make Adobo, Tagalog-style, by adding atsuwete (annato) dissolved in water instead of plain water. You add the atsuwete at the end of the cooking after you have simmered the meat in vinegar and soy sauce.
One time, I made chicken adobo for an American friend and he asked me if I can bring adobo every week! He told his friends about how good this dish is that he could eat it everyday of his life.
Adobo brings back a lot of memories back home - sharing it with my family as we watch tv over lunch or dinner, on a picnic, late night dinner, always eating with my bare hands.

Enjoy this no-frills, easy adobo!  


Ingredients:
- 2 lbs pork butt (diced adobo style)
- 1 1/2 cups water
- 1 cup vinegar
- 1/2 cup soy sauce
- 1/5 cup fish sauce
- 1/2 teaspon pepper
- 3 bay leaves, crumpled
- 2 tbsp minced garlic (more garlic, mas masarap)


Additional:
- 2 tbsp minced garlic for frying
- 1/2 cup chopped onion

Procedure:
1) Combine all ingredients and let stand for an hour (the longer the better para mas malasa)
2) Simmer in a pot until almost half the liquid has evaporated
3) Drain the liquid and set aside
4) Saute more garlic and chopped onion sa oil until cooked
5) Add the cooked adobo meat. Igisang mabuti para malasa.
6) Add the adobo sauce. Low fire for another 5 - 10 mins.-

Arroz ala Valenciana, General Trias style

Arroz Valenciana or Arroz ala Valenciana is a Spanish rice dish considered as a peasant meal during the Spanish-colonization of the Philippines. Its made of glutinous rice and saffron mixed w/ left-over meat and vegetables and  prepared for farmers before they head out to the fields, helping sustain their energy as they tend to their farm. 
I was born and raised in the town of General Trias, located in the province of Cavite. We have our distinct way of preparing this dish - we do not use a lot of glutinous rice, but mostly regular rice, that gives it a loose and not sticky texture. I grew up enjoying this dish after attending the Sunday mass, where we will head to the public market and eat breakfast at one of the eateries. This is often at the center of any celebration - the town fiesta, birthdays, Christmas and New Year.
I consider this the most exciting and challenging of all the dishes that I know. There were instances that my version will have overcooked rice and sometimes al dente. The key in having the perfect Arroz is the right amount of liquid to simmer the rice. 


Ingredients:
 - 1/2 lb pork butt, diced, asinan overnight para maglasang hamon
- 1/2 lb chicken, diced
- 2 pcs hotdog, sliced
- 1 pc chorizo, sliced
- 1 medium tomato, diced
- 1 large red bell pepper, julienned
- 1 large potato, diced
- 1 medium onions, quartered
- 1/4 cup minced garlic
- 4 cups beef broth
- 1 cup Carnation evap milk
- 1 cup coconut milk
- atsuete dissolved in 2 cups water
- 2 pcs laurel leaves
- 1/4 cup green peas
- 1/4 cup garbanzos
- 1 small package raisins
- 1/2 cup patis
- 5 cups of Jasmine rice
- 1 small Star margarine
- 1 package Aji Ginisa mix

1. Tunawin ang star margarine and prituhin ang baboy hanggang half-cook, then isunod ang manok, chorizo and hotdog. Lutuin hanggang maging brown ang meat, itabi gilid na kawali after
2. Igisa ang bawang, sibuyas, kamatis, kalahati ng bell pepper
3. Ilagay ang beef broth, gatas, coconut milk, atsuete dissolved in water; timplahan ng patis, 1 pack ng Aji-Ginisa, 1/2 tbsp black pepper, laurel leaves na crumpled; hintaying kumulo
4. ilagay ang bigas na bagong hugas; ang proportion ng bigas sa sabaw should be 2 cups of rice is 3.5 cups of liquid; pag kinulang sa sabaw, magdagdag lang ng tubig
5. takpan ng dahon ng saging, hinaan ang apoy pag maiinin na; ilagay ang nakatabing baboy at manok, patatas (half-cooked, pinrito);
6. pag malapit nang maluto, ihulog ang natirang bellpepper, green peas, garbanzos and raisin
7. takpan ng dahon ng saging and hayaang maluto

Tip - haluin malimit para di masunog ang ilalim, pag natutuyuan ng sabaw at di pa inin ang kanin, wisikan ng konting tubig