{Recipe} Spare Ribs using Casa Manila’s savoury peanut sauce (kare kare)

During a media event for Casa Manila in March 2015, I was able to sample their new line of refrigerated sauces that was available for purchase. Their Mabuhay collection of sauces includes the creamy coconut ginger sauce (ginataan), adobo (tangy soy garlic sauce), and the savoury peanut sauce (kare kare).

Kare Kare sauce from Casa Manila

A few weeks back, I tried the adobo sauce on my spare ribs (adobo spare rib recipe here), and the outcome reminded me of my mom’s sweet and sour spare ribs growing up , so I was a fan!

My next experiment was using the Savoury Peanut Sauce (kare kare). In the Philippines, one of my favourite dishes I tried was the oxtail kare kare, which is a thick oxtail stew with a peanut based sauce with vegetables such as eggplant, bamboo and green beans. Casa Manila serves the dish thankfully and now has their sauce bottled and available for purchase at their restaurant for $8.99/bottle. Typically when my friend’s make kare kare, they use peanut butter in their stews. What makes Casa Manila’s sauce differ is that is has no MSG and gluten free, and has a mild peanut taste. You won’t be getting peanut butter in a jar.

Because I wanted to cook a quick weeknight meal with the sauce, I decided to do spare ribs again, rather than oxtail which needs time to become tender. I cooked the spare ribs as I normally would as if this was a Chinese style dish using minced ginger and Chinese cooking wine, with a Filipino twist.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds of spare ribs
4 cloves of garlic-minced
1 shallot- minced
1 package of enoke mushrooms (170 g)- rough chop
1/3 cup of finely minced ginger
1/3 cup of Chinese cooking wine
1 tsp of soy sauce
3 tbsp of water
Cooking oil
Half a bottle of Casa Manila’s savoury peanut sauce (187.5 ml)
Cooking steps:

1. In a pot, add a splash of oil. Once the pan is heated, sautée the shallots and ginger, followed by the garlic.

2. Add the spare ribs and cook through.

3. Add the cooking wine and let the wine cook down. Add half a bottle of the peanut sauce, soy sauce and water, and cook for a few minutes.

4. Cook for about 10 minutes and taste. Add more water as needed to get the consistency you want. Add the mushrooms and cook for another 3 minutes.

5. Serve immediately.

Here you have a filling dish that was cooked within 20 minutes, once I had the ingredients prepared. I would recommend balancing the dish with a soup or light salad as the sauce is a little heavy. The kare kare sauce also makes a good dipping sauce with your BBQ meat skewers.