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Kare-Kare

A Filipino oxtail stew with peanut sauce, annatto, eggplant, string beans, banana blossom, garlic, onion, and toasted rice.

From the Wikibooks Cookbook · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Kare-Kare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the oxtail in water until tender.

  2. Soak annatto seeds in ½ cup water. Set the soaked annatto seeds aside. Rub the annatto seeds if necessary to bring out color.

  3. Cut string beans in 3-inch lengths. Cut eggplants diagonally, ½-inch thick. Cut banana blossoms diagonally, ½-inch thick.

  4. Parboil string beans, eggplants, and banana blossoms. Set the parboiled vegetables aside.

Make the sauce

  1. Sauté garlic and onions in cooking oil.

  2. Take out the annatto seeds. Add the water that the annatto seeds were soaked in.

  3. Boil the mixture for 5 minutes.

  4. Stir in ground peanuts and ground rice. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Combine and serve

  1. Add the oxtail and vegetables. Add more water if needed to have enough sauce.

  2. Add fish sauce to taste.

  3. Serve with steamed rice and shrimp paste (bagoong) on the side.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

674Calories
15 gProtein
29 gFat
96 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 11 ingredients. The other 4 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Rice1 cup cooked (158g) white206
Peanut1 oz (28g)161
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Banana1 medium (118g)105
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Eggplant1 cup cubed (82g)35
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Waternot in our table0
Annattonot in our table0
Seednot in our table0
Beannot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Wikibooks Cookbook.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Eggplant + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together801 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Beans + ricetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,017 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Beans + peanuttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together190 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Peanut + ricetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together670 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Oxtail
Becomes tender through long boiling, and its collagen enriches the sauce as it cooks.
Annatto seeds
Release oil-soluble pigment into the soaking water, giving the sauce its characteristic orange-red color.
Ground peanuts
Thicken the sauce and add body, richness and nutty flavor.
Ground rice
Thickens the sauce and gives it a smooth, slightly grainy body.
Eggplants
Soften during cooking and absorb the flavors of the thick sauce.
Banana blossoms
Add a tender texture that soaks up the sauce's flavor.

The step that matters

Stir in ground peanuts and ground rice. Ground peanuts and rice are starchy and can clump or scorch on the bottom of the pot if not stirred constantly. Adding them to simmering liquid and stirring well lets them hydrate evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the banana

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (eggplant, beans, garlic, onion, peanut, rice):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against eggplant, beans, garlic, onion, peanut, rice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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