[Recipe] Peanut-Cashew Kare-Kare

I first thought about this recipe when I was wandering around the grocery looking for ingredients for my weekend meal (usually I have no time to cook during weekdays and weekends are sort of special because I have time to play around the kitchen). I am still not very familiar with most of the local ingredients here so I was pleasantly surprised that they offered frozen precooked clean beef tripe. I have not cooked kare-kare from scratch before since I always relied on the mixes available back home. Of course, I couldn't resist giving it a twist of putting ground toasted cashew nuts but interestingly enough after doing a quick search on the internet, I wasn't the first one to think of adding cashew in this dish. The recipe below is the one I would have made if I had all the ingredients but unfortunately I haven't had luck finding banana heart just yet and ox tail. Perhaps if I go to the big markets and not just rely what's available in the grocery I would have better luck. I have those small cans of bario fiesta bagoong brought over from home and sad to say my stash is getting depleted fast. I should remember to buy a few of those whenever I get a chance.

Ingredients:

1 Kilo Beef Tripe (cleaned and cut into strips) and/or sliced Ox Tail
2 big onions, roughly chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 Cup eggplant sliced about half inch thickness
1 Cup Pechay, roughly hand shredded
1 Cup Sitaw, cut into 3 inch segments
1 Cup banana heart, roughly chopped
2 Tablespoon vegetable oil
1 Beef bullion
3/4 Cup unsweetened peanut butter
1 Cup Toasted Cashew Nuts, grounded using a mortar and pestle
Salt and pepper to taste
Bagoong Alamang (shrimp paste) as side dish

Directions:

In a pressure cooker, cook the beef tripe or oxtails with some salt and pepper until tender. The cooking time would vary depending on the type of meat and for my case I buy my tripe precooked so I would need about 20 to 30 minutes to make it tender. If cooking oxtail you may keep the stock but for tripe I usually discard the broth and use beef bullion instead for flavor.

In a big pot, saute garlic and onions until garlic is light brown and onions are caramelized. Pour in the beef stock (or stock made from beef bullion of about a litter). Add in the peanut butter and dissolve completely. Add the tenderized meat and then the ground cashew and let it boil while stirring from time to time for about 20 minutes.

Place the banana heart first followed by the sitaw and cook for about 7 minutes, drop in the eggplant and pechay then lower the heat and let simmer covered for another 5 minutes.

Serve piping hot with rice and bagoong on the side. It is meant to be a bit bland and you have to season it with the shrimp paste as you eat. Enjoy!