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Beef Kaldereta

Hello again and welcome to another episode on "Ancestral Taste". An ongoing series where we showcase our culture and authentic Philippine cuisine. Today I will show you how to cook popular drinking food in our country. Enjoyed during drinking sessions due to its spiciness. Although it is no longer considered a drinking food anymore it can be often seen at celebrations or dinner tables all over the country.

Philippine cuisine has been heavily influenced by Spain due to their 300-year occupation of our country. The word Kaldereta has evolved from the Spanish word Caldereta which means cooking pot. There is no record of when this dish was invented but I would say it might have been during the Spanish occupation.

Market

Let's head out to the market and buy fresh ingredients for our dish today.

This is my wife's favorite vegetable vendor and they always have all the vegetables that we need. Not only that, but they also have all the ingredients that you need like spices and tomato sauce.

Beef is our main ingredient for the Kadereta and we always buy fresh meat here. Frozen meat can be used but fresh is always better.

Ingredients:

1 Kilo of beef
Two potatoes
Two medium sized onion or one large onion
Two medium sized carrot
Two red bell peppers
Two chilis
Bay leaves
5 cloves of garlic
500 grams of tomato sauce
One small can of liver spread or chopped liver
Salt and pepper
Two spoons of sugar
Grated cheese

Some do not include grated cheese which is ok but adding grated cheese will make your dish extra creamy and special.

The best meat to use for the Kadereta is goat's meat since it is not readily available in our area beef is the next best thing. Although other variants are chicken and pork.

Slicing the ingredients

Before firing up our wood stove it would be best to have all the vegetables sliced first.

Just chop up the garlic and onions in small slices.

The bell peppers can be sliced horizontally but not thin.

We do not remove the skin on our carrots and just slice them in rounds.

The same goes with our potatoes we also do not remove the skin and just wash our vegetables thoroughly. Slice the potatoes in wedges and should not be too small.

Firing up the wood stove

Let's take out again our clay wood stove and my grandpa's antique hand hammered pan. I have grown to love this clay stove that we bought online although I am still looking for a bigger one which is very hard to find. Not a lot of people use clay stoves anymore.

After a few episodes of Ancestral Taste, I have become very familiar now with firing it up. Just like lighting up a bonfire, the trick is paper at the bottom, stick on top of it and the wood at the very top.

Cooking Time

Once our pan is hot enough we can not put in some oil.

Add the chopped vegetables to the pan.

If you need to turn up the heat on the woodstove. All you need to do is use a fan to bring up the fire.

Once the vegetables are cooked on the outside, you can set them aside for now.

Next, sauté the garlic and onions.

Once the onions are translucent you can add the beef.

Cover the pan and wait for a few minutes. Check once in a while until the meat has changed color.

We will now add water as soon as we see that change in color of the meat.

Add the sugar, ground pepper and some salt.

Careful when adding salt, we did not add all of the salt but only used two dashes. Anyway, you can add some more later if needed.

We used two packets of 250 grams of tomato sauce.

Mix all the ingredients together thoroughly until the color of the broth changes.

Add some bay leaf for that added layer of flavor. It is often used in soups and stews.

Now let's again cover the pan and time to wait until the meat is tender. It took us almost 3 hours for the meat to be very tender. Make sure that your fire does not die out adding wood when needed. You would also need to keep on checking to ensure that the bottom does not burn the meat.

Check to make sure that the meat is tender then we could move to the next step.

We added the can of liver spread but as I mentioned earlier you could also use chopped chicken liver.

Next, we add the special ingredient which is the grated cheese. I highly recommend not to miss this ingredient as it takes the Beef Kaldereta to a new level.

We will now add our fried vegetables and wait until the potatoes have softened.

You may get to a point that the sauce has become too thick. You can add some water so we can soften the potatoes.

To add that extra kick add some chili into the mix. Others put a lot of chilis it would be completely up to you how much heat you could handle.

Cover once again until the potatoes are soft enough but always check to make sure the bottom does not burn.
We would not want that burnt taste on our Kaldereta.

The potatoes are now tender, the sauce has reduced and you could see some natural oil which means the Beef Kaldereta is now ready to serve. Grab a plate and some newly cooked rice as you will be in for a treat.

All goodness of the flavors cooked to perfection. A little sweet and tart from the tomato sauce with a little kick from the chili. Hope you get to try to cook the Beef Kalderta and experience Ancestral Taste from the Philippines.