I don’t really know where to begin with this — for anyone that has gone through the painstaking labor of love in making kare-kare —iykykwim— I really wanted to save a step here.
Bottom line was that this sauce/marinade was straight up terrible. I tried cooking/using this two ways (first simmering with the meat and then tried cooking it separately) — both with disastrous results. The flavor is sour — might be a the type of kare-kare they’re used to in their part of Pinas, but this was definitely not the flavor of my childhood. To give you an idea — think of a peanut buttery adobo type sauce. The pic doesn’t do this justice as the coloring of it is also dark — like a brown gravy rather than the annato orangey color most people are used to.
All in all — I wholeheartedly don’t recommend. If you’re going to do kare — use one of the ‘famous’ dry mix packets with your own peanut base sauce from scratch. This wasn’t worth the money we spent trying it.
