SALPICAO

for Mye...

Salpicao is very easy to prepare. By another name, it is called garlic beef stir fry. If I had been an adventurous cook, I would have taken it from there and closed the cook book. What else do I need to know anyway? You need garlic. You need beef. You stir fry them together and viola!

But I am not that adventurous. And gladly so because the recipe calls for all that, yes, and other things besides. I got my recipe from the Recipe Zaar but I added one secret ingredient of my own, which I will so generously divulge and made a few adjustments in the measurements as it better agreed with my palate.

So anyway, here goes...

Ingredients:

1 lb beef tenderloin (or other tender cut) cut into 1/2 inch chunks
2 tbsp olive oil or canola oil
6 cloves garlic (more if you like - oh yeah, definitely!), minced
salt to taste
fresh, ground pepper to taste
1/4 tsp paprika
3 tbsp oyster sauce
1/4 cup liquid seasoning (now I find this a bit too much. so what I'd do is either put a little less than 1/4 cup or I add a little more meat, about a quarter of a pound more, to even it out)
3 tbsp butter or margarine
1 capfull Mirin (this is the secret ingredient I added. Mirin is a Japanese cooking wine, a little on the sweet side, and we've gone into the habit of putting this in our meat dishes as we find that it tempers the saltiness of the food so that it comes out more polished.)

Directions:

1. combine oil, garlic, salt, pepper, and paprika in a bowl
2. marinate beef chunks in garlic-oil mixture for a couple of hours or more (I do mine about 4 hours at least) in the fridge
3. saute marinated beef, including marinade, in VERY hot oil
4. keep stirring until beef chunks are browned evenly
5. DO NOT lower heat
6. add oyster sauce, liquid seasoning and Mirin
7. cook a few seconds more, add butter last
8. remove from heat and serve immediately over hot, steamed rice
9. cooking time should be about 10 mins. or less to keep beef tender

Now this last step is where I have a problem. See, even if I follow everything to the dot, I don't end up with tender beef after 10 minutes. So I am left with no choice but to cook longer. However, if I cook longer in VERY hot oil, I end up with some beef crunchy and some tender. So I do the next best thing and that is lower the heat just enough so that the beef cooks tender over time. And I actually do not do steps 6 and 7 until after all the water from the beef is gone and I'm sure to have a saucy, not soupy, salpicao.

So there you go Mye... as promised. Happy cooking!