Crispy pork belly kare-kare
A meat and vegetable stew in peanut sauce, kare-kare is a Filipino dish cooked with various beef offal. In this modern take on the all-time favorite, crispy pork belly takes the place of beef offal.
Servings 4 people
Ingredients
To tint and thicken the sauce
- 4 to 6 cups bone broth it can be pork, beef or chicken
- ¼ cup annatto seeds
- ¼ cup rice flour (NOT glutinous rice flour!)
Vegetables
- 1 small white cabbage cut into wedges
- 2 large eggplants (preferably the long Asian variety), cut into ¾-inch sliced
- 1 bunch sitaw yard-long beans, cut into 2-inch lengths
Crispy pork belly
- 1 kilogram cooked bagnet (2.2 pounds) reheated in air fryer; or use air fried crispy pork belly
- cooking oil for deep frying if using frozen cooked bagket; omit if using air fried crispy pork belly
Peanut sauce
- ¼ cup smooth peanut butter (we use sweetened)
Instructions
Start making the kare-kare sauce
- Heat the beef broth in a large pan until boiling.
- Place the annatto seeds in a heat-proof bowl, ladle in a cup of hot broth and leave to steep.
- Toast the rice flour in a frying pan until nutty in aroma and just starting to turn a light brown.
Cook the vegetables
- Into the boiling broth, drop in the cabbage wedges and cook for about ten minutes. Scoop out and transfer to a bowl. Cool.
- Add the cut sitaw to the broth. Cook for ten minutes, scoop out and transfer to the bowl with the cabbage.
- Cook the eggplant slices in the broth for five minutes (do not overcook!), scoop out and add to the bowl with the sitaw and cabbage.
Make the peanut sauce
- Transfer the rice flour to a bowl.
- Strain the annatto water, add to the rice flour and mix to make a paste.
- Take half a cup of hot broth, pour into another heat-proof bowl and stir in the peanut butter until fully incorporated.
- Stir the rice flour-annatto paste into the peanut butter until blended.
- Pour the mixture into a pan set over medium heat.
- Ladle in the hot broth, half a cup at a time, while stirring constantly. How much broth you need to add depends on how thick you want your sauce. Stop adding broth when you have reached the consistency that you prefer.
- Bring the sauce to a simmer.
- Taste the sauce and add enough fish sauce to create a good balance of flavors.
Assemble the bagnet kare-kare
- Cut the crispy pork belly into portions and arrange in a bowl surrounded by the cooked cabbage, eggplant and sitaw.
- Ladle in the peanut sauce.
