Caldereta (or Kaldereta if you're nasty) is an honest to goodness meat stew influenced by both Spain and the United States, but yet remains uniquely Filipino.
Caldereta's roots in Spain can be found in its Spanish name (of course), but also in its preparation wherein Spaniards braised meat (usually mutton) and vegetables in a tomato-based sauce. Filipinos began making their own version of their colonizer's stew by utilizing goat meat and then thickening the tomato sauce with mashed pork livers (take that Spain!).
And with the American occupation of the Philippines came all the trappings of post-war convenience foods and canned goods. Soon, the likes of tomato paste, canned tomato sauce, canned pork liverwurst, and even processed cheese, all made their way into Caldereta (this all tastes a lot better than it sounds).
While I do love a warm and hearty bowl of goat kaldereta thickened with liverwurst (seriously, I do), I have tried to fancify the dish once before by making a wonderful version with beef, red wine, and a homemade chicken liver pate. And although I was quite pleased with that version, I've since found that nothing beats caldereta thickened with canned liverwurst. But there is always room for experimentation.
So when my older brother recently returned from a trip to Europe and gifted me a couple cans of foie gras, the first thing that popped into my head wasn't to eat the foie with toast points and some sort of sweet/sour fruit--it was Caldereta.
Yes, I was going use fancy canned foie gras in place of the usual $2 can of pork liverwurst in my Caldereta. This was either going to be the greatest beef stew ever made, or a complete waste of foie gras.
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