Oxtail Kare-kare Peanut Stew Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is Kare Kare sauce made of? ›

Meet Kare-Kare (kah·reh kah·reh), the Philippines' delicious take on a hearty peanut-based stew. Creamy peanut, tangy vinegar, date nectar, garlic, onion, and mild spices unite for a rich, savory, & slightly sweet celebration of Filipino flavors.

Put the meat in the oil and sear each side for a couple of minutes. Browning your oxtails will not cook the meat. Instead, it will enhance its color and aroma by caramelizing its exterior. Browning beef oxtails in a hot skillet before braising will also add rich depth and flavor to the meat.

Much like the other cooking methods, you want to trim off any excess fat, brown the outside, and deglaze any leftover bits from the browning process. This time, use wine to deglaze the pan and sauté onions, celery, carrots, and garlic.

Alternate way to thicken stew gravy: Remove the oxtails/vegetables, leaving the liquid in the pot. Make a cornstarch slurry in a small bowl (1 tablespoon cornstarch + 1 tablespoon water, mixed until combined). Stir mixture into stew liquid and simmer until gravy thickens, about 5 minutes.

Peanut Butter, Sunflower Butter, Almond Butter, or Cashew Butter can be used using the same 1:1 ratio for measurement. If these vegetables are available to you to make the traditional recipe, use Banana Blossoms or Banana Flowers, Chinese Cabbage, Daikon Radish, Okra, and Long Beans or String Beans.

Like kare kare, kaldereta is a stew of sorts and always served with white rice. But where kare kare is traditionally made with oxtail, kaldereta is usually made with beef or goat. And here's the interesting, nutty twist: In Cebu and Mindanao, peanut butter is also added to the sauce for an extra kick of flavor.

By soaking and blanching the oxtail before cooking any impurities are removed. To cook: Oxtail requires long, slow cooking to produce tender, succulent meat.

The idea behind coating meat with a sprinkling of flour before browning in a hot pan is pretty simple: Flour is full of starch that will caramelize quickly and give a deeper color and flavor. You most often see this technique called for in stews, where flour is used to thicken the cooking liquid.

Fill with enough water to cover oxtails and place over high heat. Bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to medium. Cook oxtails until tender, 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

Directions. In a large bowl, combine the paprika, black pepper, salt, oxtail seasoning, onion, garlic, scallions, 4 of the thyme sprigs, and the hot sauce. Add the oxtails and toss them with the spices until evenly coated. Cover the bowl and allow the oxtails to marinate in the refrigerator overnight.

What happens if you don't brown oxtails? ›

While it's not absolutely necessary to brown the oxtails before stewing them, it is highly recommended. Browning meat results in caramelization which greatly enhances the flavor of the finished stew. It also produces a beautiful color in the finished recipe.

As the meat braises, the collagen inside the cut cooks down and becomes gelatin; as it dissolves, the meat's fibers relax and tenderize. However, if the cooking temperature is too high, these muscle fibers will shrink and seize up, toughening.

The secret to tender and flavorful potatoes in your stew lies in low and slow cooking. Here's how you can achieve the best results: Add the potatoes to the stew during the last hour of cooking. This timing will prevent them from becoming mushy.

Just a Cook recommends using a paper towel over the top of the stew at the end of cooking to soak up any unwanted oil. A longer-term approach is to cook the stew, cool it overnight in a refrigerator, and then skim any solidified fat off the top.

As you might assume, the name of the dish comes from the word "curry." According to Culture Trip, kare kare essentially translates to faux curry because although it resembles the Indian sauce in appearance, the actual flavor and components are very different.

The word “kare-kare” is derived from another popular dish, curry. “It's called kare-kare because we adapted it from our Malay ancestors and neighbors,” Ahorro explained. Indeed, the stew resembles curry with its yellowish-orange color, which comes from adding peanuts or peanut butter.

In the Philippines, if something is particularly good or desirable, it's common practice to say its name twice, so since “kare” means “curry,” you could say that a loose translation of kare-kare is “really good curry.”