Kare Kare
Peanut butter stew, commonly made with oxtail, tripe, assorted cuts of beef or goat, eggplant, sitaw (Chinese long beans), bok choy, and banana blossoms and is served with sauteed bagoong mixed with calamansi. This dish is comfort food for many, but is strangely foreign to me. I’m allergic to peanuts, and was never able to even taste it when my mom would make it. I would usually eat adobo or bistek while my family feasted on vegetables slathered in a gelatin rich, almost pudding-like, yellow stew coating just as easily the tender meat and tendons attached just barely to vertebrae after a long barrage of braising, periodically dipping their spoons in a hot pink paste. Today, I had kare kare for the first time, and I get it now, though it’ll still be a while before I consider it as comfort food. For now it will have to just be something I can’t wait to try again.
I’m still allergic to peanuts, I made this with cashew butter as well as with oxtails, eggplant, and bok choy.
