Filipino Beef Mechado Recipe

Filipino Beef Mechado Recipe (Mechadong Baka)

The traditional dish uses a Spanish culinary practice of threading strips of pork back-fat through thick pieces of cheaper lean beef to render them more tender and less dry. Hence the name mechado from the Spanish mecha meaning wick. The larded pieces of beef are then marinated in vinegar, soy sauce, calamansi juice, crushed garlic, black pepper and bay leaf, browned quickly on all sides in hot oil or lard, and then slowly braised in its marinade with the addition of soup stock, onion slices, and tomato sauce until tender and the liquid is reduced to a thick flavorful gravy.
Over the years, the name of the dish has increasingly come to encompass variations that use thinner slices or even bony cuts of beef and that have dispensed with the larding process altogether. A newer variation of the dish can appear more like a beef stew.

Source: Beef Mechado Wiki

Preparations for Beef Mechado

Ingredients:

1 1/2 kilo beef; cut into desired pieces
1 potato; quartered (fry in 3 minutes)
1 carrot; cut in 1 inch chunks (fry in 3 minutes)
1 onion; minced
4 cloves garlic; mined
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 can tomato sauce
2 stems kinchay (coriander); chopped
1 bell pepper
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
Cooking oil
MSG (optional)

Cooking Instructions:

In a bowl, marinate beef in soy sauce and ground black pepper for 1 hour.
Sauté garlic and onion in a saucepan. Add the marinated beef, and kitchay. Continue sautéing until most of the broth coming out from the meat has evaporated (add water if necessary to soften). Boil until beef is tender and until little broth is left.
Add tomato sauce. Bring to a boil and then add the potato and carrot. Cook in medium low fire until potato and carrot are tender. Drop the bell pepper. Simmer for few minutes before serving. Serve hot!