Filipino Delicacies from Vegan Chef Reina, Part 1 of 2 – Kare-Kare with Eggplant, Tofu and Peanut Butter

Chef Reina owns two popular Filipino vegan restaurants in the Bay Area, namely "Nick's on Grand" and "Nick's on Mission." In her years of cooking, vegan Chef Reina has created dishes for the Honorables Jean Quan, mayor of Oakland, Tom Bates, mayor of Berkeley, and the late Ed Lee, former mayor of San Francisco. She also catered for events at Apple, NASA, UBER, Twitter, Goldman Sachs, BlackRock Investments and more. “Today, we are going to be making Kare-Kare, which is a very classic Filipino dish; it's vegetables in peanut sauce. So, my ingredients are baby bok choy, creamy peanut butter, annatto powder, black pepper, black bean paste, mushroom powder, green beans, oil, eggplant, water, and tofu. We're just browning this on both sides. It takes about five minutes or so. Probably more depending on your eggplant. You can also deep fry this. So we're going to turn these over and see. We want it to be brown because we want some firmness on the outside and then softness on the inside. We're trying to mimic the original recipe. So, this is kind of the replacement of that. And people do tell me that it does capture that texture. It's just a perfect balance of peanut butter, water and the sauce. So, it will be a little bit salty; it's a little bit creamy and also a little sweet. It's a balance of sweet, salty and creamy. Not too thick, not too thin. This is the kind of sauce you want to see. Just perfect over some steamed rice. It’s very creamy. It's delicious. You should give it a taste. This is called Kare-Kare. It's vegetables in peanut sauce. Very easy and you can do this at home.”