Kare Kare
By Patrick Cruz & Qian Cheng

1 lb oxtail
½ lb cow tripe
1 small jar of peanut butter
1 cup roasted peanuts
1-2 tablespoon of toasted rice
1 tablespoon of annatto seeds
1 whole garlic head
1 whole onion
shrimp paste
1 bag of bok choy
1 bag of string beans
2-3 pieces of eggplant
1 banana heart

Boil the oxtail for at least 3-4 hours until tender or pressure cook for 1 hour. Boil the cow tripe in a separate pot for 1-1.5 hours until tender. Keep at least a quarter of the boiled broth from the oxtail and dispose of the tripe broth. Remove the oxtail pieces from the broth and set it on low heat. Add a couple of tablespoons of peanut butter in the broth and let it simmer until the consistency becomes a slightly thick sauce. You can test this by dipping your spoon to see if any sauce clings on it.

Crush one cup of roasted peanuts and add to the sauce. Toast a handful of raw rice onto a pan until they are golden brown. Grind the rice with a mortar and pestle and add it to the sauce to further thicken the sauce. On a separate pan, heat up some cooking oil and add annatto seeds to extract the red colour. If you have access to annatto powder then you can skip this step. Add the coloured annatto oil into the sauce to create your desired colour. Traditionally, the colour you are aiming for is a slightly yellowish pumpkin shade. Once you are satisfied with your sauce, you can toss all the oxtail and tripe pieces into the pot. 

Mince a couple of cloves of garlic and one whole onion. Sauté garlic in cooking oil then add the minced onion. Start with the hardiest vegetables, stir-fry the string beans followed by eggplant, banana heart and bok choy. Once all the vegetables are cooked, mix them all into the stew.

Finally, serve Kare Kare with steaming rice and shrimp paste on the side to balance all the flavors.

Patrick Cruz is a Filipino-Canadian artist based in Quezon City, Philippines and Vancouver, BC as an uninvited guest on the land of the Coast Salish peoples –Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations.

Qian Cheng is a Chinese-Canadian artist based in Vancouver, on the traditional territory of the Coast Salish people, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm Nations, and Bangkok.