Cooking (probably) The Most Flavorful Stew in the World

Beef Caldereta is a Filipino classic, slow-cooked-to-perfection stew in a rich tomato umami-based broth with veggies, herbs, and marinated seared beef until it's fork tender and melts in your mouth. But I've got a few insider cooking techniques to make it even better. First, you have to pick the right cut of beef. Sound good? Let's cook. I'm gonna be using a three-and-a-half-pound chuck roast. A little lighter or a little heavier is totally fine. Now, other cuts that you could use and would be classical are brisket, short ribs, or even beef shanks. Okay, paging Dr. Chef Parisi. And at this stage, all I'm looking to do is simply cut the beef down into smaller pieces that are roughly one to one-and-a-half-inch cubes. And for all that fat on there, my friends from the Philippines always inform me to leave it on there. That's flavor right there. And once it's all cubed up, just add all that cut chuck roast right to a large bowl. Now, I did talk to my good friend, Sam, who is Filipino, and he told me he loves to marinate the beef just to give it more flavor. So that's exactly what I'm going to do. And I promise I've been listening to y'all because we're out with the datu puti and in with the silver swan, which I will admit is infinitely more flavorful. Y'all are right. You can pick this up from an Asian market or just order it online like I did. The closest you'll get to this is a dark soy sauce. However, regular soy sauce or tamari will work fine as well. Make it easy and use what you got. We're going to add in a half cup, and then I'm super excited about this. Pour in 1 1⁄4 cup of calamansi juice. I was able to snag some on this, and oh my gosh, is it delicious. I would drink it right as is. And you're right, there's nothing quite like it. It's sweet, it's gently acidic. However, if you have no access to fresh calamansi like I do, feel free to sub in with lime juice. You'll be good. I promise you got this. And we're almost ready for marinating, but first let's get all those flavors married up and move everything until all the ingredients are completely combined. Once you've worked it enough to where the soy and calamansi are soaked up into the meat, we're good. Let's cover it up with plastic wrap, and then we're heading over to the fridge to marinate for as little as four hours and all the way up to 24 hours. Now, the closer you can get to that 24-hour period, the more flavorful this is gonna be. So however long you decide to marinate it for when you're ready to start cooking, let's just pull it out and let it sit at room temperature. Just wanna take the chill off before cooking it. And I have to admit, it's extremely aromatic and it smells awesome, and I haven't even cooked a thing. Let's set it to the side and knock out some really quick prep, beginning with four large-sized Yukon gold potatoes. Just give them a quick peel and slice them down to roughly one-inch-sized cubes. Oh, and I usually hold these in cold water to keep them from oxidizing and turning brown. Next up, I've got three large carrots that I'm gonna peel and then cut into one-inch slices at the skinny end, and maybe half-inch slices at the fatter end so that they cook evenly when we add them in. At this point, we're gonna seed and slice two red bell peppers into one-inch square pieces, and then, I hate to say this, because I do hate them, because sorry, they lack flavor and aren't nearly as tasty as red, yellow, or orange, but I digress, because I'm a traditionalist, and, well, this is what's commonly used. We're doing the same cut on one of these green pelves. Now, in this stew, if you were going to use them, you'd sometimes see sitao or boi-yo beans, but, well, I can't get either where I'm at, so I'm just gonna slice up some haricots verts, which are just French green beans. Of course, you could use regular green beans, into roughly one-inch slices, simple. Now, let's set those to the side, and we are so close to finishing up the prep and start cooking up this deliciousness, but first, we're gonna small to medium-sized dice two medium-sized red onions, and yes, of course, you can substitute with white, yellow, or sweet onions. Then, last but not least, I'm going to smash and finely mince up eight garlic cloves. So, at this point in the recipe, we wanna make sure we do two important things. First, we wanna bring out as much flavor as we can, and the best way I know how to do that is to cook things in stages, instead of just dumping everything in a pot and hoping you can just bring out flavor. Secondly, we wanna ensure nothing is overcooked, so here's how we're gonna do both those things. Let's first quickly drain off the water from the potatoes and bring them and the carrots over to the cooktop, and I'm gonna be using a big old 10-quart cast iron pot, and I'll tell you why exactly I'm using this in a minute. But first, add in three to four tablespoons of neutral-flavored oil, and crank the heat all the way up to high until it begins to smoke, just like this. Then, I'm adding in the potatoes and carrots. I'm going to spread them out as much as possible to cover as much surface area as possible to try and get a little sear on these. Then, give it a gentle season with salt, immediately turn the heat down to medium, and I'm going to saute this for about four to five minutes. The goal, again, is to get them lightly browned and cooked about 75% of the way, and I'll show you why at the end. You won't wanna miss it. But for now, once they are looking like this and brown on the edges, I'm gonna set these aside using a hand strainer because, well, this pot is way too dang heavy and hot to pick up. Place the veggies on a platter, plate, or you know me, I'm a culinary fool, so everything is sheet tray lined with parchment paper. Sorry, can't help myself. Anyways, back to the pot. Let's add in the sliced air covers and miced out bell peppers. Then again, a gentle season of salt. We wanna saute these over medium to medium-high heat-ish for just three to four minutes. And again, I'm looking similarly for a light sear on these and to cook them about 3 1⁄4 of the way. Also, totally cool to add more oil if you need to. And it's important to cook the peppers at this stage because, one, they're way more delicious when roasted, but also they can cause a lot of bitterness if they're cooked for far too long. So just as soon as they're lightly browned along with the beans, remove them with the same strainer and place them right on that same sheet tray with the potatoes and carrots. These, at room temperature for a few minutes to the side while we finish everything else, will keep cooking so that they're perfect in the end. Good technique always wins out, my friends. You can do this, I promise. Now, in the same pan over medium heat, add in a bit more oil and then let's caramelize up some onions. Give them a gentle season with salt, and this is going to help them release some moisture so that they brown more quickly, but also that moisture will help easily remove some of the fond from the bottom of the pan for us to scrape up. We're gonna saute these for five to seven minutes or until they're lightly browned, just like this. Then, simply cut the heat down to low and cook them for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring every few minutes just to keep things moving. Now, the reason I'm using a big pot instead of a wok is because caldereta comes from the Spanish word caldera, meaning cauldron, and over time in the Philippines, it became the name for this rich tomato-based stew. It's one of those dishes where history meets the table, simple, hearty, and made to be shared. All right, so at this point, the onions are looking great, nice and caramelized up. Now, let's stir in the garlic. All right, seriously, totally just kidding, but Filipinos do tend to love garlic more than Italians, so this probably isn't too far off. For real, though, stir in the minced garlic, and we're gonna cook it just until it becomes fragrant, which really only takes about 30 to 45 seconds. Okay, I'm feeling strong. I'm gonna pick this monster up and scrape every last little bit onto a separate plate. This thing is heavy, so feel free to just use a spoon. No problem. Now, at this stage, add that pot back to the burner. Add enough oil just to coat the bottom of the pot, nothing more, and turn the heat back up to medium-hot. Then, once it's lightly smoking, add in the beef and spread it out to cover as much surface area as possible, again, to get a good sear. We're gonna cook it untouched for three minutes. The goal here is to build up that brown maillard crust, which is going to go further and make this even tastier, so it should look like this. Delicious. Then, move everything around and cook it until it's browned up on as many sides as possible. Again, this does not need to be perfect, you guys, but little browning techniques like this will go a long way in the flavor department. And just as an FYI, it's totally okay if you need to cook this in batches, no sweat. Just set the seared beef to the side and repeat the same process. Now, once you're done searing, you could add some MSG at this point if you want, because my Filipino friends are always asking me, where is it at in my recipe? So, there you go. Okay, it's just about time to start braising. First, though, add back in the onions, garlic, and first round of seared beef, and for a little insider chef tip, I'm gonna add in three tablespoons of tomato paste here. Turn the heat down to low and then mix it in and cook it for three to four minutes. This is going to deepen the tomato and umami flavors in this and pair insanely well with that soy-marinated beef, like, insanely well. After those few minutes, everything should be much darker and any juices from the meat will have thickened up. This right here looks glorious. Stick with me, because now let's deglaze with four cups of beef stock, and most folks just use water, but this is gonna make this so much richer and delicious. Now, let's pour in two cups of tomato puree, and I like to add one cup of water to that same measuring cup and swirl some things around to get everything out of there. Then, I'm adding in two bay leaves, a pinch of red pepper flakes, and coarse salt. Marry up all that goodness, then, of course, let's give it a taste and see where we're at. Need more salt? Good to go. You be the judge here. We're now going to cook all this tastiness together over low to low-medium heat for about two and a half to three hours, coming back every hour just to check on everything. Get some smells and start getting excited. You know what I mean? Also, make sure you put the seared veg in the fridge during the braise. Totally forgot to mention that. My bad. Okay, you'll know you're good when you just take one piece of beef and it can easily be smashed with a fork and it falls apart just like this. Perfection. All righty, so at this point, we've got about 20 minutes left, but we still have one, all right, two crucial ingredients, but for the first one and for my American friends, you may not wanna do this or even be able to find it. Now, for my Filipino friends out there, I know what's up, and it's liver spread. You can pick this up at any Filipino market or even Amazon like I did, or if you want, you can make it yourself at home and you can see my recipe on how to do that on my website. It's dang tasty. Then decide if you wanna add it. You know me, I'll stick with tradition, so I'm adding in a third cup of the liver paste. It's a natural thickener. It makes a velvety, almost saucy-like consistency, plus all the umami richness you'll get from it. Just look at that. Amazing. Now, one more thing to add, and while not completely traditional but 100% acceptable, is one third cup of creamy peanut butter. It will add some nuttiness and some additional velvety-ness to the sauce. Is that a word, velvety-ness? I don't know. And this version kind of steals a bit from another classic Filipino dish, kari-kari. Maybe I should make that in another video. We'll see. Once both of these are mixed in, you should immediately see the richness of the sauce. My goodness, just look at it. It's incredible. Okay, so now is when we wanna add back in all the veg. This is your potatoes, carrots, green beans, and bell peppers. And seriously, the smells coming off this while I add it in there are just so dang good. Let's mix in everything and have a taste. All righty, I'm gonna put my chef hat on here and maybe ruffle some Filipino feathers. But this needs a hint of clean acid for some balance, so squeeze in the juice of one half lemon or about one and a half tablespoons, then adjust any seasonings with salt and pepper. And you could also add in some sliced green olives at this point if you'd like, since this does have a lot of Spanish influence, or even some more new school ingredients like sweet relish or even cheese. But for me, I'm totally happy where I'm at. Let's take it off the heat. But of course, don't forget about how to serve this, and that, of course, starts with rice. You can use my method on the stove, or hey, just put it in a rice cooker and forget about it. And now to plate this up, pour the stew in a bowl and garnish with a very untraditional sliced green onions. But hey, I love the freshness, look. And gosh, does this just look ridiculous. So hey, real quick, a lot of folks ask me, how can I support your channel? So I recently launched channel memberships. 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