Tuesday, July 13, 2010

The Daring Cooks July 2010 Challenge: Nut Butters

Thanks to  Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the kitchen with puppies for this great challenge. "We decided to go nuts and get creative with nut butters!" and we all went nuts!! Check Here for other recipes and different kinds of nut butters.

I obviously didn't make any of the recipes that were provided us, not because i don't like the recipes but it's just that i'm familiar w/ the taste profiles of all the recipes. I wanted to explore and take the advantage of using other nut butters that i've not made yet or taste profile that i'm not familiar. I intended to make at least 3 nut butters but just didn't have enough time.

I managed to make two dishes using two different kinds of nut butters, Peanut butter for KARE-KARE and Almond butter for BEEF RAVIOLI WITH DEEP FRIED EGGS AND ALMOND BUTTER SAUCE  I have also blogged some peanut butter sauces that might interest you, so check them out VIETNAMESE SPRING ROLL WITH PEANUT SAUCE  and  VEGETARIAN STIR FRY WITH SOBA NOODLES


Kare-kare is a Filipino dish..i know, i know this is a dish that i'm so familiar with but i'm excited to take this opportunity to share this to everyone especially to those who haven't even heard of this dish.

If you will ask a Filipino, this dish will for surely be one of their favorite or a must have during a celebration/ special occasions.



NOTE:

1. Beef short ribs or beef with morrow are perfect substitute for the oxtail and tripe.

2. This dish is an acquired taste. Some may find it bland, this dish is really intended to be eaten w/ a little of the shrimp paste. If you don’t like shrimp paste, you can serve this with Maggie Seasoning for taste or a little of soy sauce.


Kare-kare (Oxtail Stew in Peanut Butter Sauce)

1 ½ lbs. oxtail

1 ½ lbs. ox feet or shin

1 lb. beef tripe cut into serving pieces

8 cups of water or more in needed

2 T finely minced garlic

1 C chopped onion

4 T cooking oil

1 C raw rice, toasted and ground to a powder ** (use ½ c first)

½ C achuete (Anatto) water ***

1 ½ C peanut butter (homemade or store bought)

2 medium Asian eggplant cut into serving pieces

10 string beans (long beans, snake beans) cut into 2 inch length

1 bok choy (Chinese cabbage or Napa Cabbage) quartered

1 banana hearts (quartered) I omitted this, can’t buy them fresh here.

1 medium kabocha or butternut squash cut into cubes

5 pieces of okra

2 pieces of finger hot peppers or Anaheim peppers **

2 medium sweet bell peppers any color of your choice.

Salt and Pepper to taste

*** You can use either the achuete seeds soaked in water to extract the orange color, discard the seeds before mixing the water into the stew or the achuete powder w/c are available at Asian stores. Dilute the powder with little water before mixing this to the stew.

*** slice finger hot peppers if you want your stew spicy or leave it whole.

** It is imperative to roast the rice to impart a smoky flavor. This ingredient will give the thick consistency to the stew. Add ½ of the powdered rice first then add more powdered roasted rice if it’s not thick enough.




TO MAKE 1 CUP TOASTED RICE POWDER:

TOAST 1 CUP OF RAW RICE IN A DRY PAN UNTIL LIGHTLY BROWN AND FRAGRANT. POUND OR GRIND THE TOASTED RICE.

1. Boil oxtail in 8 cups water for 2 hours or until tender, add more water if needed. (I usually use pressure cooker to save time)

2. Set stock aside.

3. Sauté’ garlic and onion in oil in a large saucepan or stewing pot.

4. Add the stock, annatto water, oxtail, ox feet and tripe to the pot and bring to a boil.

5. Stir in the roasted rice powder and peanut butter. Add little salt and pepper.

6. Add the vegetables in order of which one needs more cooking. Avoid stirring from this point so the vegetables will not be disturbed and will remain intact. I added the squash first, let them cook until tender but not mushy, add in the beans, okra and the rest of the veggies.

7. Serve with bagoong (shrimp paste)

8. Best serve with steamed white rice.




My second dish for the challenge BEEF RAVIOLI WITH DEEP FRIED EGGS AND ALMOND BUTTER SAUCE WITH HORSERADISH


This is actually not a weird combo since horseradish goes well with beef and sometimes poached eggs are served w/ ravioli.

For my version i deep fried the egg and added horseradish cream and milk to my almond butter to achieve a sauce consistency and added fresh picked grape tomatoes and chiffonade basil. This is a keeper!

Almond butter- form a thick butter in about 2 to 3 minutes for blanched w/o skin almonds, or 3 to 4 minutes for whole almonds; the skin of whole almonds will leave dark flecks in the butter






28 comments:

  1. I am so glad you explored some new nut butter recipes! I'm thrilled to learn about Kare Kare. It definitely looks like a challenge - so many new ingredients & techniques. I'll start with short ribs as I think it will take me some time to ramp up to tripe. I'm blown away by your ravioli dish, that almond butter with horseradish looks scrumptious.

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  2. Pia that looks so cool and you know that I'm an offal sort of guy so the Kare-kare is a winner with me but that pasta sauce is also so beautiful and white and bet was delicious. And thank you for sending me the Kare-Kare on my DK wall. Lovely photo so clear and bright superb results and the links to the other recipes is well timed I'm doing spring rolls on the weekend. Cheers from Audax in Sydney Australia.

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  3. Great job on your challenge! The kare-kare looks absolutely delicious, very much like a curried vegetable dish.

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  4. Wow - both of those dishes look and sound so delicious. I love that this challenge gave us the freedom and creativity to really go all out and make such amazing dishes! Great work on both of your dishes for this challenge.

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  5. The kare-kare looks delicious and so unusual! Will give the tripe a skip though and just use oxtail... :-)

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  6. The ravioli and the kare-kare look great! I love the idea of the cabbage and ox tail together :)

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  7. Wow!! This looks amazing! Such a different take on the challenge!

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  8. wow this looks so good! I've never had kare-kare before but now I want to try it! great job this month!

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  9. Almond butter sauce with horseradish... I might have to give that one a try one of these days! While my Kosher/vegetarian household won't give me the opportunity to make these dishes, I am so amazed by your work and contributions!! Thank you for sharing with us!!

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  10. Hi,Margie! I love that you guys gave us the chance to go "nuts" love, love this challenge=;)

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  11. You're welcome, Audax! Yay! to offals=;) Good luck to the Vietnamese spring roll, i'm sure your guest will love them as well. Your sardines rock!!!

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  12. Thanks, Jo! Vegetable curry sounds good too!

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  13. Shelley, your dishes were delicious as well and i love your sous chef=;)

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  14. Thanks, Marisa! You can totally skip tripe just double up w/ the oxtail=;)

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  15. WOW!! Are you daring or what!! Perhaps, oxtail and trip are common proteins for you but they are highly daring ingredients for me!! I think I'll try this one with the beef ribs are you suggest :)
    or perhaps you shud suggest this for Kulinarya ;-)

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  16. Both of them look good! But my favorite is the kare-kare of course! it inspired me to make seafood kare-kare for my challenge :)

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  17. Wow, the oxtail stew looks so tasty!

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  18. Thanks for introducing me to Kare-kare! It looks like a delicious dish, meat + peanut butter sounds like a great combo. Great job!

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  19. thanks for the comment, taga luto! In response to you question... chinese black vinegar can be replaced with Worchestershire sauce, it tastes very similar. As for normal vinegar, it might be too strong... maybe if you cut back on the amount and used more soy sauce. HOpe this helps!

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  20. Rochelle,blepharisma,Jenn thank you=;)..Kare-kare is one of my fave.

    Hi, Ruth..hope someday you'll be able to try the beef ravioli w/ almond sauce, they're good.

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  21. LOL! Asha..i love offals! Beef ribs will be great too.

    Chef_d..i also love your seafood kare-kare.

    Pigpigscorner...thank you=;)

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  22. Anjelikuh, thank you..i learned something new, ill let you know how my version will be.

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  23. My eyes are stuck to that ravioli photo. Such a beauty, very great shot! Unique take of this challenge...

    Sawadee from Bangkok,
    Kris

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  24. Kare Kare is new to me and I will definitely give this a try! And beef ravioli with almond butter horseradish sauce sounds rich and delicious. Congratulations on some inspired work!

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  25. Thank you for sharing the kare-kare recipe. It looks delicious. I'm totally unfamiliar with Filipino cuisine, so this is really wonderful. I must try it out!

    Your ravioli looks beautiful too. What a great idea for a dish!

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  26. I LOVE ALL of your dishes, but the beef ravioili with deep fried eggs and almond butter horseradish sauce has me panting! So creative and bookmarked!

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  27. your kare kare looks good. it's quite challenging to take a picture of kare kare and im always not happy with the "look" i get.
    your second dish though is killing me! that egg looking so gooey is calling my name! love the flavors you put altogether in this dish... yum!

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  28. 2 great looking and sounding dishes. Well done!

    And double great on the photography!

    We might slip the kare kare on to the todo list, but wow, that's a whole shopping cart of ingredients in one dish...

    Stay JOLLY!
    D&S

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