Kare - kare

I have the impression before that this dish is quite complicated so I never dared to prepare one. Actually it’s the mixture that I find complicated. I asked my friend for the recipe and tried it.  I have to modify though some of the ingredients, mainly the pork was substituted with beef.

Ingredients you’ll need

View Full Album

• 1/2 kg beef tripe (tuwalya), with some laman. You may use also oxtail. 
• Mama Sita’s Kare-kare peanut sauce mix.
• Barrio Fiesta Sautéed shrimp paste (bagoong alamang)
• Vegetables (eggplant cut into quarters, string beans cut into 3” length). You may add banana heart (puso ng saging) and pechay. I did not add more as it will be way too much for me & kuya.
• 3 cloves of Garlic
• 1 onion sliced
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil
• 6 cups water

 

 Step by step cooking

1. Cook the meat for 30 minutes in a pressure cooker just until tender.
2. Dissolve the Mama Sita’s mix in 1 cup of water.
3. Sauté garlic and onion in the oil until cooked and translucent.  Drop the meat into the pot and stir-fry.
4. Add the dissolved mama sita’s mix. Add the remaining broth from the cooker. Stir and simmer until the sauce thickens.
5. Add the vegetables (if you are adding peachay, leave it at the end). Cook for another 3 minutes.
6. Lastly, drop in the pechay and cook for 2 more minutes or until the vegetables are cooked. 
7. Serve while hot with bagoong and rice.

After I finished preparing, I realized it wasn’t at all hard to cook this dish.  Of course, except looking for the achuete ingredient in this country (the reason why I used the Mama Sita’s mix).

You will never go wrong with this dish, I mean it will never be a fail as you don’t even need to season it with salt.  It’s just a matter of mixing the meat, the sauce and the veggies and you’re done! The bagoong will complete the dish!

Halabos

Talk about seafoods and shrimp will definitely one of the top 5 mentions.  It’s one of my favourite, however I do not eat that often as it is high in cholesterol content. But whenever I cook, halabos is the easiest way to do it.  All you need for this recipe are:

• > 1/2 kg medium sized shrimps, cleaned
• > 100 ml sprite, at room temperature
• > 3 tablespoons EVOO (extra-virgin olive oil)
• > 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• > Salt & pepper

 

 

• Put the shrimp in a shallow pan, add the sprite, sprinkle with some salt & pepper.
• Cook for about 3 minutes in the liquid or until the shrimp turns pinkish.  Remove the shrimp from the pan and set aside.
• Remove the remaining liquid in the pan.  Add the EVOO and sauté the garlic. (Butter can be used instead of EVOO but I just feel healthy using the latter)
• Put back the shrimp and sauté for another 3 minutes.
• Serve with tomato slices or soy sauce with a bit of lemon juice.

Pinakbet / Pakbet

This is a well known dish in my province - Cagayan. Though Cagayan is called home of the Ibanags, the locality at present is not just a mix of Ibanag & Ilocano people, but there are other groups present as well like Itawis, Gaddang & other groups.  I even noticed last time I visited my place the emergence of Muslim community near Aparri. 

I observed, the way of cooking pinakbet also varies from house to house. Some will add crunch to this dish by adding pork chicharon, some will just drop all the ingredients right in the pot, simmer & that’s it! I believe we tend to carry with us our first cooking lesson we learned, which is surely in our own home.  And this is what I inherited from my parents.. this is how we cook pinakbet at home.

My brother has been longing me to cook this local dish and tonight I decided to satisfy his palate.  Most of the vegetables in this dish are imported from India. The bitter gourd at first glance seems different from that of what we have in the Philippines but I can say there’s no difference much on the taste except that this one is more bitter :)

Well enough with the prologue and lets list down the ingredients. This is just for two persons so if you need more serving, adjust the measurements accordingly.

• 1/2 kg tilapia (any fish you prefer may do), clean and cut into half.
• 1/8 kg eggplants, sliced into quarters
• 1/8 kg bitter gourd, sliced the same size as the eggplant
• 1/8 kg lady fingers (okra), trim both ends (tip & cap). [Tip I learn from my mother: Try to break the tip of the okra. If it breaks, then its good, but if not just throw it away as the pod is tough.  You don’t want to eat a stringy okra, right?]
• 1 medium tomato, sliced
• 1 head onion, sliced 
• Ginger, sliced into strips
• 3 cloves garlic, do not slice, leave as a whole
• 4 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1/2 of bullion cube (vegetable flavor)
• 1/2 cup water
• Cooking oil
• You may add: Pumpkin / Squash. I opted not to incorporate this as the serving will be too much for me & bro.
• We sometimes add finger chilis (siling haba). I don’t know what variety is being sold in my province but believe me its not at all hot/spicy the chilis there. Unfortunately, here, chilis are way too much hot/spicy.

Since I do not eat pork meat, I will use fish instead. Even way back home we generally use fish, usually grilled fish called tangi in my dialect (tulingan in Tagalog).Cooking my way:

• Sprinkle the tilapia with salt.
• In a pan, heat some oil and fry the fish till golden brown. Set aside.
• In a casserole, heat about 3 tablespoons of cooking oil. Drop the garlic, ginger and onion, sauté until the garlic turns little brown.
• Add the sliced tomatoes and cook till it gets soft. Then drop all the remaining vegetables. Pour the fish sauce, stir fry for about 2 minutes just to let the vegetables absorb some of the sauce.
• Pour in the water, drop the bullion cube, close lid and let it cook for about 5 minutes.
• Check the taste, season with salt if necessary. Add on the top the fried tilapia, cover and simmer till the vegetables are cooked through.
• Serve immediately with jasmine rice.