What's Cooking With Dive? Kare Kare

Right! Get your flabby arse off that bloody sofa, switch off that stupid fucking television and come and join me in the kitchen.

We're still with Pinoy cuisine and today we'll be making smooth, creamy kare kare.

Squee!
Yup; yet another cute little local organic piggy has fallen to the slavering maw of Dive.
Watch your fingers on that knife; it's bloody sharp. Use it on the piggy instead and cut it into nice chunky pieces.

You'll be needing some of this stuff to make kare kare. Plus the wibbly-wobbly worm string beans from last week and an aubergine.

Anchovies … What a fucking mess …
Delicious, but messy. Getting the little blighters out of the oil and attacking them with my little ninja Japanese ceramic knife is a good excuse to suck yummy, fishy olive oil off your fingers before washing it off.

I used to be able to pick these in the garden in Portugal but now I'm stuck here in England it's tinned banana blossom only, dammit.
If you can get fresh banana blossoms, blanch them beforehand.
Rinse and separate them out and then slice up the petals into bite-size or julienne pieces. They're a little like artichokes but without so much flavour, though they do absorb and enrich other flavours and they have a lovely texture so use them if you can get them.

First up … same as always … brown off your meat and set it aside, then soften a nice strong organic onion and some yummy garlic.
So far, so "same as last week".
Oh, yes. There'll be enough here for two hungry people.

You'll want about a pint of really good stock. Veggie will do if you've not been boiling up trotters and other porcine miscellanea.
Do not ever, EVER use stock cubes or "bouillon powder"; it is just salt with chemical flavourings. If you have any of that crap in your cupboards, go look at the ingredients then use it for killing slugs … It's all it's good for.
If you can't make good fish, meat, veggie and chicken stocks and freeze them for when you need them then fucking learn!

Right … I used a casserole with a lid, but you can use whatever you want.
Put in your browned meat, onion and garlic, then pour over the stock. While you're bringing it to the boil put in most of that jar of organic, crunchy peanut butter, the aubergine, chopped into bite-sized pieces and the anchovies, together with a few dry-fried and pounded to dust annatto seeds that I forgot to tell you about.

Okay … Now turn it down to simmer, pop a lid on and go wash up all that mess you've made.
Don't forget to keep an eye on this as it will need stirring as it thickens to stop it sticking and burning. Add more water if necessary.

When the meat is just about done, give it a taste and add as much organic dark soy as you feel like (and - if you're Joy and have a sweet tooth that would shame an American child - add sugar … just don't do it while I'm around).
Now throw in the wibbly-wobbly worm beans (cut to finger length like last week) and the banana flowers and keep on stirring for a couple more minutes while you panic and realise the rice is ready to dish up.

Open the rice steamer to find some Thai jasmine rice as last week (and the week before). Put some in a nice bowl and then dash back to your kare kare and hurl a rough-chopped pak choi in there.
One more swirl of the spoon before the pak choi has the time to scream and it's ready to dish up.

The stuff on the side of the plate is Bagoong (shrimp paste). Warm some up in the microwave and use it as a relish for kare kare if you want authenticity. It is yummy!.

Your kare kare should be creamy and mild and semi-sweet with a glorious combination of textures, and no excuse for poo jokes like last week's sinigang.

While you're eating that, enjoy this little video that Joy sent me.
It's the "Oblation Run", the traditional enrollment procedure at Manila's top university.
Unfortunately the ladies don't have the same tradition.