Two things that I love about Filipino dishes is that they taste hearty and delicious right when they’re freshly cooked…
…and they taste even better the next day when all the flavors had a chance to marry each other.
This is why I love leftover Menudo, Morcon, Caldereta and Adobo. The sauce and the meat become very tasty the next day.
What we used to do when cooking Mechado is to get a large chunk of beef and make an insertion in the middle to make way to a large strip of pork fat that will serve as a wick or “micha”. But since braising a large chuck of beef takes so much time, then we have adapted into cooking just mechado with little chunks of meat. I think cooking with a smaller size of meat is better because then it gets to absorbs more flavor.
Today, I think I’ll be watching more crime/drama series, installing games into newly reformatted PCs and I’ll be playing with my daughter. These are the things that give flavor to my life.
- 500g beef sirloin, cut into chunks
- 6 tbsp oil
- 3 clove garlic, minced
- 2 white onions,chopped
- 3 tbsp calamansi juice
- ¼ cup soy sauce
- 2 cup tomato sauce
- 2 large potatoes, cubed
- 1 carrot, cut into fat strips
- 4 pcs bay leaf
- Marinate beef cubes in soy sauce-calamansi mixture for 1-2 hours.
- Fry potatoes in heated oil until the edges are a little brown and set aside
- In a wok, heat around 2 tbsp cooking oil and sauté garlic and onions until onion become translucent.
- Add beef and sear until a little brown
- Pour in the beef marinade and the tomato sauce.
- Add bayleaf
- Simmer until beef is tender and the sauce is reduced into a thick gravy
- Add potatoes and carrots
- Simmer for a few minutes, season with salt and pepper to taste
- Serve with rice or pandesal
