As some of you already know, I’m a Filipina. I was born and raised in the Philippines, and like most people there, I’m a Catholic. I grew up observing Catholic traditions like abstaining from meat and all food made from meat on Ash Wednesday and all Fridays of Lent. This is done as an act of repentance and renewal. You might be asking why abstinence is set on Friday. Friday is believed to be the day that Jesus died, so Catholics abstain from eating meat (flesh) on Fridays during Lent out of respect for Jesus who gave up his own flesh to pay the price of humanity’s sins.
Lent has started last Wednesday…and today and all the Fridays during this Lenten season, I’ll be posting seafood recipes to help my readers who are having trouble thinking what meat-free dish to cook for Friday. :)
For this first Friday of Lent, I will share with you my version of Seafood Kare-Kare. Kare-kare is an authentic Filipino dish with a sauce flavored and thickened with ground roasted peanuts and toasted rice flour. When I was growing up, my parents usually cooked the ox tail, tripe, beef or pork leg version of kare-kare. When I was in college, I was invited by a friend to have lunch with her family at Barrio Fiesta. That’s the first time I was able to eat seafood kare-kare…and gosh, I fell in love with it the very instance I tasted it. Since then, I prefer the seafood version much more than the meat one. Aside from the fact that I love seafood, this version of kare-kare cooks a lot quicker!
* I shared this on Simple Lives Thurday, Friday Potluck@EKat's Kitchen and Feed Me Tweet Me Follow Me Home Friday.
Ingredients:
- 4 tilapia fillet, cut into serving pieces and sprinkled with salt
- 6 pcs. medium-sized pusit (squid), cut into serving pieces
- 4 pcs crab, cut in half
- 12 pcs shrimps, trimmed
- 12 pcs tahong (mussels) - I used boxed blanched mussels
- 2 medium-sized eggplant, sliced diagonally
- 3 bundles pechay, trimmed
- 12 pcs sitaw (string beans), cut into 2-inch length
- ½ head garlic, minced
- 1 medium- sized onion, thinly sliced
- ½ cup finely ground peanuts (I used my electric chopper to grind the peanuts)
- ½ cup finely ground toasted rice (I used my coffee bean grinder for this)
- ¼ cup peanut butter
- 2 Tbsp Annatto powder diluted in 4 Tbsp water
- 2 cups crab broth
- 2 cups water
- 3 Tbsp fish sauce
- ¼ cup olive oil (for frying)
- 2 Tbsp olive oil (for sautéing)
- ginisang bagoong alamang (sauteed shrimp paste) & lemon - (optional)
